Vivaldi crumbles cookie dialogs, raises the bar on privacy and design

Read this article in Pусский, Deutsch, 日本語, Español.

There are browsers, and then there is Vivaldi. We give you plenty of features while protecting your privacy.

In the latest version, there’s a new option to block cookie dialogs and banners that will help save time and unnecessary clicks, so that you can get on with what you came for – browsing.

We continue to tackle privacy issues plaguing the internet such as data collection, user tracking, and profiling including FLoC, Google’s latest privacy-invasive technology.

Vivaldi’s signature Panels are now more customizable with a design overhaul and fresh options that will spice up the look of the browser and how you interact with it. You’ll also find new quicker bookmarking options.

Vivaldi 3.8 is now available for free download on Windows, macOS, and Linux computers.

Download Vivaldi

 

The Cookie Crumbler: Vivaldi’s cookie warning blocker

 

Do cookie dialogs drive you insane? In this new version, we reduce annoying cookie dialogs and banners by miles.

For many of you, incessant cookie dialogs and banners are the new scourge of smooth browsing. While the purpose of the EU’s GDPR to protect users from tracking websites is noble, it has its side effects. Instead of avoiding using trackers and tracking ads, many websites bother users to manage their cookie preferences before allowing access to the content they came to see.

You are often required to click on multiple steps to manage such cookies, including hidden options, a dialog on every single page, or at times no way to deny them at all. Naturally, this makes for a frustrating browsing experience.

This leads to clicking “allow” or “accept” without realizing that you unwittingly just gave permission for trackers to create behavioral profiles about you.

Often, these clicks happen due to the fact that a website may not work without accepting the cookie dialog. We do not believe that this should be considered “consent”, and this tactic should not be allowed at all.

That is why, in this update, we let the cookie dialogs crumble!

How?

Now you do not have to rely on extensions and can block a majority of these pestering dialogs and enjoy faster browsing through an option in our built-in Ad and Tracker Blocker when enabled.

While we evaluate ways to make the Cookie Crumbler available in our user interface and determine if it can be enabled by default, you can give it a try. Go to Vivaldi’s menu — Settings — Privacy — Tracker and Ad blocking — Manage Sources — Ad blocking sources and enable the “Remove cookie warnings” lists.

This will simply block the service that asks for consent, or hide the consent dialog, in the same way as it might remove a tracker or an ad.

This feature is based on the regularly updated third-party block lists — EasyList Cookie List and ‘I Don’t Care About Cookies‘. While Cookie Crumbler works on most of the websites, this is not a perfect solution, as there will be a few websites that use other tactics to obtain cookie consent.

Please note that some sites may not let you in at all and may not work as you expect them to as they actually require cookie consent for some functionality but you can disable Vivaldi’s Ad Blocker on those sites to disable the Cookie Crumbler. Also, note that blocking cookie consent dialogs may not have the same result as rejecting all cookies on some websites.

FLoC no, in Vivaldi. User privacy is paramount

Unlike some browsers that track every step of your online activity, Vivaldi does the opposite. No data collection. No user profiling. Not even tracking of product features that you use in Vivaldi.

In fact, we keep track of technologies that are harmful to user privacy. One such privacy-invasive technology is FLoC by Google, which builds profiles, and tracks you, in the absence of third-party cookies.

As FLoC has privacy risks, we’ve blacklisted the FLoC component in this update onwards. This means it will not be downloaded and will be removed if it has already been downloaded.

In the previous versions of Vivaldi, Google’s FLoC experiment was prevented from working by not setting the hidden settings that it needed in order to run.

Note: You may still see a “FLoC” folder in your profile if you previously used a version where the component was installed, but this folder will not contain any profiling data since the feature never worked in Vivaldi, and it can be safely deleted or ignored.

Panels redesigned. Light, fresh and shiny

New slick icons. No borders. The content now shines through the Panels. Literally.

We’ve rebuilt the Panels.

Adding flair and personal style to a product you use every day is natural and, really, what Vivaldi is about. The design overhaul of Vivaldi’s Panels puts you on top working with essential tools such as Bookmarks, Downloads, Notes, History, Window Panel, and Web Panels.

