If you need to access websites using Encrypted Media Extensions (.e.g. Spotify) or sites that use Flash (e.g. Tidal), you can extract Widevine and Flash binaries for Linux ARMhf from ChromeOS recovery images. Simply run this script on a Linux machine to extract the files.
Since these you need to download a very large file (2Gb+ on disk after download) it is recommended that you do the extraction on another machine (you can do it on the Raspberry Pi itself, if you have space).
Netflix
To make this work you will need to have already installed Widevine. Additionally, you will need to alter the browser’s User Agent. To change your User Agent, install the extension User-Agent Switcher for Google Chrome, open the “Options” and configure a new “Custom User-Agent”, like so:
New User-agent name: Netflix
New User-Agent String: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; CrOS armv7l 10895.56.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/79.0.3945.131 Safari/537.36
Group: Chrome
Append?:Replace
Indicator Flag: NFX
Enable this User Agent and then proceed to logging into Netflix.
Whilst it is possible to play videos this way, it is not recommended on any recent Raspberry Pi, other than for a bit of fun. The resolution is very poor and you will most likely get a lot of dropped frames.
Increasing the size of the swap file
For smooth running of Vivaldi on Raspberry Pi, we recommend to increase swap space. Open a “Terminal” and use the following command to change the SWAP from 100MB to change it to 2048MB:
echo CONF_SWAPSIZE=2048 | sudo tee -a /etc/dphys-swapfile
Then restart the swap service to apply the changes:
Making this change may diminish the the life of your SD card.
Stopping the “hiss” when using analog out (Raspberry Pi 3)
If you are using Raspbian on a Raspberry Pi 3 and hear a his when listening to music or watching videos, issue the follow command in a “Terminal” and then restart the Raspberry Pi:
echo audio_pwm_mode=2 | sudo tee -a /boot/config.txt
With the synchronization function, you can synchronize your Vivaldi browser data across multiple devices.
Important! Sync is not meant to be used as a data backup service. If the data is not stored locally on any devices, we can’t guarantee you’ll be able to restore the data on a later date.
Access Sync
To access Sync settings, either:
Click on the Sync button on the left side of the Status Bar.
Click on the User Profile button on the right side of the Address Bar and then on Create an Account.
First, log in to your Vivaldi account with your account’s username and login password. Your login password is sent to our servers over a secure connection and a hash of it is stored in our database.
In case you don’t have an account yet, create a new Vivaldi account in the Settings window or on Vivaldi.net. With a Vivaldi account, in addition to Sync, you’ll get access to the Forum, Vivaldi Social, Webmail, Themes and Blogs.
Encryption password
Once you’ve logged in, you also need to pick an encryption password that is used for encrypting your data. The password needs to be at least 12 characters long and you can use any letters, number and characters in it. We recommend using a password that’s different from your login password. Your encryption password is used locally on your computer for encrypting the data you’re about to send to our servers and to decrypt the received data. Your encryption password is never sent to us or any other third party, which ensures that we cannot decrypt your data. This also means that even if someone should get access to your account’s username and login password, it’s impossible for them to find out the encryption password, unless you yourself have shared it with them.
It can happen that you forget the encryption password. When you have the data stored locally and can still access it, forgetting the password isn’t a big deal. You’ll just need to reset the encryption password and upload all the data again. Should you not have access to your browser data on any devices (for example, you used Sync only on one device and had to reset the OS, losing all your data), restoring it requires to have prepared for this beforehand by saving a backup encryption key in a safe place.
Backup Encryption Key
Backup encryption key is an alternative method to the encryption password for decrypting your Sync data. Like with the encryption password, your backup encryption key is never sent to us or any other third party, which ensures that we cannot decrypt your data. For it to be useful, you need to save the key in a safe location, while you can access your Sync settings with the encryption password.
Save the backup encryption key
Log in to your Vivaldi account in Settings > Sync.
Enter the encryption password.
Below your account info, look for Save Backup Encryption Key.
Click on it and save the key file to your device.
The key is valid until you reset the remote Sync data. We recommend storing the key file in a location that can survive something irreparable to your device, such as an external memory drive or a trusted cloud service.
Use the backup encryption key
Log in to your Vivaldi account in Settings > Sync.
When asked for the encryption password, click Load Encryption Key.
Click Load and find the key file.
