A new kid appeared a few days ago in the world of internet browsers. Its name is Vivaldi and promises to be full of talent (like his musician namesake).
The project was initiated by Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, co-founder and former CEO of Opera Software, which he left in 2011 following disagreements over the future development of the Opera web browser…
The goal of the Vivaldi team is to develop “[…] a new browser. A browser for them and their friends. A browser that is fast, feature-rich, highly flexible and puts the user first."
In addition to a modern and functional design, Vivaldi relies on a whole series of features intended to simplify the lives of its users:
- lots of customizable keyboard shortcuts that will allow you to do without the mouse
- a system for taking notes that will remain associated with a website and to which you can easily attach screenshots
- favorites management based on your interests
- the ability to group tabs by stacking them
These features can be enhanced later through extensions developed by third parties (as the main popular web browsers already do).
A version is already downloadable at this address, but the team makes it clear that this is just a technical preview that is not perfect and is intended to show the broad directions they want to give to their browser. Some features are not yet implemented and others require optimizations.
One thing is certain, a bit of renewal in the very closed and oligopolistic world of internet browsers is excellent news... on the other hand Vivaldi will have to fight to make its mark against competitors who dominate the market (Chrome with 31.6% at the end of June 2014 in Europe, Internet Explorer 21.3%, Firefox 19.6% and Safari 19.5% according to AT Internet). But Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner is not new to this!
Article updated on March 31, 2025 by Byothe
