Vivaldi is one of our favorite web browsers, and the eponymous company behind it recently announced another major release. Vivaldi 5.0 is now available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and most notably with the changes in this release, Android.
Version 5 of Vivaldi has some new features for desktop, but most of what’s new and intriguing in this release is focused on mobile. In the case of Vivaldi, this means the Android version of the browser. (There is no iOS version of Vivaldi.) This release focuses on Android tablets. They have several features aimed at improving web browsing on large screens – something that even Google failed to do with its own mobile browser.
In fact, the idea of an app being optimized to run on Android tablets is almost unheard of these days. This unfortunate reality is central to our main complaint about Android-based iPad alternatives, where software quality is generally subpar. I should note that Google is currently updating the overall Android tablet experience with some improvements for larger screens that will be included in the next version of the mobile operating system. The beta version is available now.
However, with Vivaldi 5.0, you can immediately get a great web browsing experience on your Android tablet without waiting for Google to update.
Full stack
One of the nicest features of the mobile version of Vivaldi is available on both phones and tablets: tab folding. On mobile screens, Vivaldi displays stacked tabs as a second row of tabs nested below the main tab. To create a new tab stack, you hold the New Tab button, which will open that tab in the second row below the main tab. If you switch to a different top-level main tab, the second row of tabs will be hidden, but the tab that contains them will take on a blank outlined view so you know there are multiple tabs nested underneath. You can also create stacks of tabs by dragging and dropping tabs on the tab switching page.
While I expected to enjoy the tab overlay on tablets, I also found them very useful on phone screens. What I would really like to see is the ability to sync my stacks of tabs so I can pull a stack from my desktop browser straight to my phone. Now this is impossible. I have found that even without this particular improvement in Vivaldi’s sync capability, tab overlay is a great mechanism for separating work and personal tabs on mobile devices. It’s also a great way to “hide”the tab so that if your kids pick up your phone this time of year, they won’t see the potential gifts you’re browsing.