Opera 60 (Reborn 3) launches
Opera Software released Opera 60, also known as Reborn 3, to the Stable channel of the Opera browser on April 9, 2019.
The company aims high with the release stating that it is "setting a new standard for browsers". Broken down to core changes, Opera 60 launches with a redesigned interface, integration of a crypto wallet and support for making transactions using cryptocurrency.
Check out our coverage of Reborn 1 and Reborn 2 If you have missed the first two Reborn waves.
Opera users who run a stable version of the web browser already may open opera://update to run a check for updates. The browser should pick up the new version automatically and install it. Those new or on different channels can download the latest version from the Opera website instead.
Opera 60
The new design is the first thing that you will notice on first start. New designs are a tightrope walk as you don't want to scare existing users away while making sure that the new design is noticeable enough and pleasing to users of the browser.
Opera 60 comes with a light and dark theme that users may switch between. We talked about the theme previously when we looked at the update earlier when it launched in the Developer version of Opera.
Just load opera://settings in the Opera address bar and toggle the "Enable dark theme" option to switch between light and dark themes in the browser.
With the light theme, your entire browser, including the sidebar and tab area, is bright and clean. To us, this evokes a feeling of openness and optimism. We designed it to spark productivity and to lift your mood.
The dark theme signifies to us a certain elegance and focus. It turns the browser dark and subdued, almost mysterious. But on a practical note, it’s also soothing for the eyes.
The theme is not revolutionary but veteran Opera users will notice that some items were moved around and that there are some smaller differences like the address bar fading in the toolbar when it is not enabled.
Web 3
Opera 60 supports Web 3 and with it cryptocurrency transactions and a crypto wallet. Support is limited to Ethereum at the time but support for Opera wants to add support for other crypto currencies in future builds.
Opera supports so-called dApps, or decentralized applications on the Ethereum blockchain. Opera users need to enable the Crypto Wallet under opera://settings/vpn first; doing so adds a new entry to the sidebar menu.
It seems, at least on first glance, that it is necessary to install Opera with Crypto Wallet on Android to link mobile and desktop versions and make cryptocurrency transactions. Seems, because I was not able to test the feature yet.
What else?
Opera Software highlights the built-in browser VPN and native ad blocker, and launched a Sci-Fi short story that you may watch here.
Users interested in the full list of changes can check out the official changelog of Opera 60.
Changes of interesting listed in the changelog:
- Support for dark mode on Windows 10.
- Chromium updated to 73.0.3683.86.
- Option to adjust the maximum number of speed dial columns under opera://settings/vpn
Now You: Have you tried the new Opera already? What is your take?
I got the update a few days ago. It’s all faster now. Kudos to the opera team.
I still use other browsers, but I use Opera the most as it serves me well.
I’m a long time user of Opera, and this new version looks to be a little better.
The only issues I found, it that in dark-mode, when editing bookmark names, the text is white on white, thus you can’t read what you type.
Also, in the bookmark bar, I can no longer drag/move links if they are URIs. Yet I can still drag/move them around on the bookmarks page.
Beyond that, I never liked their sidebar, but I can still access the stuff I use the most with URI bookmarks:
opera://downloads
opera://bookmarks
chrome://settings/startPage
That said, I like Opera, but I’m still using Vivaldi more and more.. But more so, I looking forward to Microsoft’s new Chrome based browser.
Yup, “when editing bookmark names, the text is white on white, thus you can’t read what you type”.. this is still an issue.
Otherwise, I like this new Opera.
I tried it
I don’t see the enormous difference…
I am a regular user, because I love the integrated video popout and the “my flow” feature. The new themes are nice and all but what I really expected was a better zoom experience.
Firefox does it right, has the zoom level widget you can put next to the address bar and you can use the CTRL+Wheel shortcut to zoom in and out, but as far as I can tell, in Opera you can’t bind mouse wheel as a shortcut nor edit the mouse gestures, which in this day and age is pretty stupid.
Maybe it’s me that hasn’t figured it out, I’d be glad to be wrong. There’s extensions I used a while ago but with the newer releases they are kinda wonky, I guess I’ll stick to the good ole + – keys.
ps :
https://twitter.com/IridiumBrowser/status/1116250271401893890
the ungoogled iridium – browser is _not_ dead. a great alternative too (with ublock origin/matrix, et cetera) 4 linux (but no flatpak – at the moment).
@keith
agree, great browser (now) – but brave is not per se available für every linux – system. for fedora silverblue (= with high probability fedora 31), the developers (gnome/silverblue team) had to find another way to layer a repo on the hybrid rpm-ostree. as long as there is no flatpak available, there is no native/actual cross-platform possibility on linux. and the unofficial brave-snap doesn’t count because it only runs properly on canonical.
