Vivaldi 5.0 makes web browsing on Android tablets fun again

Enlarge (credit: Vivaldi)

Vivaldi is one of our favorite web browsers, and the company (of the same name) behind it recently announced another major release. Vivaldi 5.0 is now available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and, perhaps most notably given the changes in this release, Android.

Version 5 of Vivaldi has some new features for the desktop, but much of what's new and intriguing in this release is focused on mobile. In Vivaldi's case, this means the Android version of the browser. (There is no iOS version of Vivaldi.) Android tablets get special attention in this release, with several features aimed at improving the web browsing experience on larger screens-something even Google hasn't managed to do with its own mobile browser.

In fact, the idea that an app would be optimized for performance on Android tablets is almost unheard of these days. That unfortunate reality is central to our major complaint about the Android-powered iPad alternatives, where the software experience is universally subpar. I should note that Google is currently revamping the overall Android tablet experience by adding some improvements for larger screens that will roll into the next version of the mobile operating system. An early beta release is available now.

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