Category: News

Opera

Opera supports AI-powered Tab Management now – this is how it works

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

The latest Opera Developer build comes with improved AI integration. Opera highlights new tab management options, including the ability to group or close tabs based on your instructions.

Commands such as “close all YouTube tabs” or “create tab groups for all open tabs” should work now. Opera says that everything is processed locally on the user device.

The details:

  • You need the latest Opera Developer build for that. It is not yet in Beta or Stable.
  • Supported commands are close, group, pin, or save as bookmarks.
  • The feature works only if you have at least 5 tabs open.

Did you know? Opera launched Dynamic Themes recently as well.

Opera One: first look at the new dynamic themes feature of the browser

Opera Aria: tab management

All you have to do is activate the Aria interface with a click on “Ask Aria” or the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+). In some countries, it is Ctrl-Shift-7 instead. The Aria toolbar entry highlights the shortcut.

The prompt pops up in the middle of the browser window. All you have to do now is to type the command.

If you type “close YouTube” and have more than 5 tabs open in Opera, Opera will close all YouTube tabs. This worked considerably well. I added a few YouTube related pages from other sites, and they remained open.

When asked to close any tab that contains the term YouTube, Opera did not comply and closed only the YouTube domain tabs.

It is likely programmed to look only at the domain name when closing tabs.

Similarly, when I asked it to group all YouTube tabs, it would only add YouTube domain tabs to the group.

That is a somewhat of a let down, but the feature will likely be improved in future versions of the Opera browser.

Closing Words

I was not a huge fan of AI in browsers up until now. Reasons are that I do not want data to be transferred to a cloud server so that AI can process it. This is the case for Chrome’s and Edge’s automatic tab management features.

Opera says that Aria’s tab feature runs locally, which is good. While tab management powered by AI is not really something that you need when you have ten or so tabs open, I can see it useful in some scenarios.

Quickly grouping all vacation related tabs or bookmarking them can be useful. Sure, you can also do that manually, but AI may speed things up.

If you have two hundred or so tabs open, it may save you time. If, a big one, Aria gets it right every time. If the AI misses tabs or deletes the wrong ones, that could turn into an ugly situation unless you backup tabs regularly.

All in all though, it is an interesting addition that I will keep an eye on.

What is your take on this? Can you see yourself typing commands to an AI to manage tabs? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

AI Blocklist blocks AI-generated images from image search engines

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

AI is widely used to generate images. There are numerous services available to generate images using AI. All it takes are instructions and the AI generates the image.

These images may be published and they may land in search engines. It is often difficult to distinguish them from human-created images. If you do not want these in search, then you may be interested in AI Blocklist.

It contains about 1,000 URLs currently that are known to publish AI-generated images. When you apply the blocklist in content blockers like uBlock Origin, these will be blocked from image search engines such as Google Images or Bing Images.

You may be interested in this as well:

Keep on blocking in a free world: how to switch from Chrome to Firefox

The list can be installed in several ways and the GitHub repository has instructions for uBlock Origin, uBlacklist, AdGuard and Pi-Hole.

Good to know: uBlacklist is an extension that blocks domains that you specify from search results.

Install the AI Blacklist in uBlock Origin

Here is how you install the list in uBlock Origin:

  1. Activate the icon of the uBlock Origin extension in the browser that you are using.
  2. Click or tap on the cogwheel-icon in the interface that opens.
  3. Switch to the Filter lists tab.
  4. Expand the Import section at the bottom of the page.
  5. Paste the following address into it: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/laylavish/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/main/list.txt
  6. Click apply changes.

The list is now activate. Note that you can open it in the browser directly to check it out before you apply it.

To remove it, simply delete the line under import and select apply changes again.

Since it is a web-based list, it is updated in uBlock Origin whenever the list is updated on the GitHub repository.

Additional instructions are available on the Github repository. There you also find instructions in integrating the list in AdGuard or Pi-Hole.

Closing Words

The extension is useful if you search for images regularly and want to reduce AI-generated images in the search results. The maintainer says that it works better in uBlacklist, as it is designed specifically for filtering sites in search engines.

Do you use filters to block certain sites or content in search? Or do you simply skip that content when you encounter it? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Arc Browser maker considering subscription-based features

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Arc Browser is a relatively recent web browser that is based on Chromium. About a year ago, the CEO of the Browser Company, Josh Miller, answered a question in a video that has been on the mind of many: how will the company make money with Arc Browser.

Part of the answer included revenue opportunities that the company would not pursue. This included selling user data. Among the listed possibilities that Arc was pursuing was specific Enterprise editions and also a feature called Boosts.

