Robert Irvine recommends new programs that won’t cost you a thing
WEB BROWSERVivaldi 6.5
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What you need: Windows 10 or 11, macOS or Linux
Vivaldi is one of the most innovative browsers, with each new release making significant changes – rather than the small updates you get in Chrome and Edge. In 2023, it finally introduced an iOS app (www.snipca.com/47792) and has now returned its attention to its desktop version.
The main new feature in Vivaldi 6.5 is the Sessions Panel, which adds yet another option to the browser’s sidebar. This lets you save your open tabs as a ‘session’, then start a new session with a clean slate. Unlike pinned tabs, saved session tabs don’t use any system memory in the background.
To use the feature, click the new Sessions button on the sidebar – this looks like a clockwise arrow surrounding a circle – then click the plus button at the top of the Sessions Panel. Enter a name for your session, specify whether it should include workspaces (themed groups of tabs) or only tabs in the current window, and click Save. You can then double-click the session to restore its tabs, edit its contents to remove specific pages or delete the whole thing.
Vivaldi has improved the Workspaces feature, to help you keep your groups of tabs better organised. You can now set up rules so that if you open a page in the wrong workspace – for example, an online store in your work-related workspace – it will be automatically moved to the correct one.
Another welcome change allows you to sync your browsing history across your devices. This means pages you viewed in the Vivaldi app on your PC can easily be revisited on your phone or tablet – and vice versa. To enable this option, click the Settings cog, choose Sync and sign into your Vivaldi account (if you aren’t already). Select ‘History’ to sync your browsing history – as well as bookmarks, passwords and open tabs, if you want to sync those too. All your data is end-to-end encrypted, so nobody but you can access it.
1Vivaldi’s new Sessions feature creates backups of your saved sessions once an hour and stores them for three days. To keep these backups for longer, click the Automatic Session Backup button and choose five or 30 days.
2Vivaldi 6.5 offers a new way to see which tabs you’ve synced between your PC and mobile device. Click the Window button on the sidebar to open the Windows Panel, then choose Synced Tabs to view a list of all your synced
