Browse the web in a secure environment with built-in ad-blocker, secure VPN connections and website compression for faster web page loading. It supports customization using extensions and themes, as well as Opera Turbo.
Browsing the Web does not need to be a dangerous activity in terms of privacy, it does not need to be slow, and it certainly should not require you to fight all kinds of ads to reach the content you were looking for. Opera offers you, among many other features, a free VPN solution to protect your privacy, an ad blocker to get rid of annoying ads, and a Chrome-based architecture to guarantee high-speed browsing.
Though the number of Opera users seems to have remained stable (and in the lower ranks) for the last few years, the Norwegian company hasn’t stopped innovating to offer you (us, actually) a lightning-fast and secure browser to make the most of our browsing experience. Why such a comprehensive and free browser does not seem to take off for good is (in terms of functionality alone) beyond me – it is just as fast as Chrome (the most widely used browser in the market), it includes a free VPN solution, private browsing, two workspaces, a search-in-tabs function, a built-in snapshot tool, etc. All of these features can only be found in this browser, together with many others that I’ll leave for you to discover, and still it struggles to go over the 5% of the market share.
If not the most popular browser, Opera can be surely labelled as the most innovative one, even though it’s the oldest of the top five. Opera developers brought us the “dark & light mode”, now available in Chrome as well; the pop-out video feature, that can also be found now in Chrome and Firefox, and some other innovative utilities that are still exclusive to this browser – i.e., the Ad Blocker and the customizable speed dials. Opera’s pop-up blocking is by far superior to whatever similar solution you may find in its closest competitors. However, while blocking pop-up windows and ads does not seem to be a problem, blocking suspicious or malicious websites is actually one of its few cons (its lack of parental control features is just another one).
Opera remains the most customizable browser among the most widely used ones, it’s been a source of inspiration for more popular browsers, it has invented things we now take for granted (such as multi-tab browsing), it is as fast as any other Chrome-based browser, it consumes less resources (including RAM memory) than all of its competitors, and it is just as intuitive – if not more – than any of the four browsers with a higher market share. Still, this excellent browser hasn’t managed to convince software developers or users of its many advantages. I cannot but recommend that you download, install, and enjoy using this browser.
v35.0 [Dec 16, 2015]
In this version, we focused on removing duplicate bookmarks, introducing a separate search bar, cleaning up the settings page and a few other improvements.
No duplicate bookmarks
We introduced a duplicate-removal tactic in Opera 35. When you aren’t signed in and syncing, the algorithm is pretty straightforward: we pick candidates for the duplicates removal based on their ID in the bookmarks model. If you are syncing, things get a little bit trickier because we cannot remove duplicates until they known to the server. Otherwise, we introduce duplicates again. We saw in our logs that duplicates are no longer an issue.
A(n optional) separate search box
In Opera 35, the search box appears as an advanced setting. If you enable it, the separate search box will appear next to the heart button in the browser chrome.
A cleaner settings page
We introduced a “basic” section in Opera 35, where you can decide about browser’s behavior on startup, how downloaded files will be saved, change your theme and more.
A more basic browser vocabulary
Instead of enigmatic word that states our brand, the term “menu” describes the feature itself. We saw that many more people clicked on the menu when it was labeled “menu” instead of “Opera”. It’s similar to the change we made from our previous Discover feature to the more generic and function “news”.
Minor changes intended for new users
We made another simple change: when you install Opera, we maximize the window on the first run, so you have one less click to worry about before using the app. And, there’s more for new users. Now, it is easier to turn on the bookmarks bar from the heart-menu popup. We decided to give you a choice to turn it on, when you need it.
Improvements under the hood
One of the most important changes we made under the hood migrates all the internal pages (start page, about, etc.) from a technology called WebUI to Chromium’s new Private API. All JavaScript communication is now done through this new extension API. It gives us better structure and we can maintain our code more easily. We’ve been gradually moving to this API for a while and we’re not changing just to make our lives easier. In Opera 35, we upgraded the download manager to this API and restyled it. It is not just nicer version of the previous one, but it is also gives you quick links to PDFs, documents, images and more.
Less unfinished downloads
Now, Opera will ask for confirmation if you want to close browser when you are still downloading in the background.
Improvements to muting tabs
Now, you can easily turn off the sound for a tab using a mute button. There are many more use-cases you provided us during our testing on the developer channel. We made the context menu richer, so when you right-click on a tab with sound, you can mute your other tabs.
Mall Creeps
