Vivaldi 7.5 Browser Adds Tab Stack Options, New DNS Settings
Colourful tab stacks and a more concise tab context menu are the headline changes on offer the latest update to the Chromium-based Vivaldi web browser. Vivaldi 7.5 follows May’s Vivaldi 7.4 release, which offered new controls over website permissions, a simplified profile picker, and refinements to the address bar. For Linux users, the look of scrollbars changed too (due to upstream Chromium changes). The update offers modest set of refinements to the existing feature set, rather than bolting on any ‘shiny’ new baubles. What’s New in Vivaldi 7.5? Custom colours for Tab Stacks (aka tab groups) was one of the ‘most requested’ features from Vivaldi users, so the team set about adding them. They say giving tab stacks colours will make it “easier to spot your work project, travel plans, or inspiration rabbit holes at a glance.” Right-click on a stack reveals an improved ‘Edit Tab Stack’ dialog, from where a custom name for the group can be set and a custom colour chosen from a palette of pre-defined colours — if grouping any open OMG! tabs, be sure to pick orange ;) Vivaldi’s tab-related tweaks don’t tap out there. The amount of actions shown in the right-click tab context menu is reduced in Vivaldi 7.5. Essential options are now the focus, and more sub-menus used to tidy away extraneous entries and lessen the squinting involved in spotting common actions, like ‘copy link’. Pruned tab menu (on macOS1) Beyond those tab-related tweaks, Vivaldi 7.5 adds new DNS options to the Settings > Network panel. It’s now possible to set a custom DNS provider to be defined for just the browser, with support for DNS Over HTTPS. Buffs to the built-in Mail & Calendar features tackle inconsistent e-mail threading, ensures message list selection and scroll position set correctly when switching folders, and that logging in via the “retry” prompt sets outgoing mail permissions not just incoming. A “Mark as read” item is re-added to message list context menu, Trash and Spam icons no longer show as greyed (despite being available), and calendar invites can now be accepted even when the delivered-to header is different. A couple of small Linux improvements: PulseAudio now shows a Vivaldi icon for sound being piped through the browser (it had been showing a Chromium one, tsk), and fetching CHR138-120726 proprietary media support for distros with older glibc. Other changes in Vivaldi 7.5 include: Start Page navigation bar can be re-enabled from context menu Dashboard widgets made more “more transparent” Ad Blocker supports badfilter, strict3p and strict1p rules Quick Commands now shows synced tabs In all, a canny crop of changes that avowed Vivaldi fans are sure to love, and would-be users will find make their initial approach all-the-more welcoming. Given this web browser is stacked to the hilt with all kinds of niche features, tools, and settings—including a built in e-mail, calendar and feed reader—there’s arguable not a lot else left to add (apart from AI features – but so far, all clear on that front). If you are an existing users of Vivaldi you can upgrade to Vivaldi 7.5 update the same way you you always do: in-app (on Windows, macOS) or through a software package source (Linux) like APT repo, Snap Store, Flathub, If you want to install Vivaldi for the first time, download an installer from the browser’s official website (a DEB for Ubuntu/Linux Mint users is offered, which adds the official Vivaldi APT repo to deliver future updates). Ubuntu users may prefer to install the official Vivaldi snap app through App Center (or run sudo snap install vivaldi from the command-line). Future updates are automatically get installed in the background as/when released. Fans of Flatpak may wish to opt for the quasi-official build is available on Flathub (quasi-official since the Flatpak version is packaged and maintained a Vivaldi engineer, but it is “officially supported” by Vivaldi as a company yet). The Vivaldi snap auto-upgraded before I could get a before from Vivaldi 7.4. Downgrading for a single screenshot felt a hassle, hence why this is from macOS. ↩︎