Try Brave Browser folks. It’s fast & privacy oriented. Has a built-in ad blocker and blocks trackers. Was co-founded by one of Firefox’s original developers. Available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android & IOS.
.. is this enough to avoid “opera” (& of course this was also clear: ms edge is part of this) :
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/04/09/chrome-safari-and-opera-criticised-for-removing-privacy-setting/
?
who would have thought that .. in times when (the real) opera – browser defied the internet explorer and the netscape navigator/communicator?
now eich’s ungoogled – chromium – browser is next to firefox (not ungoogled per default) at the forefront (brave’s leak to facebook & co. is (not per default) solved per : settings in the current version -> social buttons & logins).
Yes hyperlink auditing pings enabled is good enough reason not to use Safari, Opera, chrome (well duh) and chrome edge (double duh). Firefox (so Waterfo too) and Palemoon block this by default but you can enable it if for some reason you wanted. Brave disables it and doesn’t let you enable it. I’ve not read about or tried it on Vivaldi.
Specifically for Opera there are other reasons I don’t trust it or like it but just that one thing is enough.
Sorry, Opera. You blew it. I’ll stick with v12, until I die, or the net does. The presto engine is still great and works on 99% of sites. I dumped your new “improved” crap, ages ago. If I find a site that breaks v12, I use Vivaldi. You could, at least, let others use the Presto engine to, perhaps, update. But, of course, you won’t, as your god won’t allow that.
Shame.
Presto was truly a wonder. Back then, Opera wasn’t a browser, but an Internet suite instead – a browser, a mail client, and an IRC client. Customizable, extensible and as fast and lightweight as Midori.
If only it was open-sourced…
That being said, you shouldn’t be using it anymore. It hasn’t been patched in years, and if there’s anything on your PC (besides the OS itself) that should be regularly patched, it’s the browser.
Funnily enough, there was a patch for v12, a while back. There’s a link to it, here, somewhere. I haven’t had any concerns, with it. Ever. So, I’ll stick with it. :) Better the devil you know and all that. Plus, I have millions of e-mails on it.
A creepto wallet? Well fuck, not being a cultist I guess that does it for me.
You can disable any feature you don’t like…
Or, you know, I could simply walk away from companies that promote scams.
You mean, most companies? Cool. Not giving away any data you don’t want to is always rule number 1.
If I had to walk away from anything I am not 100% pleased with I’d be in a cave without electronics.
You’ve lost me.
Either way, I don’t think most companies are into creepto.
Umm, strange how when I check for updates it still says I have latest version on Opera 58… downloading it from the site also installs 58. So clearly it’s NOT a stable release. Why bullshit us?
I liked the old look of Opera, but it seems that we are being herded to direction that some people will find tedious. The new look is weird, without the border. Personally I prefer that there are different flavours of search engines, different choices for users. But it seems that blink search engine will become dominant engine.
I am looking into pale moon browser, using Goanna fork of Gecko engine. if it get’s discontinued, well things happen.
This website continues to amaze me, the amount of depth in these articles. I love this kind of stuff.
What’s the importance of the Chrome-Chromium-whatever thingy inside “Chrome browsers” ?
Some people speak as if it automatically carried cancer + Aids + Ebola into your software. Is that so ? How ?
Because Chromium is ultimately controlled by Google, who arguably owns and controls too much of the internet already. It may be open source, but only Google (and possibly some other very well-funded tech companies) can realistically understand the code well enough to make any changes to it. To everyone else, it is at best “Look but don’t touch, if you don’t like how it works tough shit.”
What you are saying condemns the whole open-source model. Or are you arguing that Google found a special way of “closing” open source ?
Either it’s closed or open, right ? And if developers are not good enough to understand Google’s code, then they, potentially, aren’t good enough to understand anyone else’s, right ?
How is that not a crude form of Google-bashing ?
[QUOTE]Or are you arguing that Google found a special way of “closing†open source ?[/QUOTE]
Well…
https://www.ghacks.net/2015/06/19/googles-in-hot-water-after-dropping-binary-code-in-chromium-for-linux/
Not helpful at all. What does this mean ? I use Vivaldi and Opera. Will I get cancer now ?
It seems “the developers” were not absolute morons after all, since they found that out.
That was a long time ago. It probably affected a tiny-weeny minority of users. And there were probably workarounds. And possibly it’s not there anymore.
But let’ drop an ancient link suggesting that Google is baaad…
By the way, no one “showed a link” reminding that a small startup called Microsoft chose Chromium for it browser, therefore operating system. Does that mean Microsoft is surrendering to its arch-enemy Google ? That Microsoft developers are unable to read Google’s code ?
“I use Vivaldi and Opera. Will I get cancer now ?”
What is wrong with you? I never said that.
“That was a long time ago.”
2015 is not “ancient”.