Boosts are small modifications to certain features on websites. There are boosts to increase the interface of AI chat clients, to blur information in chats, or to localize game times on sports websites.

This may remind veteran Internet users of userScripts, which use a combination of JavaScript and CSS for changing functionality on websites.

Some Arc features may require a subscription

New information about future monetization came to light in an interview with Josh Miller at The Verge.

Here are the main takeaways:

  • Current functionality will remain free. Nothing is going to be taken away to justify paying for the product.
  • Subscriptions are one option, but nothing has been decided on yet.
  • Other options are “usage-based” or “some sort of token system” according to Miller.

The idea seems to be to introduce new features that are either exclusive to paying users or less limited than a free version.

Closing Words

I tried Arc Browser several times. While I like some features, It is clearly lacking features in other departments that I want in a browser. I do dislike the forced account registration on start.

It seems at least that the company won’t remove features from the browser to put them behind a subscription or other form of payment.

It remains to be seen what the future will hold for Arc. It will get interesting if the monetization plans to not lead to the required results from investors.

Have you tried Arc Browser? Feel free to write a comment down below.

Metager

MetaGer Search Engine drops free version because of Yahoo

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

MetaGer is a privacy-focused search engine that is run by a German non-profit organization. One of its appeals, apart from its focus on privacy, was that you could run searches across multiple search engines.

It also included an interesting feature to search within search results, and to maintain a personal blacklist.

Up until now, you could use an advertisement-powered version or a paid version of the search engine. This changed this week when the maintainers of MetaGer announced that they cannot offer the free version anymore.

The organization claims that Yahoo has terminated contracts that allowed them to run a free version of the search engine with ads.

The version contributed the most to the revenue of the organization. Most expenses were paid from that revenue. With that revenue dropping to zero, MetaGer says that it cannot afford to offer the free version of the search engine anymore.

While that is not the end of MetaGer, as the paid version remains available, it will push the search engine even more into a niche.

About the paid version: The paid version works with tokens. A search requires one token and one hundred token cost $1. In other words, you pay $1 for every 100 searches on the MetaGer platform.

Plans were underway to reduce the dependency on Yahoo

The maintainers admit that they were aware of the Yahoo dependency. Yahoo could make the business collapse like a house of cards if it would terminate the contract.

First steps to reduce the dependency on Yahoo were undertaken. The introduction of a paid ad-free option added a new revenue source.

Next, the organization had plans to introduce its own advertising platform on the site. This would have allowed MetaGer to broker deals with partners directly and earn direct advertising revenue. It would have cut the middlemen out of the equation as well.

Paid memberships increased, but it would have taken several years before full independence according to the organization.

The future of MetaGer

MetaGer continues to be available, albeit only as a paid search engine. Users who want to use the search engine need to buy tokens to do so.

Development and maintenance is reduced, and operation will be reduced to a “very small scale” to make sure the search engine can survive.

Users of MetaGer can help the project through donations or by becoming paid members. Payment options include sending cash per letter or through one of the many available online payment options.

Closing Words

Whether MetaGer can manage with donations and the paid version alone remains to be seen. It is unclear if an agreement with another search engine, Microsoft’s Bing comes to mind, could change the situation for the organization.

Have you heard of MetaGer or even used the search engine? What is your take on the development? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

PS5 Pro Price

The Price of the discless Sony PS5 Pro is insane

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Sony announced the PlayStation 5 Pro officially today on YouTube during a tech reveal. It pretty much offers what leakers revealed weeks and months ago already. It is a system that is more powerful than the regular PlayStation 5 and supports AI upscaling.

I have to admit that I had plans to buy it. I’m not a huge gamer anymore, but I like to play from time to time. I did own a PS5 in the past, but sold it as I ran out of games to play.

The PS5 Pro would have been a good replacement, but the price is so far off that I won’t buy it. Here are the details:

  • Base PlayStation 5 Pro costs $699, £699 or €799. No disc drive, no vertical stand, but 2TB of storage, fully compatible with hardware, games and accessories.
  • Disc drive costs extra $79 in the US. In the EU, it costs €119.99.
  • Vertical stand is an extra $29 in the US. In the EU, it costs €29.99.

If you want a full PS5 with disc drive and stand, you end up with $800 in the US and almost €950 in the EU. That is without any games.

You can buy a good gaming PC for that money that plays more games and does a lot of other things that the PS5 Pro does not support.

Here is the presentation video, in case you are interested.

