Hands-on with Vivaldi, the new Web browser for power users

It's been a long time since a brand new desktop browser landed on the Web. Web newcomers might even be forgiven for thinking that there have always been just four such browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.

After the vicious early days when the world of Web browsers closely resembled the ruthless world of the railroad barons a century earlier, the browser market settled down to something pretty boring. First there was IE and Firefox. A few years later, Apple introduced Safari. Several years after that, Google launched Chrome. And since Chrome arrived in 2008, the Web hasn't seen another major browser launch—until now.

The browser is dead, long live the browser

Part of the reason no one seems to be building new browsers is that it's a massive undertaking. Another part, though, is likely due to the rise of mobile devices, which have spawned a thousand browsers that are all quietly, invisibly embedded into other applications.

Site-specific mobile applications like the Facebook or Twitter apps push the browser into the background. When you click a link in these apps, the pages just appear. Behind the scenes an embedded browser handles everything without switching to whatever dedicated browser might be installed on the device at hand. In fact, there's little need for a dedicated Web browser at all these days if you spend most of your time in mobile applications.

Desktop browsers have largely followed this overall trend of slipping into the background. Every new release sees them simplifying their interfaces and removing features that their data collection tools indicate are only used by a small handful. RSS icons disappear, toolbars get hidden away, the URL bar will likely disappear soon for many.

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