Opera founder finally launches Vivaldi web browser

Bored with IE, Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Opera?

Jon von Tetzchner, the developer behind the Opera web browser, has finally released the first version of the Vivaldi web browser.

Built for "power users", the browser has been developed from the ground up, notwithstanding the use of the Blink rendering engine, part of the Chromium open-source project, and is intended to be more resource efficient than rivals, particularly Google Chrome. However, the browser can also run extensions built for Chrome.

Von Tetzchner claims that rival browsers, including Chrome and Microsoft's new Edge browser, have been simplified and stripped of user-controlled features and functions. Vivaldi, in contrast, is intended to more customisable and less of a drain on resources.

Features include "tab stacks", the ability to group browser tabs together, and web panels, enabling some web sites (such as Twitter, for example) to be permanently open in the browser, while browsing other sites. Users can also save sessions for retrieval later.

"Vivaldi 1.0 adapts to you, not the other way around," says Tetzchner. "We made Vivaldi the most customisable browser in existence, based on feedback provided by millions of users. In fact, there are more than one million different ways to make Vivaldi your perfect browser."

Future releases will integrate an email client - a process von Tetzchner insists "isn't trivial" - and the ability to synchronise bookmarks, settings extensions, although that is on the roadmap. What won't make it into Vivaldi, says von Tetzchner, is an ad blocker, as Vivaldi is ultimately funded by advertising generated via search engines every time someone uses the integrated search feature.

Von Tetzchner (pictured) co-founded Opera Software in 1994 when the web browser he was working on for Norway's incumbent national telecoms company Telenor was spun-out. The first official release of the browser came almost 21 years ago to the day in April 1995.

Opera gained a reputation for pioneering new browser features that would be later copied by rivals. Features included tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, in-private browsing and the speed dial - using the blank page to enable users to bookmark web pages.

While the Windows desktop web browser rarely commanded more than a five per cent global market share, it was popular in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and other parts of the world requiring less resource-intensive browsers with more privacy features.

Opera Mini and Opera Mobile also proved popular as the mobile market shifted from feature phones to smartphones. Opera claims some 350 million users worldwide - more than 290 million of them using mobile browsers.