The latest Vivaldi 5.7 update for Android has now added support for YouTube background video playback even for non-Premium subscribers.
Announced in a blog post, the Chromium-based browser is now capable of playing video and audio from any website including YouTube, bypassing the requirement of a Premium subscription for those wanting to catch up on their favorite content. According to Vivaldi, YouTube background playback was a “highly requested feature” and can be enabled using a toggle within the app Settings.
Background playback for YouTube is not enabled by default even after downloading version 5.7 of Vivaldi on your Android device. You need to go and enable this manually by heading to Settings > “Allow background audio playback” and toggle this option to “On.”
From here, when you launch YouTube and minimize while a video is playing, you’ll be able to hear like you would with a Premium subscription. Though unlike a Premium subscription for YouTube, you’re likely to be inundated with ads and commercials before, during, and after videos where applicable.
That’s not all, as Vivaldi for Android 5.7 also now disables autoplay for video across the web by default. Often sites utilize autoplay for embedded content as a default behavior. This latest update stops that by default when browsing on your mobile device, and we can foresee this being popular as it could help reduce mobile data usage.
Other notables in this Vivaldi update alongside the YouTube background playback function include enhancements to the speed and performance, plus UI scalability tuning has also improved. This makes it easier to scale sites to suit the screen that you are using at any given time and can be adjusted from within Vivaldi’s Accessibility section.
Sync reminders are also part and parcel of this update. After 10 hours of combined usage across your devices, Vivaldi will prompt you to “Sync” between these browsers. Luckily, this pop-up can be disabled or ignored if it becomes annoying.
Vivaldi 5.7 for Android is available to download now on the Google Play Store.
More on Android:
- Google Chrome preparing to adopt Android’s native sharing menu
- Google is gradually rewriting Android’s Settings app with Jetpack Compose
- How to downgrade from Android 14 back to Android 13 on Google Pixel [Video]
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