The new design upgrade makes the whole Panel transparent on top of the background image of your choice. It includes new options that make the browser visually stunning:

• Opacity for the Panel background: Once the opacity setting is enabled, the image is shown through the Start Page Background. This setting also affects the Speed Dial Title background.
• Frosted look: Enable or disable blurring of the Panel background to get that “frosted” look.
• Transparent Tab Bar: When enabled, the colored area behind the tabs can be completely removed. This allows the background image to show through here as well, completely covering the browser window. The Tab Bar area is also affected by the Blur setting.

If you prefer to stick to the way Panels were before, simply set the opacity to 100% and disable the Transparent Bar.

We’ve also moved the Start Page Background settings to the Themes category. Now it is easier to find a good image that fits your current theme, and the best possible matching settings (colors, images, and opacity)

Rediscover the magic of Bookmarks

In Vivaldi 3.8, we’ve added a more powerful and quick way to add your bookmarks. Now when you press CTRL/CMD + D to bookmark, we add it instantly, without the need to open the dialog at all. Easy.

If you do want to open the dialog (by clicking the Bookmark button in the Address Bar), you’ll notice a lot of new choices:

• Quickly filter between regular bookmark folders and speed dials folders.
• Search for an existing bookmark folder or create a new one directly in the dialog.
• A complete tree-view, with all folders available to expand and collapse

Other new bits in Vivaldi 3.8

• Disable Mouse Gestures: Just like Keyboard Shortcuts, Mouse Gestures can now be turned on and off in Quick Commands.
• Add ‘Extensions’ to Quick Commands: The previous version bolded the keyword when searched for in Quick Commands. From now on, users can now open extension pop-ups through Quick Commands by just typing in the extension’s name
• Show menus for extensions through Quick Commands: This lets you show menus for extensions you have installed via quick commands. You could already do this without quick commands. So it adds power to QC.
• Open tabs outside of stacks with Quick Commands: This is just being able to assign a new keyboard shortcut (or gesture or use quick commands) to open tabs outside of stacks when you are in a stack.

Vivaldi 3.8 is ready. Download now

If you want it to work in a certain way – and it’s something we can reasonably do – we tend to do it. This helps us focus on privacy, productivity, and the way you interact with your browser.

We’d love to hear from you about our new version, and also how can we improve the new additions in Vivaldi. For now, we’d be happy if you’d crumble the cookie dialogs and browse smoothly. Dig in more details in the changelog below.

We’ve also launched a new version of Vivaldi on Android – check it out!

