Vivaldi 4.2 is out with improved text translation functionality

[harlan4096]

Vivaldi Technologies released a new version of the company's Chromium-based desktop web browser, Vivaldi, today. Vivaldi 4.2 introduces support for the translation of selections in the web browser among other things.

The new version of Vivaldi is already available. Desktop users may select Vivaldi Menu > Help > Check for updates to run a manual check for updates. Any new update that is found is installed automatically on the device.

Tip: To display the installed version, load vivaldi://about/ in the browser's address bar.

Vivaldi 4.2

Translate functionality was introduced in Vivaldi 4.0, released in June 2021. The initial release supported the translation of entire webpages only.

The feature is powered by Lingvanex and self-hosted by Vivaldi on servers in Iceland. The translation feature does not communicate with third-parties, which is a major benefit for privacy conscious users who don't want data to be transferred to other companies on the Internet.

Vivaldi 4.2 improves the functionality by adding a selection-based translate option to the browser; this is useful to translate part of a page quickly, but also on pages that display content in multiple languages.

Already previewed by us last month, the feature is now available in the latest stable version of the browser.

A right-click on the selection of text in Vivaldi displays the context menu. Select "Translate Selection" to translate the selected text to display the translation overlay.

Vivaldi translates the selection to the default language, but menus are available to change the source and target language manually.

Vivaldi users who prefer using the keyboard can map a keyboard shortcut to the new text selection translation feature. The option to do so is found under Vivaldi Menu > Tools > Settings. Settings can be opened with the shortcut Ctrl-F12 as well.

Switch to Keyboard in the Settings window and expand the Page group of shortcuts. The Translate Selected Text shortcut is not mapped by default, but you can set it to any shortcut you like.

QR Codes

Vivaldi 4.2 introduces a QR code sharing on the desktop to add another feature to the sharing options.

Vivaldi supports several QR code generating options, e.g. by using Ctrl-E to open the browser's Quick Commands interface, typing CR, and selecting the QR code generation action that is displayed.

The QR code can be copied or saved to the downloads folder. Vivaldi users who use the feature particularly often can display a QR code button in the address field to quickly access it. The option to do so is found under Settings > Address Bar.

Other changes

Vivaldi 4.2 introduces two additional features. The first introduces scrollable Web Panels buttons, the second a new search engine called Neeva which promises ad-free search, but is limited to the US right now.

Check out Vivaldi's blog post for additional information and download links.
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