Vivaldi 1.5 Becomes the First Browser That Can Control Your Home's Smart Lights

[Jack]

Vivaldi Technologies released Vivaldi 1.5 today, the latest version of their phenomenal and well-received Vivaldi browser, which through today's release has added support for a crucial feature known as delta updates, but also become the first browser in the world to support out-of-the-box integration with an IoT device.

First and foremost, let's talk about the most important feature: Delta Updates. If the term is new to you, delta updates is a type of update mechanism that other browsers such as Firefox or Chrome have supported for years.

Starting with Vivaldi 1.5, instead of downloading the entire update package, Vivaldi can tell what internal modules and components have changed, and only download updated versions of those components.

This way, the update process is much faster, and users save bandwidth by downloading 100KB instead of 20MB of data.

Better tab management
Another feature introduced in version 1.5 is better tab management. Since Vivaldi is still a relatively new browser, for a long time, users weren't even able to drag tabs from one window to another.

With Vivaldi 1.5, users not only can drag tabs across different windows, but they can organize tabs in groups, and transfer multiple tabs across windows at the same time.

Even better, there's also a right-click menu option that allows users to perform these actions without having to actually drag anything by hand.

Some users criticized Vivaldi in the past and considered it a low-end browser because it didn't support tab dragging. Now that it's here, those critics must admit that Vivaldi is looking more and more like a solid Chrome and Firefox replacement with each new version that gets released.

Read more: Vivaldi 1.5 Becomes the First Browser That Can Control Your Home's Smart Lights

 

[frogboy]

Be careful people if you Smart Lights in your home it your home.

Read here. IoT worm can hack Philips Hue lightbulbs, spread across cities

 

[_CyberGhosT_]

I have thought that maybe starting with lights would be be a small step in
the transition to "smart" upgrading our home. The wife is wanting some of
the cool features that come with the upgrades. Frog I let her read that story and
I won shes willing to wait a bit longer.
I want to upgrade too but I think it is too early seeing where things stand now
security wise.
Cool share Jack, Thanks

 

[Ink]

I have thought that maybe starting with lights would be be a small step in
the transition to "smart" upgrading our home.

You could try the Philips Lightstrips instead.

 

[SHvFl]

I would 100% not like my browser to be able to access my smart lights. A browser will be on the end of the list of things i want to access my house smart applications.
Can't even imagine the security risk such ability can expose you to.

 

[Fritz]

This. Nothing against Vivaldi, I surely appreciate the project. But the only thing I want my browser to access are web sites. Not my phone, not my lights, not my fridge, not my piggy bank. Thanks, but no, thanks.

 

[Deleted member 2913]

This. Nothing against Vivaldi, I surely appreciate the project. But the only thing I want my browser to access are web sites. Not my phone, not my lights, not my fridge, not my piggy bank. Thanks, but no, thanks.

Totally agree.

Does such feature affect browser in any way like performance, speed, etc...?

 

[kev216]

Totally agree.

Does such feature affect browser in any way like performance, speed, etc...?

Normally it shouldn't affect the speed and performance of the browser. They code it the way so that features that you don't use don't use resources. It's not like extensions. I haven't tried it if it slows down the browser when the lights are connected (I don't have such lights) but I assume it should not interfere with other tasks the browser is doing.