Opera teases upcoming R2 announcement
Opera Software revealed yesterday that it will make an announcement soon about something the company just calls R2 at the moment.
The announcement on the Opera blog reveals little about what R2 could actually be, and the official R2 page on the Opera website does not reveal anything of substance either.
Interested users can sign up on the R2 page to be among the first to be invited to the R2 online event.
The entire message on the Opera blog reads:
Hello,
Some of you may have spotted our new web page where you can sign up to be notified about something new coming soon from Opera.
Today, we have decided to unveil a tiny bit of the mystery, but just enough to keep you interested. If you sign up here, you will be among the first people to be invited to the R2 online event.
We are very excited to share further details with you soon, and we hope you are eager to see what’s coming. We also plan to reveal more about the upcoming event in our social media channels, so make sure to follow us there.
Your Opera Team
While I'm not a fan of announcements of upcoming announcements, something that I see far to often nowadays, I would like to share two theories about Opera R2.
The first, and most likely explanation, is that Opera R2 refers to a second phase of Opera Reborn. Opera revealed Reborn back in February of 2017 when it revealed a new design for the Opera web browser.
Opera Reborn was no complete overhaul of the browser but a gradual change to a modern design that did not turn the browser's interface upside down.
Another possible explanation for R2, albeit one that think is not very likely, is that Opera is about to release the successor of the mail client M2. I don't think it is likely because Opera would have given the project a different codename, probably.
Closing Words
We will soon know what R2 is. My bet is on the second stage of Opera Reborn which would mean that Opera Software will launch a new version of Opera with a modified design soon.
Now You: What is your guess?
I use ivacy vpn and its the best when it comes to security and privacy. They are offering NAT Firewall for additional security.
The current stable version freezes at a cold startup, freezing explorer at the same time and when searching ‘Opera freezes’, this seems an ongoing issue for more users.
I was happy with Opera, but ditched it when after an update my PC stopped halfway through the boot process to the point I had to do a restore from image. What’s more, Vivaldi (Chromium-based too) did the same. So I switched to Waterfox, which actually has more interesting extensions than Opera, and Chrome extensions can be installed in Waterfox too.
Opera can add Chrome extensions with the Install Chrome Extensions, https://addons.opera.com/nl/extensions/details/install-chrome-extensions/
There are more problems. Opera fills the %temp% map with a lot of files lately. VPN is quite slow.
Oh, are they going to fix the proxy? It’s been unusable for all but basic sites for months now.
Warning – Do Not download or use the Opera Browser – Opera Software AS was sold to a Chinese consortium in 2016.
Chinese aren’t any worse than Americans. In fact I’d probably rather give some access to my data to the Chinese rather than Americans just to balance things out and it’s not all Americans with access to everything.
And Chrome and Firefox are made by the Americans, which is even worse.
Yawn.
I would be surprise if they continue presto engine but with different name but thats highly unlikely
if its just reborn 2 i hope they get rid of the “O menu” button its getting tiresome or atleast make it removable.
If I had to guess, it will be a continued redesign of the browser, possibly with an update of the design of the Speed Dial page. It seems Opera is trying to operate somewhere in the middle of Chrome and Vivaldi. Whereas Chrome is very basic and relies on Web Store extensions/themes to bring you greater customization options, Vivaldi takes it in the exact opposite direction to the point it can be somewhat confusing for non-power users. Opera seems to be trying to gobble up people who might want more baked in options and features, but are put off my so many options on Vivaldi (fair or unfair as that may be).
I cannot understand what people are thinking when they say over and over again things like “Vivaldi is confusing for non-power users”.
What does that mean?!
Let’s say you are a regular user.
– You download the Vivaldi installer.
– You install Vivaldi.
– You run Vivaldi.
Does it not run?
Does it not show webpages?
Does it not work with a mouse?
Does it not have a GUI?
Does it not have a menu?
How is it confusing?
What is confusing?
It’s a browser.
It works like a browser.
Where is the confusion?
Can we please stop this narrative about Vivaldi scaring regular users? It makes no sense.
The original Opera browser was fantastic in several ways. Tabbed browsing, a very good email, speed dial and fast. Much better for me as Internet Explorer and Firefox.
I wonder if the developers of the various browser will take up the current uneasiness of people regarding tracking, abuse of user data and the like.
Exposing Zuck is just a start. Hopefully one day you can have more succes if you make both a good browser and are a bit more trustworthy as most of the current developers of browsers.
Comments still disappear :( imgur.com/FxUMUMr
Along with design there is likely to come features. Opera has been quietly doing groundwork for new to come – and last year has seen somewhat a rapid development.
Sure Opera is a distant memory of it’s glory days – always on the leading edge of browser development (such as tabs, speed dial, etc) – it’s is left to see if some features currently locked from users will see light of day.
Search engines, Reborn sidebar and web panels to name a few. Likely some unification is on the way – why not? Opera has a greater feature set than meets the eye. But needs to be freely usable by users. Snap, multi-select tabs and such have been a great start.
>successor of the mail client M2
I would love that!
Sign first and discover later. This is the enhanced version of announcements of upcoming announcements, which itself is the next step of announcements of upcoming events.
Just do it!
I wouldn’t even speculate on the basis of such nerd tactics. Once R2 factual I’ll nevertheless be interested to see what it’s all about. Beware of the meeting syndrome: looks sexy when announced and sometimes deceiving once realized : R2, I do hope not to be disenchanted!
Guess Opera’s popularity must be bad since they’re going for such marketing gimmicks; it’s just a damn browser, not a breathtaking technology that would change our life.
And TBH, I’ve lost interest in Opera since they killed Presto and turn away from everything that old Opera Software was famous for. Vivaldi is the true successor of old Opera despite being running on same Chromium code.
I was a user of the old Opera and am a VIvaldi user but it really hasn’t got anything to do with the old Opera. Yeah some of the same people in the company but as far as the browser goes it’s not fast, it doesn’t have many options and isn’t customizable in general. Wish people stopped romanticising Vivaldi off of the old Opera when they are nothing alike.
Sigh… You are half-right and I feel your sadness, that’s why I sigh.
Vivaldi is romanticised. It is not as awesome and customisable as old Opera. It is not as light. It is not as fast. It has lots of bugs. It could not be any other way. The world in which old Opera was great is no more.
But the fact of the matter is there is nothing else closer to old Opera. NOTHING..
How could people NOT romanticise it?
And the fact that Jon von Tetzchner is leading Vivaldi and is determined to not let it slip out of his hands (as it happened with Opera) is IMMENSELY important.