Short answer: Vivaldi is for people who want to change everything: the toolbars, which buttons appear, keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures, with an email client, calendar, feed reader and notes built in. Chrome is simpler, with fewer settings, and gets its extra tools from extensions. Both run Chrome Web Store extensions, so you won’t lose those either way. If you like tinkering, try Vivaldi; if you want a browser that works the same on every device with little setup, choose Chrome.
Get Chrome for Windows, Mac or Linux. Each page links to Google’s official download.
Customizing the browser
Vivaldi’s features page says “virtually everything can be customized”. You can move or remove items on its toolbars, hide all menus and bars until you need them, set your own keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures, and build Command Chains that run several commands from one shortcut.
Chrome keeps it simpler. You can change its theme and use Chrome’s keyboard shortcuts. Anything beyond that comes from extensions.
Tabs
- Vivaldi: Tab Stacks group tabs in two levels, Tab Tiling shows several tabs side by side in split screen, Workspaces sort tabs into separate views, Tab Hibernation puts tabs to sleep, and you can save a set of open tabs as a named session.
- Chrome: tab groups that you name and color, which sync to your other devices when you’re signed in, and split view for two tabs side by side, as Google’s tab help describes. Memory Saver deactivates tabs you aren’t using, much like Vivaldi’s hibernation.
Ad and tracker blocking
Vivaldi has a built-in ad and tracker blocker, but its ad blocker page says it is off by default: when you install Vivaldi, it asks whether you want “No blocking”, “Block trackers” or “Block Trackers and Ads”, and you can change this later in settings or per site.
To block ads in Chrome, you add an ad blocker from the Chrome Web Store. See our list of ad blockers for Chrome. For cookies, Chrome lets you allow or block third-party cookies in Settings > Privacy and security > Third-party cookies, according to Google’s cookie help.
Built-in tools
Vivaldi builds in tools that Chrome leaves to websites or extensions:
- Mail, with several accounts in one inbox
- Calendar
- Feed Reader
- Notes in the sidebar, synced to your other devices
- Web Panels, which keep any website in the sidebar
- Capture, for screenshots of a whole page or part of it
- Reader View and built-in translation
Sync across devices
Vivaldi is available for desktop computers, Android and iOS, and has its own sync. Chrome syncs through your Google Account: when you sign in to Chrome, you get your bookmarks, passwords and more on all your devices.
Which to choose
- Vivaldi if you want to shape the browser around how you work, and like having mail, calendar and feeds in one place.
- Chrome if you want a simpler browser that works the same on every device, synced through your Google Account.
Comparing more browsers? See Chrome vs Safari vs Firefox vs Edge.