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Latest Vivaldi Snapshot ships with Web Panels support

The developers of the Vivaldi browser have yet to release a stable version of it. That does not mean that they are not hard at work adding new features to the browser which, for the most part, should run well and without greater issues.

What I like most about Vivaldi is that it is not just a Chrome copycat but that its developers add unique features to it that other Chrome-based browsers don't offer.

While it is unlikely that Vivaldi will ever offer the same feature set of classic Opera, it is likely that it will come closest to that.

The most recent snapshot of Vivaldi adds Web Panels to the browser. If you have used Vivaldi before you know that it displays panels on the left in a small bar which you can hide if you want.

A click on a panel opens bookmarks, downloads or a Mail teaser in a sidebar in the browser. Web Panels provides you with options to load websites in the sidebar layout.

vivaldi web panels

To add a new Web Panel click on the plus icon and enter or paste a URL into the form that opens up. This site is then added to the sidebar, and you may repeat the process for other sites.

A click on it displays its contents in the sidebar. This works well for some sites but not for all as you can imagine. Generally speaking, it works well for sites with responsive layouts or mobile versions, and not so well for sites that use fixed layouts.

So what can you use it for? You could display latest tech news on Techmeme or other news sites, launch web applications like Skype in the sidebar, or add a search engine like DuckDuckGo to it for quick searches or look ups.

Today's Vivalid snapshot features other improvements on top of that. The developers have added support for extension UI buttons which improves compatibility with existing extensions and gives users direct access to actions in the Vivaldi interface.

Information about a page's loading performance have been added to the main address bar. You find those listed on the right of the address. If you are using a dark theme, you may find them particularly difficult to spot, but they do work fine on the default (white) theme).

vivaldi progress bar details

Last but not least, you may notice faster tab loading, closing and switching thanks to code optimizations.

Existing Vivaldi users can download the latest snapshot using the browser's internal update check. Everyone else finds download links at the official team blog.

This article was first seen on ComTek's "TekBits" Technology News

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