TrackPad/TouchPad Gestures for History Navigation
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@timowen09 This would require harvesting user data, which Vivaldi does not and will not do.
I'm a Desktop, laptop, phone and tablet user. I don't use touchpads because I hate them. I use a mouse for everything but my phone.
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This is now the third time I will be stopping using vivaldi because I always forget this basic feature is not implemented.
Since the time this was requested, the Arc browser went from being a gleam in someone's eye to being released while this top requested feature has still not be implemented.
I know what these kinds of feature requests entail. I understand it is not a trivial task. But it is also not a multi-year process. Make it make sense. Back to brave for now.
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You may not use a touchpad but you're the in the minority here. I don't understand how so many other browsers have this basic functionality and Vivaldi, with all of its customizations, doesn't out of the box. Firefox, Brave, Edge, Chrome, and Internet freaking Explorer can do this but Vivaldi can't?
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@Slownicofish said in TrackPad/TouchPad Gestures for History Navigation:
I use this one in the meantime:
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/swipe-back/mkkcgajcpakpfjgikmekgnihlbhliodoThanks for this. Nice to see what one man can do that an entire team cannot
Here's his github.
https://github.com/golopot/swipe-back -
@hinchyman As explained above in this thread, other browsers have it built into their UI from the beginning, and have dozens of developers to maintain and update it. In the case of every Chromium-based browser but Vivaldi, they are using Chromium's (modified) UI. They don't have to build or maintain it. Chromium already did it for them. And Chromium has limitless resources to develop for hundreds of different kinds of hardware using tens of different kinds of drivers for touchpad, with a wide variety of touchpad default kinds of touch and motion interpretations.
Vivaldi does not and cannot use Chromium UI (and browser-specific touchpad interaction beyond the basics are mediated through the UI for the browser), and so has to write this code, covering all different kinds of touch pads, from scratch.
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@fuller1754 Yes, with two-finger swiping to the left. This is a single most annoying feature in Vivaldi that I could not figure out how to turn it off. Unchecking the mouse gestures in Settings did nothing to it. It's always on and would always inadvertently go back in history when trying to pan an inner panel during horizontal browsing. It would go back in history causing countless loss in unsaved work. It's the single poorly implemented feature of Vivaldi that prevented me from using Vivaldi as default browser.
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@hinchyman Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Baffling to me that in 2024 Vivaldi can't include such basic features. And they assume that because this specific topic doesn't have many upvotes, it means it isn't a desired feature. They won't even do something as basic as collecting telemetry to clearly see that laptop users quit using Vivaldi early because of the poor touchpad support.
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Yeah, I'd love to see 2 finger support. Just started using Vivaldi and a couple of things are pet peeves:
- 2 finger back
- Better integration with Apple autofilled passwords
Other than these 2, Vivaldi seems better in almost every way over Safari and Brave
Keep up the great work guys/girls
R
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hi there,
this is such a popular subject, that it even get discussed in reddit. however, I am using vivaldi for 2 years know and it performs in many aspects. using a touchpad for navigating back and forth is a one handed action. i have configured a shortcut for it, but when it comes to usability, swipe left and right on the trackpad is inrivaled. since navigating key when browsing the internet it is hard to understand, why the function is not available for vivaldi. please, explain and tell us how we can support the devs in implementing it.
peace
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@Slownicofish Thanks a lot! Good extension.
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it's crazy that such a basic functoinality is missing in 2025
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I would really like this feature, please...
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Please also include being able to swipe left and right across the screen for navigating forward and backward. This is a feature in Edge and it's kinda hard to use Vivaldi without the trackpad gestures or the touchscreen gestures backward and forward. This seems like a simple feature but with around 3 hours of using Vivaldi as a first time user, I have tried tho use both touchpad gestures and touchscreen gestures about 60+ times already. Thanks for considering it and I hope to see this feature implemented soon.
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@chriscochrun said in TrackPad/TouchPad Gestures for History Navigation:
Two finger TouchPad gesture for history back navigation and history forward navigation. Basically what the mouse gestures do but allow for two finger support to activate it instead of the alt key or right clicking.
(mod edit: title)
@chriscochrun said in TrackPad/TouchPad Gestures for History Navigation:
Two finger TouchPad gesture for history back navigation and history forward navigation. Basically what the mouse gestures do but allow for two finger support to activate it instead of the alt key or right clicking.
(mod edit: title)
need this badly
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I just noticed, the back gestures exist and are functional within the pwas or windowed shortcuts created with vivaldi. but not within the main browser window.
(right click an open tab, create shortcut (or install) then test the gestures there)
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How is this still not a feature in 2025? 7,5 years old thread..
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To the recent posters in this thread, have you given this workaround a try? It relies on 3 finger swipes instead of 2, but it is an easy adjustment to make once you get used to it.
@nomadic said in TrackPad/TouchPad Gestures for History Navigation:
@jbcrib If you have a Windows Precision Touchpad, then you can fairly easily work around this. (In my case, my touchpad originally used ELAN drivers, but I replaced them with the Windows driver.)
In
Touchpadsettings under theDevicessection of Windows settings, You can find an option calledAdvanced gesture configurationin the column to the right.You can then set either a 3 finger or 4 finger swipe to do forward/backward navigation. I set it to up and down swipes to preserve the original program switching of left/right.
Image showing my settings
While it isn't the 2 finger swipe to the side that you are used to, it is fairly easy to adjust to. As an added benefit, you can navigate forward/back while pinch zoomed in.
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@nomadic
Probably a good suggestion but not for those of us who have trouble with fingers, hands and arms.
Anybody with arthritis or rheumatism.
I could possibly use 4 finger gestures but not three.
I will have to try it tomorrow.
Thanks for the tip. -
This really annoys me, that such basic interaction doesn't work
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Not sure if anyone has suggested this yet, but I've been using a chrome extension called "swipe back" for a couple years now as a workaround. Works with two fingers btw
You can find it here!
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/swipe-back/mkkcgajcpakpfjgikmekgnihlbhliodo?pli=1