Click Open.
Start syncing.
Syncing
To start Sync:
Select the data you want to synchronise;
Click Start Syncing.
Currently, Vivaldi supports synchronisation of the following items:
The data you send us is encrypted on your computer using a password that is never sent to us. In addition, the servers on which your encrypted data is stored are well protected from intrusion both physically and from the network.
When syncing, the encrypted data is sent to a central server, from which it can be requested from all other Vivaldi instances only by the same user. When one Vivaldi instance sends new data to the Sync server, a notification is immediately sent to all other Vivaldi instances to let them know that they can download this new information. This means you should see changes reflected within a minute.
Vivaldi stores Sync data on its own servers in Iceland. If you want to know more about how we handle your synced data please visit Sync’s Privacy Page.
Connecting another device
To connect another device to Sync:
Open Sync Settings;
Log in;
Enter the encryption password;
Start syncing.
With bigger profiles, the first sync between newly connected devices can take some time to finish.
Most data, like Bookmarks and Notes, will be put to their respective locations, but to access the tabs that you have open in another Vivaldi instance, look for the Synced Tabs button on the Tab Bar, next to Recently Closed Tabs.
When you log in or enable synchronisation of some data type, your local data is merged and re-associated with what exists on the server. This is done in a way that ensures you won’t lose any data. Some things like Bookmarks can be moved to match the location the server believes they are in.
When you make changes to synced data on one client, Sync will check the servers for updates, download any new data and upload the changes you just made. It will also try to notify all desktop clients about the update, so they could download it.
Send Tab to Device
When you have Tabs sync enabled, you’ll find all your open tabs from the Synced Tabs menu on the Tab Bar or in the Windows Panel. If you want to quickly open a specific tab on another synced device, use the Send Tab to Device feature.
To send a tab from desktop:
Open the tab you want to send.
Right-click on the tab on the Tab Bar or on an empty area on the page.
Select Send to Your Devices.
Choose to which synced device you want to send the tab to.
To open a received tab on desktop:
When you’ve sent a tab from another device to your current desktop/laptop computer, you’ll see a notification on the Synced Tabs menu button.
Click on the Synced Tabs button on the far side of the Tab Bar.
Click on “From [device name]: [page link]”.
Another feature that can be used for accessing websites on multiple synced devices is the Reading List.
Stop syncing
When you choose to stop syncing some types of data, the browser forgets all association between your local data and the data located on the Sync server. All your data remains on the Sync server as it was. When you explicitly log out from Sync, the same happens for all the synced data. Please note that quitting the browser does not log you out from Sync.
Delete synced data
To delete synced data from the servers:
Open Sync Settings;
Make sure you’re logged in;
Click on Reset Remote Data.
You will need to make sure that you have all your data client side before doing this to avoid losing data. Note that the data will be re-uploaded if you choose to run sync again in the future.
If, in addition to clearing the data and logging out of Sync, you’re also thinking of deleting your Vivaldi account, please note that when the account is deleted, you will also lose access to all other Vivaldi Community services such as webmail, forum, and blogs and all the data will be deleted. If you still wish to proceed, follow the instructions on our help page about deleting Vivaldi accounts.
Change or reset your account login password
If you wish to change your login password, log in on Vivaldi.net, go to your profile (top right corner) and change it there. In case you’ve forgotten your password, send yourself a password reset email. Note that if you have chosen to use the same password for login and encryption, changing your login password will not automatically change your encryption password and you will have to do this separately.
Change or reset your encryption password
In case you’ve forgotten your encryption password and don’t have a backup encryption key to decrypt the data or just want to change the encryption password:
Open Sync Settings;
Log into your Vivaldi account;
Click on the Forgot Password? button;
In the pop up, click on Delete Data;
Then Start Sync again and enter a new password.
Your data will be deleted from Vivaldi’s Sync servers and re-uploaded from the computer you’re using once you enter a new password. In case the synced data isn’t stored locally on any devices (e.g. after a OS reset) and you don’t have a backup encryption key to decrypt the data, the synced data will unfortunately be lost when resetting the encryption password.
A standalone version can be used for testing a specific setup or version, without touching the system wide settings (profile). It can also be used to create an almost fully portable installation of Vivaldi that you could store on an external disk, for sharing between computers.
