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Vivaldi Adds Bing Chat To Its Browser On Desktop And Android

Oslo, Norway-based Vivaldi Technologies plans to add Bing Chat to its browser on desktop and Android devices beginning June 8.

The move is aimed at those who would like to try Bing Chat, but do not want to access it through the Bing search engine or the Microsoft Edge browser. Users must have access to the Edge browser or be signed into a Microsoft account.

Vivaldi made the chatbot accessible through the latest version, 6.1, for Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, tablets, and Chromebooks.

Bypassing this restriction, which Vivaldi calls “masquerading,” requires the browser to pretend it is Chrome, which uses less memory and resources to process Microsoft's tool. And, Bing no longer shows "aggressive" advertisements prompting users to download Microsoft Edge.

Vivaldi — which syncs browsing history, passwords, bookmarks and tabs offering encryption — is built on top of the Chromium open-source project. It’s the same core used in Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome.

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Websites that work in one Chromium browser, should also work in others, the company explains. It offers themes like Chrome, but also lets the users remove most of the toolbars and change button icons to improve the customer experience. Think of it as a productivity-type browser.

Vivaldi began running on Google Chrome for better site compatibility on desktop and Android, with better battery life. It reduces crashes and improves system stability. The company made the change in 2019 when it found that some websites were not accessible through the Vivaldi browser. It changed its User-Agent strings that contains the web browser’s name, the name of the operating system, and other technical information.

The access to the Microsoft chatbot, the Vivaldi browser masquerades as Microsoft Edge when visiting Bing. This is how a user can access Bing Chat using Vivaldi on desktop and Android devices. In some parts of the world, the chat is only available through Edge, according to the company.

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