Download Vivaldi

Vivaldi 3.7 to Vivaldi 3.8

• New][Themes][Panels] Background image redesign (VB-75386)
• [New][Themes] Updated Themes, Background images, and colors for 3.8 (VB-77790)
• [New][Bookmarks] Autocomplete description field (VB-1706)
• [New][Bookmarks][Speed Dial] Make adding items use less clicks (VB-73690)
• [New][Menus][Search] Selection context menu option for a search engine should have a choice between a fixed engine and the last selected (VB-78755)
• [New][Panels] Add Wikipedia and Vivaldi Help page as default Web Panels (VB-72031)
• [New][Quick Commands][Extensions] Open Popups and Options Page (VB-60052)
• [New][Quick Commands][Tabs][Keyboard][Gestures] Open new tab outside stack should be possible (VB-78022)
• [Address bar] Copy URL from address field with query decodes the parameters (VB-77543)
• [Address bar] Paste & Go highlights URL before navigating (VB-77518)
• [Address bar][Settings] New tab page setting makes content is not selected on certain URLs (VB-75743)
• [Blocker] The Tracking Protection Level options don’t show up on some sites (VB-72116)
• [Blocker][Settings] “Manage Default Button” opens General category (VB-78552)
• [Bookmarks] Metadata isn’t fetched (VB-77913)
• [Chromium] Upgraded to 90.0.4430.95
• [Clock] Hour and minute are misaligned in the status bar (VB-78750)
• [Crash] After revisiting tab with javascript confirm popup from Developer Tools (VB-78703)
• [Crash] Ensure document menu is closed when tab closes (VB-79056)
• [Crash] Opening and immediately closing a private window, then opening a normal window (VB-78862)
• [Crash] Sometimes when pressing the back button on the mouse (VB-78495)
• [Crash][Blocker] On certain sites if uBlock Origin installed and the blocking level of the native blocker is changed (VB-78996)
• [FLoC] Remove various references to it from components (VB-78669)
• [Keyboard][Quick commands] Add “Disable Mouse Gestures” (VB-34676)
• [Languages] Kabyle is missing date strings (VB-78043)
• [Languages] The “Manage Default Settings” button in the content blocker popup is too narrow (VB-71127)
• [Linux][Media] Update proprietary codecs to 89.0.4389.90
• [Menus] Let “open in private window” be enabled from a private window (VB-78060)
• [Menus] Move the “reopen closed tab” command to the top (VB-78496)
• [Menus][Address bar] Right-click breaks after right-click on empty trash (VB-78704)
• [Menus][Bookmarks] Action to add separator missing (VB-78383)
• [Menus][Developer Tools] Appears twice in the context menu when not shown as subfolder (VB-78075)
• [Menus][Extensions] Hidden items get displayed (VB-78960)
• [Menus][Media] Audio and Video entries not shown when right-clicking a video (VB-78044)
• [Menus][Notes] Creating a note from a text field fails (VB-78284)
• [Menus][Sync] Sending links to other devices via sync no longer possible (VB-78346)
• [Menus][Tabs] Change “New Tab Stack” to “Stack Selected Tabs (x Tabs)” (VB-78213)
• [Menus][Tabs] Enable context menu in second level (VB-78590)
• [Menus][macOS] Services sub-menu missing (VB-77622)
• [Menus][Panels] Context menu to open in a new window opens in a private window (VB-78119)
• [Periodic Reload] Elements/UI blinking during periodic reload (VB-78421)
• [Pop out Video] Prevent PIP container from blocking content (VB-69092)
• [Search] Searx POST unavailable/defective from Search Field (VB-68138)
• [Settings] Focus Page Content on new tab (VB-78096)
• [Speed Dial] Align add button text to center (VB-78240)
• [Speed Dial][Settings] Updated layout for Start Page (VB-72606)
• [Tabs] Blinking when hovering over the mute icon of an inactive pinned tab (VB-79025)
• [Tabs] Can’t drag a tab out of a compact tab stack (VB-77749)
• [Tabs] Cloning a tab in a tab stack should have it join stack (VB-78640)
• [Tabs] Cloning multiple tabs shifts focus to each individual tab (VB-76662)
• [Tabs] Don’t highlight tab when dragging over the edges (VB-77811)
• [Tabs] Drag and drop highlighting for pinned tabs should be distinct (VB-77742)
• [Tabs] Drag tab fails on certain sites (VB-78066)
• [Tabs] Moving tabs in private windows impossible (VB-77154)
• [Tabs] Only highlight content inside the outline of tabs when stacking (VB-77888)
• [Tabs] Order changes when added as a stack from left (VB-77724)
• [Tabs] Page Tiling resets existing selection (VB-78352)
• [Tabs] Renamed stack loses name when merging with another tab (VB-77843)
• [Tabs] Selection inside of stack selects in a main row too (VB-76565)
• [Tabs] Selection outline is uneven (VB-77854)
• [Tabs] Unnecessary padlock icon change while loading URL (VB-77519)
• [Tabs] Update middle mouse click handling in tabs (VB-78398)
• [Tabs][Panels] Stack’s name is different between Window Panel and Tab bar (VB-78037)
• [Themes] Background image obscured for tiled internal pages (VB-78393)
• [Themes][macOS] Toolbar colors wrong in fullscreen (VB-78358)
• [UI] Search-in-page field loses focus on URL change (VB-78058)
• [UI] Stuck in full-screen state after creating new tab from full-screen video (VB-77692)
• [Windows] Problems with setting the default browser on Windows 8 (VB-78770)
• [Windows] Use transparent start menu icon in Windows 8/10 (VB-78046)
• [Windows][Installer] 64bit installed over 32bit is not handled well (VB-79028)
• [macOS] System menubar camera icon should be a template image (VB-77541)