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Opera's ex-CEO releases his finished web browser for power users

Vivaldi 1.0 is here, and ready to do what Opera doesn't.

Do you miss the days when it felt like Opera was focused more on avid web surfers than the broader public? So does Opera's former CEO Jon von Tetzchner. He just released the finished version of Vivaldi, a web browser that caters primarily to power users that thrive on customization and shortcuts. It has Opera mainstays like Speed Dial (quick access to favorite sites from new tabs), but it also has tab stacks, mouse gestures, annotation, browser sessions and even the option to view websites in a sidebar. In short, it's all about removing clutter and speeding things up. Vivaldi even supports Chrome extensions (it's based on Chromium), so you shouldn't have to scrounge for replacement add-ons.

The completed release is available on Linux, OS X and Windows. It's too soon to say how well 1.0 works in practice, since many of its features only really come into their own when you use Vivaldi on a daily basis. However, it should be a breath of fresh air if you're tired with the usual choices -- it's fast and is rife with options that you rarely see in browsers nowadays.