Maybe the price will come down eventually, but for now, it is one hell of an expensive console to buy.

Are you a gamer? What is your take on the price of the PS5 Pro? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Opera One: first look at the new dynamic themes feature of the browser

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Opera Software has launched a new Opera One developer update that introduces a new feature in the browser.

Called Dynamic Themes, it is adding animation to themes in the Opera browser.

Opera explains:

The new dynamic Themes are built using the Shaders technology and are rendered using your device’s GPU. You can configure each Theme using the configuration page’s multi-dimensional color picker – meaning you can play with endless combinations to find your favorites.

The initial version launched with three dynamic themes:

  • Classic
  • Aurora – dark mode theme.
  • Polar Winds – light mode theme.

The Classic theme is the only one that has not shaders. As such, it should have “zero impact” on the computer’s performance, according to Opera. The two other themes do use shaders.

Here is how Aurora looks like:

Aurora theme Opera

And here is Polar Winds:

Polar Windows Theme Opera

Note that you can customize the theme when you select it. Here is how that works:

  • Make sure you have the latest Opera Developer build installed.
  • Open a new tab in the browser.
  • Click on the “Easy Setup” icon in the browser’s address bar.
  • Select Choose Theme.

Here you get to choose one of the three themes. Remember, the only one supporting light and dark mode is the classic theme.

Once you have picked a theme you are taken to the configuration screen. Here you can modify certain parameters and use a slider to pick a color theme.

Other options may include disabling animations, or, in the case of Polar Winds, keyboard and browser sounds. The classic theme gives you options to set a custom wallpaper.

Opera saves the custom themes automatically and displays them as options whenever you launch easy setup again. It is an easy way to switch between different themes in the browser.

To make things even easier, you may also use the keyboard shortcut Alt-Shift-T to switch between the last ten theme configurations on Windows (Alt-Shift-T on Mac).

Opera plans to launch more themes before the feature gets released to stable builds.

What is your take on sound, animations, and other visuals in web browsers? Is that something you like and (would) use, or turned off immediately instead? Let us know in the comments below.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp: set an optional username and Pin for protection against unwanted messages

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

WhatsApp is working on a new feature that is intended to improve the privacy of its users. The main idea adds two new features to the messaging service:

  • Let users create a username, which they then may share with others instead of their phone number.
  • Add a Pin to the username to block unwanted messages to that username.

Any WhatsApp user may contact any other user on the platform currently. All that is required for that is a phone number. While the contacted user has the option to block any further messages or communication attempts, it is still a major nuisance.

WhatsApp users who want to communicate with someone on WhatsApp need to hand out their phone number to do so currently. This may not be a problem for someone trusted, but it could very well end in disaster for others.

Did you know? WhatsApp is also working on limiting spam messages by blocking messages from unknown accounts that exceed a certain limit.

The optional username addresses this. Instead of handing out the phone number, you could create and then hand out the username only. This protects the phone number, but still allows others to communicate with you on WhatsApp.

The pin adds a second layer of protection. While completely optional, it will prompt anyone for the pin when trying to contact WhatsApp users using their username.

WhatsApp users who pick a popular or common name for their username may want to add a pin, as spammers may start to send messages to these names in the hope that they have been created by someone on the platform.

WABetaInfo reports that the feature is in testing in the latest Beta version of WhatsApp. Not every beta tester is given access to new features and it may take some time before a feature is rolled out to more users.

There is also the chance that a feature is never making it into stable WhatsApp. Only time will tell if and when we are going to see the new username and pin option.

Closing Words

Adding a username option to WhatsApp makes a lot of sense from a user’s privacy point of view. WhatsApp is no longer just used to communicate with friends or family. Even in some of those cases, you may prefer not to hand out your phone number.

What is your take on this new feature? Would you create a username, if WhatsApp would launch it? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Android

Your Android smartphone could soon have a floating taskbar

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Android 15 could ship with a taskbar on smartphones. This taskbar works similarly to the one known from tablets or operating systems such as Windows.

Android Authority’s Mishaal Rahman discovered the taskbar feature recently and has published information about its functionality and current state.

Up until recently, taskbars on smartphones were frowned upon. Google, Apple, and the manufacturers of other mobile operating systems focused on minimalism instead.

While Google did implement a taskbar in Android 12 for Android tablets and the new foldable category of phones, it continued its work in future releases.

The initial release fixed the taskbar on the screen. One year later, Google introduced an option to hide the taskbar.

The idea behind this was simple: free up as much room as possible for apps or websites viewed by the user.