Important! Since passwords and extensions are encrypted with a key which is unique to the user profile on each computer, they cannot be transferred.
The following instructions are for Windows. If you are on Linux or macOS, you can run the Snapshot and Stable versions side by side, without having to take extra steps during installation.
Open the installer from the Downloads Panel or from the folder you downloaded it to.
In the installation window select Advanced.
Under Installation type select Install Standalone.
Set a destination folder (anywhere except the Program Files folder)
Click Accept and Install to finish the installation.
To open the browser go to the destination folder > Application > vivaldi. To access the browser easily save a shortcut to your Desktop or pin it to the Start Menu or Task Bar.
We recommend that you tick the additional dialogue box “Register standalone Vivaldi” (see above). This will make the standalone version appear in the Default apps list and will be added as an entry in the Registry of the operating system.
Also, we recommend keeping the option for automatic updates enabled, to make sure you get the latest security updates, newest features and most recent bug fixes.
Updating the standalone version
If you have automatic updates enabled in Settings > General > Updates, the update will be downloaded automatically and installed on the next browser restart. Update ready message will also appear on the right side of the Address Bar when an update has been downloaded. Click on it and then on Restart to complete the update.
To check for updates manually go to Vivaldi menu > Help > Check for Updates and then Install Update.
You can also download the latest update from the website. Just save it to the same folder to keep the settings or create a new folder to have a clean install.
Uninstalling the standalone version
Go to the folder where you saved the Vivaldi standalone folder. If you can’t remember or can’t find it, go to Vivaldi menu > Help > About and take note of the Executable Path.
Close all Vivaldi windows
Delete the folder containing the Vivaldi standalone.
In case you registered the standalone version as a default app, registry keys and update notifiers (if enabled) need to be deleted manually.
Vivaldi is not made available under one unified open source license. It does contain the Chromium source code with changes made to allow the HTML/CSS/JS based UI to run. All changes to the Chromium source code are made available under a BSD license and can be read by anyone on vivaldi.com/source. Details in this regard are explained in the the README and LICENSE files within the package.
In addition, our UI code is written in plain, accessible code for those who read HTML, CSS and JS. This means that for all practical purposes the Vivaldi source code is available for audit.
Vivaldi also contains third party code. Licenses for these parts can be found in the source package and in the installed browser by navigating to vivaldi://credits.
One of the great perks of the Vivaldi Community is that we’ve given you space where you, our members, can share your thoughts in personal blogs. It’s all free and ad-free! Even if you don’t want to blog yourself, you can read and follow blogs by other Vivaldi Community members. Here’s how.
Reading blogs
To browse through Vivaldi Community posts, go to blogs.vivaldi.net, the homepage of the Vivaldi Community Blogs.
Featured on the homepage, are the posts that have piqued our interest. We hope you like this curated selection.
You can also browse through the numerous categories.
Categories
There are 24 categories in total. Those include:
Featured – blog posts highlighted by the Vivaldi Team.
Following – blog posts from bloggers you follow.
Recent – the latest posts from all categories. When you’re logged in, you can find Recent posts also on Dashboard > Reader.
21 different topics from tech related topics to culture to more personal topics.
Miscellaneous – includes all uncategorized blog posts.
Searching blogs
To find blogs, use the search box on the right-hand side. Search results can be sorted both in ascending and descending order by Date, Title and Name.
You can also search for blogs from the top right corner of Dashboard > Reader.
Posts on Vivaldi Social are limited to 1337 characters. If you need more space to express your ideas, you can create a post on your blog on Vivaldi.net and have it automatically shared on Vivaldi Social.
To start publishing your blog posts on Vivaldi Social:
From the menu on the left side, go to Settings > ActivityPub.
Review and adjust the settings.
Click Save Changes.
Few things to note.
There is a small delay between when a new post gets published on Vivaldi.net and when it shows up on Vivaldi Social. To speed up the process, enter the blog post’s link in Vivaldi Social’s search field and press Enter.
The blog posts are not published from your main Vivaldi account, but they’ll get their own blog account with the user handle @[email protected]. For example, @[email protected] will show posts from tips.vivaldi.net.
Also, blog posts won’t show up in the Local or Federated timelines, so make sure to Boost your blog posts from your main account and ask your followers to follow the blog’s account on Vivaldi Social, so they’d see new posts on their Home timeline.
