14 DAY TRIAL // After becoming one of the top-rated browsers on the desktop, Vivaldi has finally landed on mobile as well, and the team behind the project today released the very first beta build for Android.
Vivaldi for Android was developed from the very beginning with a very simple goal in mind: bring the power of Vivaldi from the desktop to mobile devices.
As a result, you can consider the mobile version of Vivaldi an extension to the original browser, and the parent company wanted this to be possible from the very first launch.
The look of the mobile browser is clearly inspired from the one of its desktop sibling, with a Vivaldi menu button in the top right corner letting you access all options on Android.
The application is supposed to be easy to use, so the Vivaldi menu plays a key role here. However, the UI of the browser is as straightforward as it is on the desktop, and the main elements of the UI are divided in two categories, depending on where they are located.
At the top, you can find the address bar, the Vivaldi menu, the speed dial and folder groups. The Speed Dials, which are websites that you saved for quick access and showing up on the New Tab Page, eat up the entire screen when a page isn’t loaded, while the bottom side is used for panels, the tab switcher, and the navigation bar with the available controls.
Vivaldi is a browser that feels super-snappy on mobile as well, but on the other hand, let’s not forget that for now, the application is in beta development stage and remains rather light on features. While you’ll get the essential feature package, certain functionality is still missing.
For example, one of the key features that you won’t be getting given that extension support is not available on mobile is an ad blocker. Vivaldi can block intrusive ads, just like Google Chrome does, but on the other hand, a fully-featured ad blocker, like the ones available with add-ons in Samsung Internet Browser, is not available in Vivaldi. Or at least, not yet.
The Vivaldi team wanted to expand the desktop experience to mobile, and at some level, it managed to do it.
For example, the Notes tool is still there on mobile, so you can easily create and save notes in your browser. You can manually create a new note by going over to the dedicated Notes UI, or from a page, select the content, such as text, and hit the “Copy to note” option in the popup menu.
Other features available on the desktop also made their way to Vivaldi for Android, such as Speed Dials and bookmarks, and they both come in super-handy if you’re a heavy user.
Other typical browser features are also there, such as private browsing, but one particular option that really comes in handy is the quick switching from one search engine to another. While the default is Bing, you can easily search the web with a different engine without having to change the settings. All you need to do is to use a so-called search engine nickname, which is actually a shortcut to conduct a search using a certain search engine.
For DuckDuckGo, for instance, you can just type “d” before your search query in the address bar and you’ll be prompted to select your search engine for that specific search.
Vivaldi also features a built-in screenshot tool, but I find this rather redundant because on Android most devices already come with a pre-defined key combo to take a screenshot of the screen. A Reader View is also available, and this looks a lot like the one in Microsoft Edge and which lets you read online articles without being bothered by unnecessary content.
Vivaldi for Android boasts sync support through Vivaldi accounts, and you can choose data like bookmarks and Speed Dials, passwords, autofill information, history, and Notes.
Everything roams across devices completely secure, and this is one of the best things about Vivaldi. The browser doesn’t perform any kind of tracking and what’s more, no profiles are built on your Android device. Vivaldi for Android doesn’t rely on Google’s web browser core that’s built into Android, and the company doesn’t use Google Sync servers nor sends any information to the search giant.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Vivaldi for Android is a work-in-progress, so it’s important to have this in mind when installing it. Some functionality that you typically find in other Android browsers, as it’s the case of the adblockers that Samsung Internet Browser comes with, might not be there right now, but it could be at some point in the future.
The browser feels very fast, but this isn’t necessarily surprising given that performance has always been one of the top priorities on the desktop.
And while the essential features and a little more are already available, there’s also a lot of room for improvements.
One such thing is the customization level offered to users. At this point, there’s not much you can customize about Vivaldi for Android, which is rather unexpected given how advanced the desktop browser is in this regard, and the settings screen only comes with the basic options for the available tools.
For example, I’d want to be able to tweak the navigation bar at the bottom and add a share button, as sharing has become one of the things I do the most on my mobile device. A share option does exist in the Vivaldi menu, but having a button in the navigation bar would be much more convenient and do things much faster.
Also, options to clear site data should be integrated into the Vivaldi menu, especially given that privacy plays a key role in the browser.
Leaving all these minor points that need to be addressed in future updates, there’s no doubt Vivaldi for Android will get better over time, and this very first beta is living proof in this regard. No ETA is available as to when it should be the production stage, but for now, Vivaldi is this close to becoming my everyday browser on Android too.
