Chrome, Firefox and Edge are the 3 most popular and used web browsers. Among them they occupy the podium of the browsers with the highest number of users. However, there has come a time when all three seem the same. None of them dare to develop new features that make it different from the others. Luckily, if we are non-conformists and want a different browser that experiments with new functions that make life easier for us, then one of the most interesting that we can find in this regard is Opera.
Opera had its golden age in the 90s. However, when the company responsible for the browser went into crisis, and especially after the arrival of Chrome, its market share began to decline until it almost disappeared. There have been many projects trying to keep Opera on top . For example, their fork, Vivaldi, which was looking to go back to the original browser experience, or the sale of the company (and browser ownership) to a new group.
Although the market for browsers is crowded, and it is very difficult to enter it, Opera continues to look for a niche in it and, slowly, continues to add more and more users. And, little by little, it adds the most interesting features like these.
Native support for Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music
One of the latest news to come to Opera is the integrated players for the main streaming music playback platforms, that is, Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music . These players appear in a sidebar that we find on the left side of the browser, and they will allow us to listen to music while we browse without having to install or run anything else on Windows.
Opera has a free and unlimited VPN
VPN connections are, today, one of the basic measures to protect our privacy when we connect to the Internet. Broadly speaking, what a VPN connection does is encrypt our point-to-point connections and go outside through the server instead of with our data.
Most VPN connections are paid, or limited. Opera’s service does not. This browser offers us a totally free, unlimited VPN without the need to pay any subscription. We don’t even have to install any extensions. We have it there, to use if we want. And if not, then nothing happens.
It is based on Chromium
Although there was a time when each browser experimented with its own web engine, in the end everything has ended badly. Today there are basically two engines. On the one hand we have Mozilla’s, used by Firefox, and on the other Google’s, Chromium, which is the one most used by developers. Opera, for example, relies on the Google engine, which guarantees perfect compatibility with web standards and, in addition, makes it compatible with all its extensions.
In Opera, your social networks are a click away
One of the most outstanding features of Opera is its sidebar. In it we will find a series of shortcuts that will allow us, for example, to open websites or tools. In this bar we will find shortcuts to the main social networks , such as Twitter or Instagram. These social networks will open in a floating window (like a PWA) and will allow us to use them without problems as if it were an independent application.
