Tag: opera

When was the last big usability feature introduced in your favorite browser? One that is new and unique? Not speaking of tab groups and vertical tabs support in Firefox. While great and new to users of the browser — if you ignore extensions and Mozilla’s decade-old attempts, they are not particularly new features.

Google and other Chromium browsers supported tab groups for quite some time, and some browsers, like Vivaldi, supported vertical tabs as well. Opera introduced AI-powered tab commands recently and an AI browser operator that acts as the user’s agent.

Opera announced three new features for its gaming browser Opera GX the other day. Not all of them are new as well, but some are. It is a browser for gamers, featuring gaming news and all kinds of gaming related features, including themes and sounds that Opera thinks appeal to gamers.

It is not my preferred browser, but Opera continues to introduce features to it that I find interesting. This particular update introduces three:

• Split tabs — this enables you to display two open websites side by side. Opera says this is ideal for keeping an eye on the game you are playing while using another tab to chat or look up information.
• Tab traces — if you have lots of tabs open, you know that it is sometimes difficult to switch to a tab was active recently. While most browsers on the desktop support the shortcut Ctrl-Shift-Tab or Ctrl-Tab to go back to the previous active tab. Tab traces in Opera GX highlights the five tabs that were active previously, making it a tad easier to switch back and forth between tabs. The minimum number of open tabs for the feature in Opear GX can be configured in the settings.
• Automatic tab islands (tab groups) — Opera GX will create tab groups automatically, if you open links from a page in a new tab. This bundles all links together, so that you get handy options, such as collapsing all tabs at once.

You can check out the blog post on the official Opera blog for additional information.

Split tabs is a useful feature, provided that the browser window is large enough to display two websites side by side without side-scrolling. Tab traces sounds like a useful feature, as it may enable you to locate the previous tabs quickly. Good option for users who do not use shortcuts.

What is your take on these features? Good additions to the browser? Do you use similar features in your browser of choice?

Most interactions with AI follow a chat-like system. You write or say something, and the AI responds. This may go back and forth, for instance when you have follow-up questions or need corrections.

Opera Software unveiled AI Browser Operator today. The integrated AI agent is more capable than traditional AI, as it is designed to act on your behalf.. You could, for instance, ask the Browser Operator in Opera to find and buy something for you on the Internet.

So, if you forgot to buy your significant other an anniversary gift, you could let the AI do all the heavy lifting. What could possibly go wrong.

While you could argue that other AIs can also point you at products on the Internet, Opera’s implementation is not done at that point. It supports you from start to finish according to Opera Software

Here is how Opera Software describes the functionality:

So how does it work? Browser Operator understands your written instructions in natural language using your browser client’s local resources, and our AI Composer Engine processes this information to complete tasks in the browser. Browser Operator will pause and ask you to take action whenever it needs you to fill in a form, confirm an order, or perform some other sensitive task. In this entire process, you are in control and can take over at any moment from Browser Operator, while you can also review all the steps it took to perform the task you requested.

Opera Software says that Browser Operator has been designed with security and privacy in mind. The AI agent does not use screenshots or video captures of the browsing session, and it is not running in the cloud either according to Opera Software.

Browser Operator “runs natively inside your browser” according to the blog post on Opera’s website. It “uses a textual representation of the webpage” for its activity.

Browser Operator is available as a preview at this stage. I checked several Opera installations, including the latest development builds, and did not find it in the sidebar or when using the command line.

Here is the demo video:

Closing Words

The example that Opera Software provided, the buying of socks, is probably not the best when it comes to the capabilities of AI agents. While some Internet users may appreciate that mundane tasks are taken over by AI agents, human interaction is still required throughout the process.

You need to confirm that you want to buy the product the AI found for you, sign in or create an account, enter payment details, and more.

AI agents may shine when it comes to tasks that do not require user confirmation or input after the task has been given. You can let your imagination run wild at this stage. It is fairly certain that agentic AI will play a large role in the coming months and years.

What is your take on this? Would you use an AI agent in the future for certain tasks? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Opera Software introduced several new features to development editions of its browsers in the past couple of months. I reviewed the new tab management and dynamic themes feature just recently.

Today, Opera Software announced the launch of Opera One R2, the next stable version of its web browser. This release is feature-packed, and it includes some good news for users who want to keep using their classic extensions.

The details:

• Opera One R2 is available for all supported desktop platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac).
• It introduces several new features, including dynamic themes and the tab management feature.

Existing users may select Opera Menu > Update & Recovery to download and install the update. New users may download the installer from the Opera website.

Opera One R2: the changes

Opera published a long post on the official blog that details all the changes of the new release. Most of it talks about AI, but there are also changes that are not AI related or at least locally processed instead of in the cloud.

Since I have reviewed one of the features already, I will summarize it quickly only in this article. You can check out the links at the top of the page for detailed reviews.

Dynamic Themes is a new option to customize the look and feel of the browser. They support more than just colors and setting a background image. You may use them to add music, animated backgrounds or change UI elements such as colors. They use the device’s GPU for “smooth rendering”.