In Android 15 Beta 4, Rahman discovered a new “tiny” taskbar feature. While not enabled by default, Rahman found a way to enable it to check it out.

He published a video on YouTube that shows his efforts:

Here is what is known right now:

  • The smartphone taskbar functions exactly like its bigger cousin for tablets and foldables.
  • It has place for fewer shortcuts.
  • Google could implement both the old and new taskbar layout. The main differentiating factor is the position of the taskbar on the screen.

The taskbar for smartphones is a work in progress. It may be included in Android 15 because of that.

While not all Android users may want to use a taskbar on their devices, there are probably a few that like the idea. The main benefit is that it offers faster access to certain apps or functions.

Whether that is enough to warrant the display of the taskbar on the screen is up for the individual user to decide.

I would probably never use the feature outside of testing.

What is your take on this? Would you use a taskbar on Android devices, if Google would launch it as part of Android 15? Feel free to write a comment down below.

Google is testing a compact mode in Chrome

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Whenever there is an option to turn on a compact mode, I pick it. The main reason for that is that compact mode removes whitespace so that more content is displayed on the screen at the same time.

Google is testing a compact mode for its Chrome web browser. An experimental flag was added in Chrome Canary that adds the mode to the browser.

Compact Mode reduces the height of the user interface elements tabstrip and other toolbars, including the bookmarks toolbar. Google says that this frees up space for web content.

Here is how you enable it:

  1. Load chrome://flags/#compact-mode in the browser’s address bar.
  2. Set the status of the experimental flag to Enabled.
  3. Restart Google Chrome.
  4. Right-click on a blank spot on the tabstrip and select Toggle Compact Mode.

The change is immediate, a restart of the browser is not required. Repeat the steps listed above to restore the regular interface of the Chrome browser.

Chrome Compact Mode vs. Normal Mode

Here is a before and after screenshot for comparison:

The normal Chrome user interface
The normal Chrome user interface
The new Compact interface of the Chrome browser
The new Compact interface of the Chrome browser

The height of the toolbars is reduced, which means that they take up less space. It is a useful feature for users who want compact toolbars to free up room for web content displayed in the browser.

Note: Google lists compact mode as a prototype right now. Since it is an experimental flag, it is not guaranteed that the feature will make it into stable Chrome. It could change before it lands or it could be pulled entirely by Google before Stable users can set their sights on the feature.

Closing Words

I prefer compact modes, but this is not enough to convince me to make Chrome my default browser. It would go too far to list my reasons here, but I prefer browsers that are not run by advertising companies.

What is your preference? Compact Mode all the time or do you prefer other modes? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Microsoft Bing

Microsoft working on next step to make AI centerpiece of Bing Search

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

In some years from today, search engines will likely look completely different. The traditional way of showing links to websites that match the search query best, at lest according to the search engine that you are using, is being phased-out.

The replacement comes in form of AI generations. AI takes the user’s query, generates a response and returns it to the user.

Microsoft revealed a new experiment that it runs on Bing currently that is shifting towards this.

When a user runs a search, Bing will use an AI-generated response for the search results page. It is the first thing that the user sees. While there are regular web links attached afterwards, most searches tend to focus what happens above the fold.

So, AI generates a result and Bing shows it to the searcher first. This includes links to sources and Microsoft says that this will drive more traffic to sites than regular search pages. The claim is not backed up, though.

AI generated results do not work equally well on all types of user searches. Search for something new or unique, and you may not get an answer that you find sufficient.

Search for common knowledge, and you may get an answer that you find useful. AI may still hallucinate and display answers that are factually incorrect.

The future of search

For sources to be included in the answers of AIs, they need to allow them to be crawled. Any source that does not, either for exclusive deals with certain companies or for other reasons, won’t have their pages linked by the AI.

While Microsoft says otherwise, it seems clear that this new type of search format benefits larger websites more than smaller ones. Lesser known sites will be pushed further down still, which will likely reduce traffic further to them.

Google, Microsoft, and other search companies are interested in keeping searches on their properties. Direct answers, integrated tools, and other services are added constantly to search engines to keep searchers, and their eyes on ads, on the search engine’s site.

Plenty of smaller publishers have given up in the past already. Remember Freeware Genius? An excellent site for freeware recommendations. The site was heavily punished by Google Search for unknown reasons and died because of that.

Samer, the creator of the site, never found out why his site tanked in first place.

The trend will continue. Bing, Google, and others will use AI to keep searchers longer on their sites.

What about you? Do you find AI results useful?