What's so bad about Opera? The ads are there for two reasons, first so they can provide a free browser of sorts, and second, so they can make money to continue development of their product. The browser only costs $39 and is currently on sale for $29. I can think of many pieces of crapware that are overpriced much more than that (*cough* Windows, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Office *cough*). When you really get down to it, $40 is not that unreasonable for arguably one of the most used applications on your sytem, your browser.
Second, the toolbars may be cluttered, but that can very easily be changed. You can customize them yourself, or if you're feeling really lazy, just set it to Opera's "minimalistic" default.