Vivaldi

This is what happens when the co-founder of Opera Software becomes disenchanted with the direction the company takes and becomes displeased with how the Opera web browser evolves. He leaves the company and starts to work on a new web browser, one that goes back to the core belief that browsers should be really fast and capable of running on limited hardware.

That new web browser is Vivaldy – a browser made by a passionate team of people who want to create something that is fast, flexible, puts the user first, and has rich functionality to offer.

John von Tetzchner, co-founder and former CEO of Opera Software, founded Vivaldi Technologies in December 2013. The Vivaldi.net community site was launched the same year; it features a forum, blogs, chat, photo sharing and a free email service named Vivaldi Mail.

John von Tetzchner released the Vivaldi web browser to the public, as a technical preview, on January 27, 2015. On the same date, Opera Software released the first browser update of the year, Opera 27 for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

At the time of writing this, Vivaldi is a technical preview. However, you can see that this is a great piece of software. Vivaldi offers all the functionality you would expect to get from a modern browser: tabbed interface, customizable speed dial, bookmarks, mail client, notes, contacts, quick commands, multiple search engines, and more.

Vivaldi entered a market that has its fair share of powerful web browsers. It remains to be seen if the browser will be a hit. All I can say right now is that things look promising.