Vivaldi Browser Launches on Android, Adds Integrated Tracker Blocking
Among alternative browsers, Vivaldi is one of the more
compelling ones, especially because of how minutely customizable it is. Today
the web browser launches on Android and updates to Version 3.0, which adds web tracker blocking, built-in ad
blocking, and a clock with timer capability.
Vivaldi’s something of an underground hit among web cognoscenti,
and was a project of one of the Opera browser’s original founders, Jon von
Tetzchner. In case you forgot, Opera innovated many browser features—things
as basic as tabs and integrated search, not to mention more internal web
technologies like CSS.
Vivaldi 3.0 brings the browser into the
privacy discussion, something on which Mozilla Firefox has generally taken the lead. Vivaldi
now matches Firefox’s built-in tracker blocking thanks to a collaboration
with the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo search engine; its DuckDuckGo
Tracker Radar powers Vivaldi’s new privacy feature.
The new Android version of Vivaldi, meanwhile, sports many of the desktop
browser’s tools, including Panels, Speed Dials, Notes, and Capture, in addition
to the new tracker- and ad-blocking tools. Vivaldi for Android also takes
advantage of end-to-end encrypted syncing of Bookmarks, Speed Dials, saved
passwords, autofill information, History, and Notes.
The mobile browser features
a quick tab switcher, and an optional desktop-style tab bar. Like its desktop sibling,
Vivaldi for Android is highly customizable. Both also offer a dark mode, and the
window borders take on the dominant color of the site you’re viewing.
Like nearly all web browsers aside from Firefox and Safari, Vivaldi
is based on Google’s Chromium code, so you won’t likely run into site incompatibilities,
since most sites these days target that renderer.
