New version of Vivaldi Technical Preview 2

Hello!

A little over a month ago, we released the first preliminary test version of the Vivaldi TP1 browser. Since that day, the browser has been downloaded by you more than 700 thousand times, and we have done a lot of work: in addition to fixing many errors and shortcomings, we, following your wishes, have added several new functions, thereby expanding both the capabilities of the browser itself and the comfort of working with him. Today we are ready to show a new test assembly - Vivaldi TP2.


It should be said that throughout this time we also released weekly builds, so those of you who constantly monitor browser updates are aware of the changes that have occurred to date. The rest will be interested to know the details, we will talk about them now.

Bookmarks Bar


In general, this function is well known to browser users, and in our case it is also in the very early stages of development, but something interesting can already be shown. In particular, following the basic principle adopted by the company (and it is to provide maximum opportunities for users of our products, allowing a person to manage the program, and not vice versa), we added the ability to change the placement of the panel at the user's discretion - in the upper or lower parts of the browser window. At the moment, the panel can arrange the contents of any folder from the bookmark list, but in the future the possibilities of working with the bookmark panel will expand significantly.

Image display control

Once many years ago, this function made a splash among users, especially those working on the Internet through slow (often even modem today’s exotic) connections. The time was different, and the browser was different. However, something remains unchanged: no matter how “thick” the connection channel to the global network is, there will always come a moment when it is not enough for comfortable work. Not to mention public access points, which by definition cannot provide normal conditions for network work.

In other words, the ability to turn off the display of images in whole or in part (leaving the browser the ability to load only the images stored in the cache) is still a very fashionable “chip” of the browser. In this case, the Vivaldi browser, in which we try to return to users all their usual features.

Extended support for interface languages

Since the Babylonian crowds, people have suffered from an abundance of languages ​​on the planet. Well, somehow you have to correct this evil joke of the ancient gods. Naturally, we ourselves could not have done it - the Vivaldi browser development team is fluent in just a few languages ​​(just don’t think about programming languages ​​- here we are incomparably better), but this is clearly not enough, because according to download statistics, users from all over come to us of the world - more than 200 countries!

Here, the users themselves provided invaluable help, for which many thanks to them. Today, the number of voluntary assistants in the Vivaldi Translation Team translating the browser interface into their native languages ​​is more than 90 people. Thanks to their efforts, today the Vivaldi browser can “speak” 35 languages, including even such exotic ones as Ido . It is also worth noting that the number of available languages ​​includes those that are not supported in other browsers. This, for example, Belarusian, Galician, Armenian, Macedonian, Icelandic - in total, while we offer 8 languages, available only in Vivaldi.

And this work continues: both the team of translators and the number of available languages ​​are growing. We want Vivaldi to “speak” both Uzbek, Kazakh and many other languages ​​- there are several hundred of them in the world! We hope that with your help, we can easily reach the number of 100 supported languages. Well, let's say, for starters :)

Forward-Backward, and what else?

And also - again, the functions Return and Transition have long been known to a certain circle of users . For those who have forgotten their purpose, I recall. The return button allows you to return to the page of the site from which you started the journey through it. Thus, you no longer have to wade through the entire history of previously opened pages - just one click with the mouse.

The transition button works a little more complicated, but no less interesting. When you click it, the browser tries to determine what the next page could be, which you most likely would go to after viewing the current one, and automatically transfers you to it. I must say right away that this does not work on all sites, because we have not yet taught our browser to read your mind, but where it works it does it well. For example, this button will take you to the next page of search results or forum discussions. It is also convenient to use it when viewing massive photo albums. In general - try it, you will surely like it.

In fact, much more was added, I just talked about several popular functions that, as they say, are in plain sight. So, for example, recently, as an experiment, we added spatial navigation (moving through links on a page using Shift + Arrows). So far, to be honest, she works in the “Ivan Susanin” mode, and one computer god knows where she will lead you the next time the arrow is pressed, but we are working on it.

Another experiment was the 64-bit version for Windows - here, too, many undesirable surprises await users (and even if it starts up), but you, as they say, asked - we do. By the way, for Windows and Linux we now offer both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the browser. And every day, day after day, we corrected the mistakes and shortcomings found by you and us. Want to check out? Welcome under the spoiler.


In general, try, experiment, test the browser in the "field" conditions - we will only be happy. And we will be doubly glad if you tell us about all the shortcomings through the error message sending page (so far only in English). Actually, for that they did it.

And finally, the most delicious dessert. You can download the new version of Vivaldi browser from our official site . For button lovers - a special invitation: