Brief: Learn how to install the Vivaldi web browser on Ubuntu, Debian, and several other Linux distributions in this beginner’s tutorial. You’ll also learn about updating it and removing it.
Vivaldi is an increasingly popular web browser. It is based on Chromium, so you have Chrome-like features, but it adds several other features to give a different, intuitive interface.
It comes with tab grouping, ad blocker, mouse gestures, notes manager, and even allows adding macros. You could even use split viewing to view multiple pages at once. It also respects your privacy, unlike Chrome.
You can understand the popularity of this browser from the fact that Manjaro Linux recently replaced Firefox with Vivaldi as the default browser in some of its variants.
If you want to try it, let me show you how to install Vivaldi on Linux. You’ll learn:
- GUI and command line methods for installing Vivaldi
- Tips on updating Vivaldi to the newest version
- Steps for removing Vivaldi from Ubuntu
Non-FOSS alert!
Vivaldi is not completely open-source software. Its UI is closed source. It’s been covered here because the Vivaldi team took an effort in making its software available on Linux.
Installing Vivaldi on Ubuntu [GUI Method]
The good thing is that Vivaldi provides pre-built binaries in DEB form for Ubuntu/Debian based distros and in RPM form for Fedora, Red Hat, and SUSE.
It is available for both 32 bit and 64-bit platforms and ARM devices like Raspberry Pi.
The installation process is really simple. You go to the Vivaldi web page and download the appropriate installer file and then double click on it to install it. That’s it.
I’ll show the steps in detail for Ubuntu/Debian. You can use similar steps for other distributions.
Step 1: Download Vivaldi
Go to Vivaldi’s download page and download the DEB file for Ubuntu.
Step 2: Install the downloaded DEB file
Go to the Downloads folder where you have the deb file downloaded. Installing deb file is easy. Either just double-click on it or right-click to open it with the software center.
It will open the software center application and here, you can see the option to install Vivaldi. Just hit the Install button.
You’ll be asked to enter your system’s account password. Enter that and you should have it installed in a few seconds. You’ll see that the Install option changes to remove. This is an indication that Vivaldi is now installed.
Step 3: Using Vivaldi
Open the system menu by pressing the super (Windows) key and searching for Vivaldi. Click on the Vivaldi icon.
You’ll see a screen like this on the first run.
Now that you know this method, let me quickly show you how to install Vivaldi on Ubuntu and Debian from the terminal.
Method 2: Installing Vivaldi on Ubuntu and Debian from the command line
Open a terminal and make sure that you have wget installed for downloading files in the command line.
sudo apt install wgetNext, get the public key of the Vivaldi repository and add it to your system so that your system trusts the packages coming from it. If interested, read this article about adding external repository in Ubuntu.
wget -qO- https://repo.vivaldi.com/archive/linux_signing_key.pub | gpg --dearmor | sudo dd of=/usr/share/keyrings/vivaldi-browser.gpgOnce the key has been added, add the Vivaldi repository as well:
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/vivaldi-browser.gpg arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture)] https://repo.vivaldi.com/archive/deb/ stable main" | sudo dd of=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/vivaldi-archive.listNow you are almost set. Update the package cache and install it.
sudo apt update && sudo apt install vivaldi-stable
And that’s it. Search for it in the menu and start it from there.
Updating Vivaldi on Ubuntu
Both GUI and command-line methods add the Vivaldi repository to your system. This means that whenever there is a new Vivaldi release, you get it along with the system updates.
Basically, you update the Ubuntu system and it updates the Vivaldi browser if there is a new version available.
Removing Vivaldi from Ubuntu
If you do not like Vivaldi or no longer want to use it, you can surely remove it. Now, to uninstall applications from Ubuntu, you may use Software Center but it won’t find the external, third-party installed software.
