Vivaldi says about half of all the 2.0 features come from user feedback and suggestions. The Web browser is likely the most important piece of software on your hardware, whatever that hardware may be. In fact, whenever a new bit of hardware arrives that somehow lacks a way to browse the Web, invariably one of the first things enthusiasts will do is figure out a way to run a browser on it.

Despite their ubiquity, though, there remains very little difference between common Web browsers. Most people seem to get by with whatever was installed by default, and no wonder. Modern browsers like Edge, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera are largely indistinguishable both in appearance and features—why bother with one over the other?

But this uniformity is its own choice, the result of a particular approach to software development. The prevailing wisdom of the moment is that Web browsers should be like children of the Victorian Age: seen and not heard. Or, maybe more specifically in the case of browsers, neither seen nor heard.