BrianFagioli writes: Opera GX has officially landed on Linux, bringing its gamer-focused browser experience to Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE-based systems. The browser includes GX Control for limiting RAM and network usage, a Hot Tabs Killer to shut down resource-heavy tabs, and built-in sidebar integrations for Discord and Twitch. Opera says this is not just a one-off port, but a long-term effort with ongoing updates and community engagement. "PC gaming has long been associated with a single dominant platform, but that's changing," says Maciej Kocemba, Product Director at Opera GX. "Bringing GX to Linux users -- who are renowned for the control they like to exert over their tools -- means gamers and developers can manage browser resources, customize their setup, and keep their system performing exactly the way they want."

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Opera has opened its AI-powered browser Neon to the public after a couple of months of testing, and anyone interested in trying it will need to pay $19.90 per month. The Norway-based company first unveiled Neon in May and launched it in early access to select users in October. Like Perplexity's Comet, OpenAI's Atlas, and The Browser Company's Dia, Neon bakes an AI chatbot into its interface that can answer questions about pages, create mini apps and videos, and perform tasks. The browser uses your browsing history as context, so you can ask it to fetch details from a YouTube video you watched last week. The subscription also grants access to AI models including Gemini 3 Pro and GPT-5.1.

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An anonymous reader shared this report from PC World: It won't whip the llama's ass, but Opera has added a Spotify visualizer to its latest iteration of its free Opera One browser. Known as Sonic, the visualizer will be part of Opera's Dynamic Themes, which use the WebGPU standard to employ a dynamic theme that runs in the background of the browser. It's essentially a shader, which uses your PC's graphics engine to generate the moving background. The browser also comes with a music player, which is set to Spotify by default. Users will have an opportunity to upgrade to Spotify Premium as part of the browser upgrade, Opera said. Opera's Sonic theme... takes the Spotify input and transforms it into a dynamic background. "As any old tech head knows, the original visualizer was found in Winamp, which would sync visualizations to the beat and flow of music being played," the article points out. And 27 years later, WinAmp arrived as an app in Apple's App Store and Google Play and in April of 2024. (The latest version was apparently released this May — and you can also download it to your desktop...) Somewhere along the way, Winamp also announced "Winamp for Creators," which they're describing as a dedicated platform for music artists with monetization and promotion tools, music management services, and other essential resources "to help creators take control of their careers" (including "a powerful social media publishing tool that lets users write a single post and push it to all their social media channels simultaneously.")

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There's an 85-second ad (starring a humanoid robot) that argues "Technology promised to save us time. Instead it stole our focus. Opera Neon gives you both back." Or, as BleepingComputer describes it, Opera Neon "is a new browser that puts AI in control of your tabs and browsing activities, but it'll cost $19.90 per month." It'll do tasks for you, open websites for you, manage tabs for you, and listen to you. The idea behind these agentic browsers is to put AI in control. "Neon acts at your command, opening tabs, conducting research, finding the best prices, assessing security, whatever you need. It delivers outcomes you can use, share, and build on," Opera noted... As spotted on X, Opera Neon, the premium AI browser for Windows & macOS, costs $59.90 for nine months. Opera neon invite. This is an early bird offer, but when the offer expires, Opera Neon will cost $19.90 per month. The browser's web page says Opera Neon "can handle everyday tasks for you, like filling in forms, placing orders, replying to emails, or tidying up files. Reusable cards turn repeated chores into single-step tasks, letting you focus on the work that matters most to you." Opera describes itself as "the company that gave you tabs..."

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king*jojo shares a report from The Register: The Opera web browser now boasts "agentic AI," meaning users can ask an onboard AI model to perform tasks that require a series of in-browser actions. The AI agent, referred to as the Browser Operator, can, for example, find 12 pairs of men's size 10 Nike socks that you can buy. This is demonstrated in an Opera-made video of the process, running intermittently at 6x time, which shows the user has to type out the request for the undergarments rather than click around some webpages. The AI, in the given example, works its way through eight steps in its browser chat sidebar, clicking and navigating on your behalf in the web display pane, to arrive at a Walmart checkout page with two six-packs of socks added to the user's shopping cart, ready for payment. [...] Other tasks such as finding specific concert tickets and booking flight tickets from Oslo to Newcastle are also depicted, accelerated at times from 4x to 10x, with the user left to authorize the actual purchase. Browser Operator runs more slowly than shown in the video, though that's actually helpful for a semi-capable assistant. A more casual pace allows the user to intervene at any point and take over.

