Opera remains one of the main “challenger” browsers, taking the good fight to Google Chrome—the world’s leading browser. Opera has a few iterations of its browser and is launching a massive upgrade to one of its options: Opera One R2.
Opera Is Bringing Huge Upgrades to Its New One R2 Browser
Opera’s upgraded One R2 browser builds on its streamlined One browser, which was a major launch in 2023 and now has over 300 million users across its browser ecosystem. Opera One introduced Tab Islands, designed to help keep your workflows in tandem by grouping similar tabs and topics.
Now, Opera’s One R2 browser is shifting its focus to multimedia, AI, and, of course, the evolution of Tab Islands in what it’s calling its “Usability Evolution.”
Opera One R2’s Best New Features
Opera has packed a tranche of features into its new browser.
Dynamic Themes
This is a neat idea that makes changing the color scheme of your browser incredibly simple. Feeling the vibe? Change it up to something bright and bouncy. Want to concentrate? Swap it out for some deeper, moodier blues. Opera One R2 isn’t the first browser to use color themes, but its implementation is streamlined and doesn’t require you to download an extension or add-on to make it work.
At launch, there are three options, but Opera will add more. The Dynamic Themes come with specific audio and keyboard sounds, which is a nice touch. During the Dynamic Themes demo, Opera showed that each theme can be customized using a “joystick” that moves the theme through different emphasis. So, in the Polar Winds theme, I could make the visuals more pastel or more saturated. Adding to this—and this is really cool—is that these themes are dynamic and generated on the go.
Split Screen Tabs
You can now drag your tab wherever you want and create an instant split view between the information on the page. It creates a more unified browser experience and will certainly be useful when you’re working and researching lots of different bits of information simultaneously. It’s similar to how you’d split your screen with two browser windows, but now, it works in the browser instead.
Tab Traces
One of the most interesting upgrades to Opera browser’s tab management is Tab Traces, a small upgrade that helps highlight the tabs you’ve been using that day. If you’re like me, you probably keep a heap of tabs open at one time. While getting better at tab management would be the more practical option, Tab Traces helps when you come back to your machine the next day and pick up where you left off, helping to pinpoint those bits you’ve recently looked at versus those unchecked for a period.
Page Context
Opera’s integrated Aria AI has also received a little boost, too. Page Context search gives you the power to find contextual information on a web page without ever leaving what you’re looking at. Right now, other AI chatbots have this power, but you have to open the chatbot, post the page, and wait for the response. Aria AI Page Context brings that power straight to the web page, summarizing information and helping you identify specific bits of data important to you.
Modular Media Player
Now, this is a feature I really like. For too long, music players have been confined to a specific web page. Sure, pop-out extensions exist, but Opera’s Modular Media Player lets you bring the music to any web page.
I also like that you can turn the player into a modular part of the browser, inserting it into your browser like a regular tab. It’s a little similar to Chrome’s integrated media control, but being able to move it around is super useful. What I also like about this is that you can play different media, and when you close it, your music will start playing again, so neither media source interrupts the other.
Content Picks
Interestingly, Opera also has its own take on features like Google Discover, introducing human-curated Content Picks. I’m a little skeptical about how this will work in the long run, given the need for related content to be unique and specific to our algorithmically generated feed, but it’s another reason to consider switching to Opera.
Integration of Local LLMs
AI chatbots like Opera’s Aria are powered by a large language model (LLM). That’s the bit that powers the AI tool to give you responses, generate text, and so on. There are now heaps of different LLMs with different strengths, weaknesses, and so on. O
Now, Opera has opened its Aria tool to AI lovers, allowing users to switch between different local LLMs to enable different responses and focuses. Opera’s local LLM picker features hundreds of different free large language models to choose from. They’re easy to install, too, and are all available from a dropdown menu featuring every option.
The big difference here is that these AI tools run locally on your machine instead of through the cloud, like ChatGPT, Gemini, or otherwise. This means that your machine requires a certain level of processing power; otherwise, the LLM won’t run. But Opera has thought of this, too, and launched the Opera Device Benchmark for LLM, a free tool that’ll show you which LLMs your hardware will run.
Tab Emojis
I’m not sure how much I’ll use this personally, but it’s a cute addition. You can now add emojis to your tabs to help identify them. So, if you have a specific target for work, maybe you add something to signify that. Or, if you’re studying a specific set of pages, you could use a paper emoji to keep track and stay focused.
When Is Opera One R2 Launching?
The new browser will officially launch in mid-October, but you can pick up the preview version of Opera One R2 to get a sneak preview of all the new features.
