Articles about Opera

Mobile data these days comes at a premium. Carriers charge what could be considered ridiculous amounts for it and many customers burn through it. Unless you're predominantly on Wi-Fi then you're likely wondering where all of that data is going.

The answer, of course, is background apps -- programs that run all the time without the user realizing it. These can eat up tremendous amounts of a monthly allotment.

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Opera Software, the company behind the Opera web browser for desktop and mobile devices, has received a $1.2 billion buyout offer from a consortium of Chinese Internet firms.

The company’s board is recommending shareholders to accept the deal, which is higher than Opera Software's valuation at closing time on the Oslo exchange. Rumors of a possible buyout of the company led to its stock being suspended for two days.

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Opera FINAL 33 has shipped, complete with its brand new identity.

This isn’t just about a new icon. No, really. It’s three: a wireframe icon for the developer build, a partially painted version for betas, and a full 3D O for the final release, in Opera’s signature red.

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Opera Software has unveiled Opera 32 FINAL, a new release of its desktop browser for Windows, Mac and Linux, with an Android update due to follow.

Version 32 is another build light on major new features, with the company keen to promote its recent acquisition of the SurfEasy VPN service. What has been added is password sync, a new view for bookmarks and support for animated background themes.

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Mozilla today announces a series of important changes that affect Firefox add-ons. The good news? Add-ons should be reviewed faster, they will be more secure, and a new API means that Chrome extensions can be more easily ported across. But, of course, there is also bad news.

The bad news for developers is that Mozilla is switching to new technologies -- Electrolysis and Servo -- and this means that work will have to be done on existing extensions to ensure compatibility. In the switchover, it is likely that a large number of older add-ons will simply not be updated, but with a 12 to 18 month timescale for phasing out XPCOM and XUL means there is plenty of time for other developers to come up with alternatives to projects that have been abandoned and will no longer work.

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Video streaming is one of the quickest ways to max out a data plan. This is especially true for high-definition videos, which are the commonplace on websites like Netflix and YouTube and, understandably, the obvious quality choice for many mobile viewers. Since not everyone can afford or have the option to use an unlimited data plan, we often have to sacrifice how much content we watch to not pass the traffic limit.

However, an update to Opera Max for Android promises to let us watch more videos without sacrificing much in terms of quality. The app can achieve such results through compression, and the feature is now enabled for Netflix and YouTube.

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Norwegian browser developer Opera Software has released a landmark version of its niche web browser for desktop and mobile. Opera 30 FINAL debuts with three notable new features.

Version 30 makes it easier to view and switch between tabs, adds new sidebar extensions and introduces a new Trash folder to make it possible to restore bookmarks.

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Opera 29 FINAL has been released for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android, bringing major improvements for those who like to browse across a range of devices with the ability to sync tabs between mobile and desktop platforms.

Version 29 also adds support for customizable keyboard shortcuts as well as a new indicator tool to help pinpoint which browser tab audio is being played from. The update also includes some useful minor tweaks too.

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Believe it or not, a year has passed since Microsoft stopped supporting Windows XP. And even though the 13 year-old operating system no longer receives security updates -- at least not officially -- it is still being used by roughly 17 percent of Windows users. For some companies it is reason enough to continue to support Windows XP today, even though its maker has long left it for dead. And Google is one of them.

Six months after Windows XP support ended, Google announced that its Chrome browser would continue to be supported on the OS with "regular updates and security patches until at least April 2015". That was done in order to give its users more time to finish migrating to a newer Windows release, one that would, hopefully, be officially supported by Microsoft for many more years to come. Obviously, that hasn't gone as expected. But instead of pulling the plug, Google is now giving Chrome users on Windows XP another reprieve.

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Opera Software, the company behind the web browser of much the same name, has acquired SurfEasy, a provider of VPN security. SurfEasy's software bolsters the security of internet users by adding a layer of encryption that helps to protect privacy.

More than this, the software also makes it possible to bypass some online restrictions and to access sites that are region locked. Few details have been revealed yet, but it's possible we could see VPN features integrated into future versions of the desktop and mobile Opera browser.

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It’s been a feature of Firefox and Chrome for a while, but bookmark sync finally makes it way across to Opera FINAL 28, giving users of the Norwegian browser a convenient way to keep their bookmarks refreshed across all their devices.

The new feature isn’t restricted to desktop browsers either, with support for mobile platforms via Opera Mini for iOS as well as Android also implemented.

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While those who reside in the US and Europe may see mobile as a massive market, that isn't the case in all parts of the world. Technology spreads a bit slower in some parts of the globe where even "feature phones" are only now on the rise. Africa is one such market, but it is starting to see an increase in mobile adoption.

"Africa is poised to become a hotbed for mobile growth and commerce in the coming years" according to a State of Mobile Advertising report from Opera Mediaworks. The assessment comes from studying two of the company's most prominent areas -- the mobile browser and mobile advertising.

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Norwegian browser developer Opera has released Opera FINAL 27 for Windows, Mac and Linux. It’s a relatively minor first release for 2015, with just two notable new features to excite users.

These see the navigation bar tweaked for make it easier to switch between major sections of the browser, while the tab preview feature has been restored alongside a new tab-expansion button.

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Norwegian browser developer Opera has released Opera FINAL 26 for Windows, Mac and Linux. Having finally introduced support for bookmarks in the previous update, Opera 26 allows users to both share bookmarks and migrate them across from other browsers.

Version 26 is also a landmark release for Linux users as it marks the first stable release of the new Opera browser on that platform -- note it only works with 64-bit builds.

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Norwegian browser developer Opera has unveiled Opera Mini 9.0, a major new version of its speed-optimized browser for iPhone and iPad.

Version 9’s headline new feature is 'Video Boost', a tool Opera says that allows users to watch videos on their mobile without eating so excessively into their data plan.

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