At first glance

On January 12, 2017, Opera released a new concept browser that is trying to change the way we view the web. Check it out here!

Overall I quite enjoy it! It’s sleek, smooth, visually pleasing, and feels very modern. They have even replaced some of the standard elements we are used to seeing with some new ideas that still feel familiar. Let’s take a look at a couple of key ideas/changes.

The home page

his feature is not so new, since browsers such as Firefox have been doing this for a while, but what is new is the lack of a tradition “homepage”. Rather than being able to set a home page to your daily dose of kitten videos, you now have a desktop-feel-dashboard. They even use your current desktop image to make it seem more like a native application. Similar to the start menu in Windows 8 *shudder*, this let’s you see all of your favourite pages in one quite glance.

The tabbing system

There is no longer the standard tab section above the address bar that is present on almost every browser. Instead, Opera Neon has bubbles on the right of the screen which can be dragged to be reorder, closed, or opened with ease. Although this is a new idea for browsers, this kind of UI is present in quite a number of places, i.e. Facebook Messenger. Looking at these bubbles, I immediately knew what to do with them.

Final thoughts

There are a ton more features to explore, but at a high level inspection, the concepts in Opera Neon are unique, refreshing, and exciting. I’m interested to see how well it is received by the general population. Will this finally break Opera’s rutt they have been in since inception, or are these concepts too different for people to give it the chance it deserves. Either way, I’m excited to see what other ideas spawn from this; whether in applications or websites, I think Opera Neon has some good takeaways.