Ever since Opera turned into a Chromium clone, its desktop version has fallen into deep irrelevance. In fact, it no longer even has its own identity, and many statistics systems already add its numbers to those of Chrome. According to Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, former CEO and co-founder of Opera, the only solution is a new browser, and that is how we come across the first technical preview of Vivaldi.
It is never pleasant to discover that our favorite programs lose their original focus and end up stalled under the excuse of wanting to reinvent themselves or respond to market demands. We have seen many cases in the past, but one of the most recent is probably Opera. Since it abandoned its engine in February 2013 and joined the long list of Chromium-based clones, Opera has not managed to surpass one percent of market adoption. If there was something to highlight about the old Opera, it was its wide repertoire of features: email client, BitTorrent downloads, Speed Dial, advanced tab management... the list goes on. From its humble position, Opera made a lot of noise, reduced dependence on extensions, and kept a loyal user base.
This last point is the reason Vivaldi exists. In March 2014, Opera's current administrators decided to shut down the My Opera community. Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, former CEO and co-founder of Opera, was particularly upset by the decision, since from his point of view, it was the users who helped develop Opera. Vivaldi was first a replacement for My Opera, but today it is taking its first steps to become a stable, fast, lightweight, and efficient browser with an emphasis on advanced features. One of the most important aspects is the ability to manage tabs in small groups, avoiding a long row of tabs at the top. It also offers quick commands with various keyboard shortcuts and an annotation system. The rest of the features are on the way, and we will see things like the return of an integrated email client and support for extensions, although the idea is to minimize their presence.
As always happens in these cases, Vivaldi must be taken with a grain of salt. We are dealing with a technical preview that could blow up in our faces without warning, and under no circumstances should it be used as a primary browser. Even so, the feeling is that Vivaldi flies. HTML5 video loading on YouTube is impressive, and this extends to naturally heavy portals like Facebook. On the other side, many keyboard shortcuts do not work, the interface needs to purge sharp edges (if that includes the flat look 'à la Windows 8', even better), and it opens at least five processes even with a single tab, leading to higher than normal memory consumption. We must be patient and watch its evolution. The promise of becoming Opera's heir has been made. We will see if it delivers.