You’ll have to use the terminal now even though you used GUI method to install it. That’s really easy. Open a terminal and use the command below:
sudo apt remove vivaldi-stableSudo gives you root access in Ubuntu. You’ll have to enter your account’s password. While entering the password, nothing is seen on the screen. That’s normal. Enter the password blindly and it will be removed.
I hope you find this tutorial helpful in installing and using Vivaldi on Linux.
I use Vivaldi as a secondary browser to Firefox and I find it overly complex and changing too frequently. But it is useful to access sites that are having problems with FF – eg my online bank!! For a long time Vivaldi has failed to save logins and passwords (so does Chrome) and Viv support cannot explain it!
Now the latest problem after the last update (5.0.2497.30) is that it will not play any HTML5 proprietary media. Vivaldi says my OS (Ubuntu 16,04) is obsolete and I must upgrade, Chrome still plays videos as do other browsers. They cannot provide a fix so I want to role back to the previous version. They gave me links to the archived versions but what would be the best way to install? I want to avoid any ppa because this causes trouble when upgrading – reason why I haven’t done it yet.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Well… Ubuntu 16.04 has reached end of life so the better thing to do here is to upgrade Ubuntu to 18.04 at least.
Yes Abhishek I agree but as I pointed out I wasn’t able to upgrade Ubuntu until I had removed 3rd party software , ppas etc, So have held back until I’m sure I have everything fully backed up. Afraid of losing stuff if things go wrong. In the meantime I’d like to install an archived version from this list: vivaldi.com/download/archive.
The best appears to be
vivaldi-stable_4.3.2439.71-1_amd64.deb
Which I think was my last working version.
So what steps do I take to remove the current version and install the older one?
I’ve been using Vivaldi as my primary browser for almost a year on my Dell laptop running Linux Mint Cinnamon, and I truly love it! After initially installing Vivaldi my first impression was that it appeared too “busy” and complicated for me but after taking some time to dig into the ton of user options my opinion dramatically changed. I prefer more of a minimal appearance in a browser rather than all the visual bells and whistles, and I learned how to customize Vivaldi exactly to my liking without sacrificing the functionality and security that is built into the browser. Some of my favorite features are the floating panels, the status bar, mouse gestures, and being able to change web page zoom with the mouse wheel. There are some great themes to choose from in Vivaldi and I like the option to personalize the browser background from my own collection of photos or backgrounds. Also, I closely monitor my system resource usage and I have found that Vivaldi uses a very minimal amount of my system resources compared to other browsers that I have used.
In my opinion Vivaldi browser is a great choice for Linux but take some time to become thoroughly familiar with the settings and user options to get the best experience!
I tried Vivaldi in Ubuntu Mate. It is too cluttered with options. The Start page appears to be different from the Home page, confusing somewhat when compared with say Firefox.
Vivaldi’s UI is not open source but it’s a privacy oriented and feature-full web browser. They are very innovative in terms of user experience. It has been my primary browser for last few months. While I prefer it to be fully open source, it doesn’t need to be so if it works for my needs.
In the article, method 2 of installation is perfectly fine but I prefer to download the .deb from Vivaldi’s website and then install the .deb file using command line. Assuming that the .deb file was saved in ~/Downloads/ folder, one would simply run:
cd Downloads
sudo apt install ./vivaldi-version-xyz.deb
Note the ‘.’ for current directory while installing the .deb file using apt.
Doing this has two advantages over manually adding the ppa. First, it installs any required dependencies automatically from the official Ubuntu repos. Second, it also adds the Vivaldi ppa to your sources so that Vivaldi is updated along with your regular system updates. This is same as the method 1 but without a GUI.
thanks for sharing, i found out about Vivaldi by chance i know it on TechRadar,i downloaded it and impressed that this is the first browser in my life with notes and pomodoro. I am very grateful to them, they gave me a luxurious, customizable, efficient browser… I love taking notes. For example, when I read the Ubuntu tutorial blog on It’s Foss, I use it to take important notes. Although I already know how to install, but what surprised me is that you recommend this browser too ^^