Vivaldi update adds built-in email client, RSS reader, calendar, and more to the browser

[midian182]

Why it matters: Chrome might dominate the browser market, but there are plenty of compelling alternatives available. One of these is Vivaldi, which has just received several interesting new features in its latest 4.0 release, including a built-in email client, RSS feed reader, and calendar.

Years after the developers promised it would come to the browser, the Mail beta has arrived in Vivaldi 4.0, offering a more private option than web apps made by "Big Tech" companies, apparently.

Pretty much any email provider that supports IMAP and POP protocols will work with Vivaldi's client, and there's built-in support for Gmail. You can also search a local database of retained messages when you're offline.

The RSS feed comes with most of the features found in similar tools, though you still can't import or export lists of feeds. In addition to showing the latest news from websites and podcasts, it includes new videos from your favorite YouTube channels. The browser highlights any feeds it finds as you're surfing the web to make discovering and subscribing to them easier.

Elsewhere, Vivaldi 4.0 offers a built-in translator that can translate entire web pages into 50 different languages, with support for 109 languages coming soon. There's also a calendar that, like the email client, connects to other calendar services and works offline.

One might worry that all these features will slow down Vivaldi's basic functionality as a web browser, but company CEO Jon von Tetzchner insists this isn't the case. "A modern computer can handle whatever you throw at it," he said (via Forbes). "I have 600,000 emails on my computer, as an example. We are making sure that it works with 600,000, emails - I'm sure it will work for most people that have typically a bit less than that!"

Users can also choose from three layouts—Essential, Classic, and Fully Loaded—which offer different interfaces based on how much space you want the features to take up in the browser.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/89994-vivaldi-update-adds-built-email-client-rss-reader.html

 

[terzaerian]

I've used Vivaldi daily since alpha and, barring the company being sold to Google, I doubt I will ever stop. In an industry that wears its open contempt for the user on its sleeve and is constantly seeking out new ways to "streamline" (cheapen) the user experience while mining them for data, Vivaldi is a browser made for humans by humans. Why anyone would choose to run Chrome in this day and age when so many superior alternatives exist, I have no idea.

 

[antiproduct]

I switched from FireFox (after they started killing all the useful extensions and got worse with every update) to Vivaldi. It's been pretty great. I don't think I care to use the mail or calendar features, since I like to keep those apps separate (still using Thunderbird, which also seems to get worse with every update), but for anyone who misses the all in one days, go for it.

 

[ypsylon]

Also Vivaldi user. I was hanging with old Opera (since v 3.0) until it was basically unusable. Tried early V which were extremely clunky, but after they transferred most of features from old Opera there was no more reason to keep O12.18.

Installed 4.0 and tomorrow will play with email client.