Vivaldi improves media playback and adds sharing of URLs with QR codesPosted by Vivaldi Team on December 16th, 2020 With the latest version of Vivaldi on desktop and notebooks, Vivaldi Technologies brings new updates to its built-in features and overall improvements. In Vivaldi 3.5, there's a convenient way to easily share URLs with QR code via a small button in the Address Field, when enabled. Also, there are a variety of fixes, including media fixes that will allow videos/audios to play better. More ways to manage Tabs Each user has different ways of working with tabs. Based on user feedback, Vivaldi includes all possible options in its comprehensive Tab Management. Here are some new additions to its tab wizardry: * Open a new tab in the background by default: A new open in the background setting makes it possible to change the default behavior regarding opening tabs via the context menu. * Clone tab in the background: This helps users clone a current tab with previous page browsing history not interrupting any current task. * Improved Popup Thumbnails for Tab Stacks: There are noticeable changes while hovering a tab stack, helping users spot and select any tab in a stack instantly. More stacked tabs now fit on a screen, displaying a page title, domain and thumbnail. Users can also interact with audio icons, giving them easy control of sound in stacked tabs. Easy sharing of URLs with QR Codes Users can now easily share URLs to other devices using a built-in QR code generator. Capable of storing a lot of data, QR code lets users access information instantly. Users can share addresses with other machines without the requirement of a direct network connection between them. Scanning a QR code is much faster than retyping the URL on a device. With QR codes, users can transfer the URL of the page they are currently viewing to another device without needing a Sync account. This works well if users aren't signed in to Sync, don't have a device that supports Vivaldi Sync or just wish to simply transfer the URL to a nearby friend's phone. Vivaldi plans to evolve this feature with additional, simplified ways of sharing URLs. Head to "Settings - Address Bar - Address Field Options - QR Code Generator" to enable QR code URL sharing. Media playback improvements Recently, some users have been inconvenienced while playing premium streaming services like Amazon Prime HD, Spotify, Peacock TV and others. Such sites use DRM as a way to control where users can play videos. These websites may use Widevine, a Chromium content decryption module, to play the video in Vivaldi on Windows and macOS. They may also check the Widevine certificate keys before playing. Vivaldi has now added Widevine certificate keys, which will allow videos to play on those websites. This means media sites using Widevine DRM that previously didn't work in Vivaldi will now deliver the content smoothly. Please note that for Amazon Prime HD to work, click on the lock in the "Address Bar - Site Settings - Clear Data". After this, a re-login is required. Menu customization While some browsers strip down functionality, Vivaldi does the opposite. Vivaldi Menu Settings have been expanded with more customizable options helping users rearrange and edit their frequent actions. Now, shortcuts assigned to a global command will also be shown in the context menus. Go to "Settings - Appearance - Menus", select a context menu and add a command from the Application Commands that have a shortcut to the context menu. That menu will now show the shortcut for that action. Single Key Shortcuts improvements In Vivaldi, most things can be done with keyboard shortcuts: opening and closing tabs, switching tabs, toggling the visibility of UI elements, creating notes and a lot more. Single Keyboard Shortcuts allow quicker navigation. Users aren't required to hold Ctrl or Shift. They can skip to the previous page by pressing z and the next page by pressing x. There are also default single key shortcuts such as by pressing 1 and 2, you can easily change tabs. In this version, a clash has been resolved using Single Key Shortcuts. New accept-language setting In order to cater to multi-language users across the globe, a language setting has been enabled that allows users to change to their preferred language, as supported by certain websites. Users can add custom languages or rearrange their importance with drag & drop reordering in Vivaldi Settings. Head to vivaldi://settings/languages to learn more. Other additions Along with improvements to every aspect of the browser, there are more options in Vivaldi 3.5: * More control in choosing external components: Google Hangouts, Google Cast and Google Cloud Print can now be disabled entirely in settings. * Added an option to always display the close tab button, to make closing tabs easier on touch screen devices. For more information, please visit https://vivaldi.com/Like it? Share it! More by this author |