Today, Opera becomes the first browser to integrate social messenger services, allowing users to chat side-by-side as they browse. This release of the browser, is codenamed “Reborn”.
Making social messengers great on laptops
Over the last few years, web versions of social messengers have increasingly become popular. However, switching between tabs when responding to a message makes it cumbersome and inefficient. With the new browser, Opera allows the messengers to reside within your browser without the need to install any extensions or apps.
“Social messengers completely changed our lives by allowing us to work, discover new things and communicate at the same time,” says Krystian Kolondra, Head of Opera browser. “This shift has come with smartphones, but desktops and laptops, while theoretically more powerful multitasking tools, have been left behind. We believe this needs to change.”
Now, Opera allows users to chat with their friends while browsing. The new messenger experience includes:
- A quick access to web versions of popular messengers - Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram - directly from the browser’s sidebar
- Simultaneous browsing and chatting with a side tab for messengers
- An option to pin the messenger tab for even easier multitasking
- Easy photo sharing by dragging any online picture to the messenger’s icon
- Shortcuts allowing users to instantly switch between messengers
- A menu button that enables you to log out from messengers directly in the browser
Over the last year, Opera has introduced a series of features such as free VPN and native ad blocking. At the beginning of 2017, the company released Opera Neon, a concept browser that captured the essence of how browsing might look like in the future.
One of its features was the ability to seamlessly hop between discovering new content and chatting with friends, or even sharing online discoveries while browsing. Now, this part of Neon has been brought to the “Reborn” Opera browser.
Reborn is incrementally redesigning the entirety of Opera’s user experience. In this release, in addition to the new messenger experience, it brings a fresh look, new icons, colors, wallpapers and a touch of animation.
The new interface includes:
- Brand new look and feel with a high-quality graphical design that is more consistent across platforms
- Simplified, lighter and more elegant tabs
- Fresh and refined icons
- The new, more subtle and refined sidebar with a touch of animation
- Refreshed Speed Dial
- Introducing a dark theme for the browser
- A set of new backgrounds that perfectly complement Opera’s new look and feel
- Private mode animations
