Vivaldi is a new web browser based on Chromium that is built by an Opera founder. It's aimed mostly at power users, but it can be used by anyone. A new update has been released and the developers have added some new features.

Vivaldi is still under heavy development and its makers are still adding major new features to it. For now, a couple of tech preview versions have been made available and there are quite a few features still missing, but they are being added. It's not ready yet for mass adoption, but from what has been revealed so far, it's going to have quite a few fans.

The fact that the Vivaldi team is actively working on this application shows just how serious they are. The number of changes from one version to another is quite impressive and we're not even counting the stuff that's added to the Chromium base of the application.

Vivaldi has a minimalist approach, but it's more complex than you think

When a user opens the application for the first time, he's met with a very simple window and just a few functions. That is just the surface and, in fact, the browser already comes with some features that are nowhere to be found on other apps. A good example of that are the filters available by default, like Sepia or Content Blocker.

"Since the launch of our first public release of Technical Preview 1, we have been working hard to fix as many issues as we can in addition to implementing new features. Today, we reached a new milestone by launching Technical Preview 2," wrote the developers on the official blog.

They also described the improvements made with this latest edition. First of all, users now have access to a Bookmarks bar that does things a little bit different. For example, users can place the bar on the bottom of the browser and they can define the folders that are visible.

Also, it's not possible to turn images on and off and it's even possible to load them only from the cache. As you would expect, this speeds up the loading process quite a bit, especially if you are on a slow connection.

Another cool option that is usually available on other browsers only with extensions is called Fast-Forward and Rewind. Basically, the browser guesses which is the next link in a website, for example the second page in a forum, and provides the user with the result. It's also possible now to navigate through the links on a website by holding the Shift key and navigating with the arrow keys.

As usual, you can download Vivaldi for Linux from Softpedia. Only RPM and DEB files are provided. Also, the Windows and Mac OS X versions are also available.