Tip: you can reduce animations in the browser in the Settings > Features > User Interface section.

Tab improvements

While Opera has not introduced support for the new AI-powered tab management feature in Opera One R2, it does introduce the following new features:

• Split Screen – This enables you to display two tabs side by side to display two sites at once. This is not a unique feature, as browsers such as Vivaldi or Edge supported this for a well.
• Tab Traces — a memory for the five recently used tabs. Opera adds an underscore to these tabs so that you may identify them quickly from a list of tabs open in the browser.

AI features

A few AI features are now also available for stable Opera One users.

• Image generation — Use AI to generate images. The process is started from the AI command bar or sidebar chat in Opera. Limit is 5 images per day for anonymous users and 30 per day for Opera account users.
• Image understanding — Aria may provide information about images that you upload to the AI.

Other new features

There is more!

• Control music and video from the sidebar – You may now control playback of media from Opera One’s sidebar. Pause or skip media using the feature. You may also add your “preferred streaming service” to the sidebar.
• Detachable videos and video calls
• Multithreaded Compositor – Manages the rendering of the user interface efficiently.
• Support for Manifest V2 extensions remains – Opera announced plans to support Manifest V2 extensions independently of other browsers.

Now you: what is your take on these features? Anything that you find interesting or would make you switch to Opera? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

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 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.

Opera Software announced that on April 10, 2025 that it saw an increase in monthly new users by 63% on iOS one month after the Digital Market Acts came into force in Europe.

Apple, much like Google on Android, is required to display a browser choice screen to users. The aim here is to level the playing field and limit Apple’s and Google’s ability to prioritize their own browsers over others.

Apple iOS users may still select Safari as the default browser. The browser choice screen allows them to pick another browser.

Opera Software claims furthermore that it is also seeing growth in regards to being selected as the default browser on iOS. This metric increased by 39% from March 3rd to April 4th, 2024.

The countries with the largest jump in monthly new users are:

• France with 146%.
• Germany with 57%.
• Spain with 50%.
• Poland with 45%.
• Italy with 20%.

Opera Software does not reveal usage numbers. In 2023, Opera Software said that it had about 350 million users across all supported platforms. Back in 2020, Opera announced that it had reached 300 million users, 232 million on mobile alone.

If the numbers are correct, Opera is seeing significant growth on iOS in Europe.

Other browser makers are also seeing upticks in usage. Brave Software, for example, saw a huge jump in daily installs after the browser choice screen rolled out on iOS.

Mozilla too reported that it saw a jump in users in select European countries. The organization said that its German users increased by 50% and the users in France by 30% in the time.

Closing Words

Even if you do not use any of the browsers, it is good to see efforts to level the playing field. Apple having to allow other browsing engines on iOS is another milestone. While Apple seems to fight this in different ways, it is probably only a matter of time before pure Chromium and Firefox browsers are launching on iOS.

Which browser do you prefer on mobile?

Opera GX’s browser is not the web browser that I use the most, but I check it our regularly just to see what Opera has been adding to it since the last time.

This time, Opera is introducing a full-fledged modification for the browser. Its new Cyberpunk 2077 Mod takes browser themes to the next level.

Apart from the usual — giving the browser UI a splash of fresh paint — it is delivering these features:

• Dynamic Wallpaper that changes based on the time of day.
• Custom Cyberpunk sounds and background music.
• Custom themes supporting RGB sync.
• Optional shader effect.

Not all of the options may be enabled by default. It depends on the current configuration. The optional shader effect is turned off by default, as it turns browsing into quite the experience.

If you played Cyberpunk 2077, you know about cyberpsychosis. It is a mental illness caused by an overload of cybernetic augmentations to the human body. The optional shader effect simulates a mild form of that in the browser.

Here is how it looks:

Not something that you would want to experience regularly, but a fun effect nevertheless.

Opera published a video that highlights the new mod:

How to install the Cyberpunk 2077 Mod

You need the Opera GX browser, which you can download from Opera’s website. Installation is quick. You may want to block data collecting and the like while you are at it.

Once you have installed the browser, load the official Opera GX store here. Activate the “show me” button under Official Cyberpunk 2077 on the page and hit the install button to add it to the browser. This works in desktop and mobile versions of Opera GX.

The mod is enabled automatically. You get the fresh paint, dynamic wallpaper and sounds by default.

Note that you may configure all of these in the Settings under Sounds, Background music, and Shaders.

Closing Words

I enjoyed Cyberpunk 2077 and its only expansion. While gameplay was solid, what kept me entertained the most was the underlying setting. Heck, I even picked a cyberpunk term for the domain name of my website.

Bringing a game mod to the browser is interesting. It may not appeal to the masses, but fans may like it very much. Whether it will persuade them to switch browsers remains to be seen, but I’d say that most won’t switch because of this. They may however take notice of the browser and may even use it as a browser on their devices.

What about you? Would you pick a browser based on a theme or mod that you find interesting?