If you delete a blog post on Vivaldi.net, it will not be deleted from Vivaldi Social
Search and follow Vivaldi Blogs on Vivaldi Social
To see whether your favorite bloggers on Vivaldi.net are sharing their content on Vivaldi Social, search for their user handle (@[email protected]) in Vivaldi Social. When their account shows up in search results, you can follow that account to see their latest posts and engage with them.
Post discussion
Comments left on the blog post on Vivaldi Social will show up below the post both on Vivaldi Social and Vivaldi.net. Your main account on Vivaldi Social will not be notified about any comments, so make sure to check the post or your blog on Vivaldi.net.
Comments left on the blog post on Vivaldi.net will not be displayed on Vivaldi Social.
Once active, the Reader View button on the Address Bar will have a highlighted background.
Below the title you’ll also see a minute counter, estimating how long it will take to read the article.
Reader View Settings
Go to Settings > Webpages > Reader and adjust the Reader View settings, such as font face and size, line height, column width, and color scheme. To enable vertical reader mode, first tick the box for Allow Vertical Text Direction.
To access Reader View settings directly on the website:
Make sure Display Settings on Page in Reader Mode has been enabled in Reader settings.
Enable Reader View on the webpage.
Click on the Reader View Settings icon at the top right corner of a page.
Reader View icon not showing
If the Reader View button doesn’t show in the Address Bar, the page may not support this feature. Reader View button will only show when the webpage has suitable content.
This guide will explain how you can remove Vivaldi from your computer. Choose which operating system you are using and follow the appropriate steps below.
In this article, we’ll explain what are the causes, and what to do when encountering a “Decryption Failed: Risk of Data Loss” dialog.
Vivaldi may show a dialog on startup when it fails to decrypt an encrypted user profile. Your user profile contains your Settings, History, Bookmarks, Cookies, and more. To protect the data in your profile, Vivaldi encrypts it to prevent attackers from gaining access to your profile.
When the dialog appears, it means that the decryption secret key has gone missing or that it has been changed. Your decryption secret key is stored safely in a subsystem managed by your operating system (the key store). Vivaldi uses Keychain on Mac OS, OSCrypt on Windows, and either GNOME Secrets or KWallet on Linux. These subsystems are unique to your user account on your device; your user account password unlocks these encrypted subsystems when you log in to your computer.
You need to use the same decryption secret key on the same operating system user account on the same operating system to unlock your secure storage and successfully decrypt your Vivaldi profile.
You cannot use the same Vivaldi profile on multiple user accounts on the same computer or on different computers. Please use Vivaldi Sync to keep your data in sync between multiple instances of Vivaldi on different computers or between user accounts on the same computer.
For Linux users with multiple desktop environments, please configure all your desktop environments to use the same key store. The key store to use is derived from the standard XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP environmental variable. To override the automatic selection, you can use the launch argument --password-store=gnome-libsecret. Other supported values include kwallet5 and kwallet6. You can also disable the encryption system with basic (strongly discouraged!).
If you encounter this warning dialog, you may know what changes you have made and know how to undo them to restore your profile. Closing the dialog will exit Vivaldi and give you an opportunity to fix the problem. E.g., you might be able to export a secret key from one computer and migrate it to another. This is beyond the scope of this article.
You can also choose to continue with data loss. Selecting this option will log you out of most websites, your Vivaldi Mail and Calendar accounts, Vivaldi Sync, and more. It will also delete your saved passwords. Some protected settings may also revert to their default values. After resetting your profile, it will be encrypted using a new secret key stored in the user account on the current computer.
Your secret key may be irrecoverably lost if you reset or override your computer’s user account password.
Please note that this dialog may appear due to a common miss configuration problem: Your key store will be locked when you lock your screen or the computer hibernates; and then subsequently fails to unlock after unlocking the screen or resuming the session. This problem can happen on any operating system but is a common problem on more obscure Linux distributions or desktop environments.
Other web browsers either do not encrypt your profile or silently delete the same data without warning!
Sync button on the left side of the 
Synced Tabs button on the 
Recently Closed Tabs.
Update ready message will also appear on the right side of the 
Vivaldi menu > Help > Check for Updates and then Install Update.
Reader View button on the right side of the 
Settings icon at the top right corner of a page.