“It probably affected a tiny-weeny minority of users.”
A minority which consists of millions of people.
“And there were probably workarounds.”
No, there weren’t. It was a hard-coded binary blob.
“And possibly it’s not there anymore.”
Well, yeah, thanks to Debian developers who took action.
“Does that mean Microsoft is surrendering to its arch-enemy Google ?”
No, it means that they realised that Edge is a failure and went with Chromium so they could continue harvesting user data. If it’s basically identical to Chrome, average users won’t bother installing the latter.
I get it. “Debian developers” (whatever that means) are saints, and Microsoft is evil.
I’m using Vivaldi. It’s a Chromium browser. Now Vivaldi has all my data, right ? They know the name of my dog ? That’s terrifying.
*sigh*… whatever, man.
To me it used to represent that the browser was more resource intensive. Though seeing how Fx57 turned out (bloatware, slow and full of bugs), I now associate Chromium-based with secure, fast, and stable.
And for 2 years it has the bug where on Windows 7 Basic theme you leave full screen in Opera, it creates a empty space bar between the tabs and the upper edge of the screen where you have to click on a different tab to make it go away… amazing job.
as web developer I really can’t complain
as a user I kinda understand your point
The context menu in the dark theme looks really bad with its white borders, too dark background and the grey highlight is too bright as well.. In MY opinion =) But the most shocking thing is the coloring when in private mode. BURGUNDY???????? Or what is that horrible thing??? With almost PINK highlight detailing. I always use Opera in private mode and I am neither impressed or amused. Sweet Lord baby Jesus, make it go away…
Yeah, this isn’t gonna work. Downgraded to 58 on my Windows computers and uninstalled Opera from my Linux computers, replaced them with Chromium. The unfinished horrors of the dark UI and the April Fool’s joke they call private mode were too much for me. My GOD what a crappy “update”… Did the boss’ colorblind kid just graduate from art-school and got the job as chief designer or something? Going to keep using 58 until it’s deemed too unsecure to use, hopefully Opera regain their sanity and release a good new version before that. Hundreds of disappointed, angry comments like mine on the Opera forum, let’s see if those have any effect on our new Chinese overlords..
Opera is the browser that’s like a Swiss Army knife. It just does everything if your into that sort of browsers. Given its low market share, I am thinking not many need that much browser features. The China connection doesn’t help but for me its just too busy of a browser.
What is Opera now days? It’s no longer Norwegian developed, it’s Chinese owned. It’s no longer Presto Engine, it’s Blink engine (Chrome). So it’s Opera is name only! Just a mask for the fools with rose tinted glasses.
Chrome (Blink) by itself has a 70% market share. Microsoft, the big bully of the early browser wars admits defeat by using Blink engine. Every other embedded web application (Steam/Epic Games/Ubi) uses Blink engine. That’s a significant portion of the web under superiority of one rendering engine.
The only major 2 rendering engines that actually matter are Blink and Gecko. Gecko has under 10% market share and it keeps falling. If you’re using Opera because it’s not chrome, you’re only contributing to the assimilation of the web by a single rendering engine that is owned by an invasive advertising company. You know how it goes when companies are complicit, Good bye competition, Good bye real innovation. Who needs W3C, WHATWG and web standards when you can just write your own rules. Google is the senate. Fight me, you google shills.
Regardless of Marcus Buttfikler’s fear mongering assertions involving half-truths, I reckon most folks here are rational, and understand the pros and cons of software, based from our own research.
No.
Opera is still norway based company. They are still subject to Norwegian law.
Their development team for a mobile and desktop browser is located in Poland, exactly in Kraków. So in the European Union. And it is subject to the restrictions of Polish and European law. Including GDPR – Directive 95/46 / EC (General Data Protection Regulation).
Their company was taken over by an investment group from China. Like many other entities. However, this does not change the fact that the company is still working in Norway and is subject to the local legal regulations.
take a look at this
https://restoreprivacy.com/secure-browser/
Might want to clarify the “Opera is still EU based” because with their most recent privacy policy update they now list Singapore as their base of operations. That doesn’t mean it’s a good or bad thing, but just because you use Opera does not mean you benefit from EU protections any longer.
it’s the usage rates,
it’s the usage rates,
it’s the usage rates.
If there is one thing I want you to remember from this, it’s that
the usage rates must change.
Chrome vs Chromium . Vastly different things.
While I agree (mostly) with your point about competition, you can’t deny that there’s a great deal of innovation coming from Google’s devs. Not sure I’ve seen much innovation or anything particularly exciting from Mozilla in recent years… Disclaimer: I still use FF as my daily driver, but am glancing at Brave more often nowadays.
“Not sure I’ve seen much innovation or anything particularly exciting from Mozilla in recent years…”
Rust?
Servo?
Webrender?
Multi-Account Containers?