Against tracking, not against ads
While much of the browser market turns browsing into data to be harvested and profiles to be sold, Vivaldi is the independent European alternative. Vivaldi doesn’t track its users, doesn’t build profiles of them and doesn’t sell their data. The company’s business doesn’t depend on knowing what people search for or when they’re ready to buy something, so Vivaldi has no reason to watch them.
Vivaldi 8.3 extends that protection to the rest of the web. The rebuilt Ad and Tracker Blocker has been extensively reworked behind the scenes to handle large filter lists more efficiently, and gets a new design with four levels of protection:
· Off: turns the built-in blocker off completely
· Light: blocks most known trackers and some ads
· Strong: blocks more trackers and ads, sites may break
· Aggressive: blocks almost all trackers and ads, sites may break
Users choose a default level during onboarding or in Settings, and can then set a different level for any site by clicking the Shield icon in the Address Bar. Vivaldi remembers each choice. That means a user can run Aggressive on a video site, keep online banking on Light so every form works, and turn protection down on a small independent site they trust and want to support.
For advanced users, Vivaldi 8.3 also adds custom levels, giving full control over which blocklists are used. Custom lists can be added from a remote URL or a local file.
The Ad and Tracker Blocker is part of the browser itself rather than an extension, and is also available today in Vivaldi on Android and iOS.
“Visiting a website shouldn’t mean bringing along a crowd of trackers taking notes about you. We’ve spoken out against the surveillance economy, user profiling and the Big Tech oligarchy since the day we started Vivaldi. With 8.3, our Ad and Tracker Blocker sends them packing, and you choose how strict it is on every site you visit. That’s the kind of control a browser should give people.”
Jon von Tetzchner, CEO and co-founder, Vivaldi Technologies
Expanded love for vertical tabs
Vivaldi offered vertical tabs long before they became an industry talking point, and gave them a substantial redesign in Vivaldi 8.0 earlier this year. Version 8.3 adds two new features for users who keep their tabs on the side.
With Expand Tab Bar on Hover, the vertical Tab Bar can stay slim and show only favicons, giving the web page as much of the screen as possible. When the user moves the cursor over it, the Tab Bar smoothly expands to show full tab titles, and slides back when the cursor moves away.
Pinned tabs on a vertical Tab Bar can now sit side by side in a compact grid at the top, keeping tools such as mail, calendar and project management one click away while leaving more room for other tabs. Users who prefer one pinned tab per row can keep that layout with a setting.
Also new in Vivaldi 8.3
Paste and Go for multiple links: paste a list of URLs into the Address Field and Vivaldi opens each one in its own tab
Copy Sanitized Link: removes tracking parameters from a link before it is copied, so shared links carry only the page itself
Faster Reader Mode: opens faster and scrolls more smoothly
Tab Groups API support: extensions built on Chrome’s Tab Groups API now work in Vivaldi
Availability
Vivaldi 8.3 is available today as a free download for Windows, macOS and Linux at vivaldi.com.