AI, automatic tabs… the browser becomes smarter

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Opera presented Opera One R2, a new version of its flagship AI-powered browser. With features like automatic tab grouping and customizable dynamic themes, the browser plays the flexibility card.

Opera took advantage of a presentation organized in Bristol, United Kingdom, to lift the veil on Opera One R2a new iteration of the browser Opera One. As Joanna Czajka, product manager at Opera Software, explained, this version, still based on the Chromium rendering engine, stands out for its great flexibility.

“It’s like all of our features, all of the features of the browser, have to act like good friends. Like in a conversation with a good friend, you know when to leave space for the other person to speak. It’s this kind of cooperation, this friendship, that we want to see everywhere”says Joanna Czajka.

A web browser that adapts to you

That’s why all of Opera’s new features are geared toward customization and flexibility. First of all, the browser will be enriched with of the automatic tabs. Tabs relating to the same website will automatically be grouped together. For example, if you go to Wikipedia and open four or five pages of the encyclopedia, all the tabs will group together without you having to do so. This system should help Internet users find their way in a sometimes large ocean of tabs.

Following the same logic, Opera launches a function called Tab Traces. The option is designed to keep track of which tabs have been opened most recently. Opera will simply display a discreet bar under the recently used tabs. Here again, the company of Norwegian origin, bought by a Chinese group, is thinking of users who accumulate a large number of tabs, to the point of getting lost.

Additionally, Opera will allow users to split their screen into two tabs different. It will be enough to move the tabs by simply sliding them across the screen. The tab can actually be placed to the left or right of the tab already displayed. In other words, you will be able to display two tabs side by side, which can be very practical in everyday life.

In another effort at flexibility, Opera will let Internet users place a pop-up dedicated to a music streaming servicelike Spotify, anywhere on the screen. This window will allow you to quickly access the music you are currently listening to. No more keeping a tab open to keep your music just a click away.

Finally, Opera launches dynamic themes. These themes include dedicated wallpapers and presets. They can be fully personalized via a configurator. You will be able to change things like sound, keyboard noise, wallpaper and colors. You can therefore change the look of your browser from one day to the next, depending on your current tasks or your needs.

Aria is also updating

In the process, Opera is making some improvements to the artificial intelligence which has been integrated into its web browser since last year, Aria. Based on the same AI model as ChatGPT, the chatbot allows Internet users to search online, get answers to all kinds of questions or rephrase text. In short, the conversational robot can do everything like ChatGPT.

In the first place, it is not no longer necessary to open an Opera account to be able to converse with Aria. To ask questions to generative AI, simply open Opera and go to the section reserved for generative artificial intelligence. In the coming weeks, it will be the same thing on the Android and iOS version of the Opera application.

“We believe AI should be accessible to everyone, and this change makes it easier for users to experience the benefits of Aria”says Krystian Kolondra, manager at Opera.

Above all, Opera added an image generator to its generative AI. Like ChatGPT, Aria can now convert textual queries into visuals. This generator is based on Imagen, a creation template provided by Google.

Deployment in October 2024

As announced during the Bristol conference, Opera plans to deploy the stable version of its new web browser to the middle of October 2024. With these new features, Opera continues to differentiate itself from more well-known browsers, such as Chrome or Safari. Opera readily presents itself as “the biggest challenger” of the web browser market. With this new iteration, focused on personalization and flexibility, will Opera succeed in growing its user base, which already numbers more than 300 million Internet users worldwide? We await your opinion in the comments.