Vivaldi Web Browser

Vivaldi is a free web browser built on the Chromium code base (which is the same code base for the Chrome browser). CLASSE-IT has chosen to support Vivaldi because of its focus on privacy and its stable release schedule. Also, Vivaldi's rendering engine is widely compatibile with modern websites.

Tips & Tricks

Clearing the browser's cache

See here: https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/tools/delete-browsing-data/

Vivaldi default bookmarks

Vivaldi ships with a complete list of example bookmarks. If you want to clear them out before adding your own bookmarks do the following:

1. Go to the "Tools" Menu and select "Bookmarks" from the drop down. This will open the Bookmark management page.
2. Within the "Bookmarks" Folder, Select the top bookmark entry.
3. Shift + click on the bottom bookmark entry (do not select the "Trash" entry).
4. Press Delete on your keyboard.

Vivaldi 6+ Workspaces

• Vivaldi 6 and later introduce a feature known as Workspaces for tab management. CLASSE IT recommends this feature for anyone working with more than 10 tabs on a regular basis. This feature is more efficient in CPU and Memory use than multiple Windows for tab organization.
• https://vivaldi.com/features/workspaces/ explains workspaces, new in version 6.
• https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/tabs/workspaces/ tells you technical details to use the new feature.
• CLASSE IT strongly recommends enabling "Start up with Last Session" if you are going to use workspaces. You can find this in the Tools -> Settings window on the general tab.
  
  • https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/appearance-customization/starting-vivaldi/#Last_Session has technical details to make this setting.
    

Importing Firefox Bookmarks

For help on importing bookmarks from other web browsers, please see the importing and exporting bookmarks section on the Vivaldi help site

Allowing pop-ups

Some websites (most notably CULearn) require pop-up windows to be enabled to function properly. You can allow pop-ups by following these 4 steps:

1. While visiting the site that needs pop-ups, click on the "lock icon" next to the URL.
   
2. Then click on "Site Settings".
   
3. Under "Permissions" look down for "Pop-ups and redirects".
   
4. Use the drop-down menu to select "Allow".

How to use the computer’s default PDF viewer

1. Go to the "Tools" Menu (either from the Vivaldi menu, or the top menu bar depending on your configuration).
2. Select "Settings".
3. In the search field type in "pdf"
4. UN-check "Enable internal PDF viewer.
   

Hardware Acceleration

By default, Vivaldi users hardware acceleration where available. We've found that in some cases this causes vivaldi to hang on cesrtain sites (for example, when viewing PTZ cameras). To disable hardware accleration:

1. start Vivaldi, and go to Tools -> Settings
2. search for "Hardware" and look for "Use Hardware Acceleration when available”.
3. Uncheck that box
4. restart Vivaldi

Windows

Launching Vivaldi

Go to Start Menu -> Vivaldi, or Double-click the Vivaldi icon on your Desktop

Setting Vivaldi as the default browser

To set the file type associations for HTTP/HTTPS see our documentation here. In this case, you'll want to change the "Web Browser" drop-down to Vivaldi.

Multiple Login Prompts

If you’re using a personal windows computer from home, you may find that you need to login repeatedly when accessing CLASSE web services. To work around this, you’ll need to:

• become an admin
• launch regedit
• create an [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Vivaldi] registry key, that contains the following String value:

AuthSchemes = basic,digest,ntlm

• restart vivaldi

This is automatically set on all CLASSE-managed Windows laptops.

A similar workaround should exist for all Chromium-based browsers. Please email service-classe@cornell.edu with problems or questions.

Linux

Launching Vivaldi

Go to Applcations menu -> Internet -> Vivaldi. Or, type vivaldi at the command line.

Multiple profiles.

From the command line, use vivaldi --profile-directory=test, to use (or create if it doesn't already exist) a profile named "test".

Proxy Server

By default, typing "vivaldi" on a CLASSE linux box will start vivaldi using the CLASSE CachingProxy server for additional security (or to reach offsite from a private subnet).

If you're creating your own vivaldi script or running on a non-CLASSE managed computer, you can launch vivaldi and use our CachingProxy server by typing on a command line:

vivaldi --proxy-pac-url=https://www.classe.cornell.edu/proxy.pac

Cache size

By default, typing "vivaldi" on a CLASSE linux box will start vivaldi with the cache size limited to 24MB. Additionally, we recommend making sure ~/.cache is a symlink to /cdat/tem/{username}/.cache. This can be done as follows (replacing "{username}" with your CLASSE username:

1. logout of any desktops
2. ssh lnx201.classe.cornell.edu
3. mv .cache /cdat/tem/{username>}
4. ln -s /cdat/tem/{username}/.cache .

If you're creating your own vivaldi script or running on a non-CLASSE managed computer, you can launch vivaldi and limit the cache size by typing on a command line:

vivaldi --disk-cache-size=24000000