How to Install Vivaldi Browser on Ubuntu and Other Linux Distributions

Brief: Learn how to install 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.

Tab tiling for split viewing multiple websites at once

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 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 complete open source software. It’s UI is closed source. It’s been covered here because Vivaldi team took 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, as well as ARM devices like Raspberry Pi.

Vivaldi provides installer for several types of Linux distributions

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 the Vivaldi’s download page and download the DEB file for Ubuntu.

Download Vivaldi

Download DEB file for Ubuntu/Debian

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 software center.

Right click on the downloaded deb file and open it with Software Install

It will open the software center application and here, you can see the option to install Vivaldi. Just hit the Install button.

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 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.

Search for Vivaldi in the system menu

You’ll see a screen like this on the first run.

Vivaldi running in Ubuntu

Now that you know the this method, let me quickly show 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 wget

Next, 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 | sudo apt-key add -

Once the key has been added, add Vivaldi repository as well:

sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://repo.vivaldi.com/archive/deb/ stable main'

Now 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.

Vivaldi repo is added to the system

Basically, you update the Ubuntu system and it updates the Vivaldi browser if there is a new version available.

Vivaldi browser is updated with the system updates

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-stable

Sudo 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.

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