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Vivaldi is a browser founded by Opera co-founder Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and launched in 2016 with a heavy focus on privacy and customizations. As someone who has worked on the internet since 1992, Tetzchner has a lot of thoughts on the state of the internet in 2023, especially when it comes to advertising. XDA spoke with Tetzchner at this year's Mobile World Congress, and it's clear to him that advertisers "stole the internet from us." From the report: For the unfamiliar, Android's Privacy Sandbox can track users by creating an offline profile on them and show relevant advertisements based on that. It's a multi-year initiative to introduce more private advertising solutions to end-users and is made possible thanks to the Topics API and FLEDGE. Its goal is to prioritize user privacy by default but still maintain the mobile ecosystem dependent on advertising to support free and ad-supported apps. This is an exclusive-to-Android solution that uses a standalone SDK, separate from the rest of the application code, with the aim of eventually replacing Ad ID. However, Tetzchner doesn't see a difference between standard tracking and companies using the Topics API. "For us, how you technically do the tracking, you can say it's a little bit better to do it client-side than server-side, but for me, the idea that your browser is building a profile on you... No, no, no, that's wrong. That's just wrong," he tells me. It's not quite where the data goes that seems to bother him the most, but what that data can be used to achieve. He mentions how this data can be used to influence how people vote, a la Cambridge Analytica. Whether that data is on your device or not is irrelevant; political advertisements will still appear regardless. "They stole the internet from us", he says of advertisers. "The internet is supposed to be open and free, and you shouldn't be afraid of being monitored. The idea that you are collecting data to provide ads... I can understand having access to a lot of data to provide a service, but that's not the same as profiling your users." [...] Tetzchner is deeply disheartened with the state of it. In fact, he believes the current state of advertising is less profitable for sites now than it was before widespread tracking was in place. He mentions "normal ads," which you may see in a magazine or on TV, were the standard for about a decade, even on the internet. "A lot of sites were more profitable, and people were less worried about having to block ads. The ads were normal, it was kind of like what you were seeing if you were going and reading a magazine. There were ads, but they weren't following you." He points out that paywalls have become commonplace across the internet when that wasn't the case 15 years ago. "How is it then that we needed the change that actually created that situation?" he asks. He argues that advertisements are less profitable as a whole thanks to widespread tracking. Advertisers previously paid more because they knew exactly where their advertisements were going. Now with algorithms and Google Ads, not everything is high quality, even if those algorithms try to scan pages for quality content.

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Web browser company Opera said Monday it will enable emoji-only based web addresses "to bring a new level of creativity to the internet." From a report: The integration is part of a partnership with Yat, a company that sells URLs with strings of emoji in them. "It's been almost 30 years since the world wide web launched to the public, and there hasn't been much innovation in the weblink space: people still include .com in their URLs," Jorgen Arnesen, executive vice president of mobile at Opera, said in a press release.

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Opera has launched its Web3 "Crypto Browser" into beta with features like a built-in crypto wallet, easy access to cryptocurrency/NFT exchanges, support for decentralized apps (dApps) and more. From a report: The aim is to "simplify the Web3 user experience that is often bewildering for mainstream users," Opera EVP Jorgen Arnensen said in statement. A key feature is the built-in non-custodial wallet that will support blockchains including Ethereum, Bitcoin, Celo and Nervos from the get-go. It also announced partnerships with Polygon and others. The idea is to let you access your crypto without the need for any extensions, with the option of using third-party wallets as well. You can purchase cryptocurrencies via a fiat to crypto on-ramp, swap crypto directly in-wallet, send and receive it and check your wallet balance. It even has a secure clipboard that ensures other apps can't data when you copy/paste. The other primary function is support for Web3, aka blockchain-based decentralized internet, aka the buzzy new thing among crypto enthusiasts (and skeptics). On top of providing extra security via blockchain encryption, it allows users to access things like GameFi "where you can earn as you play your way through all sorts of metaverses," Opera notes. It also offers a "Crypto Corner" with the latest blockchain news that also "lets you grow your Web3 skills," according to Opera.

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"Chromium-based web browser Opera is all set to fully integrate with blockchain domain name provider Unstoppable Domains," reports TechRadar, "in a bid to provide millions of its users with decentralized web access." Opera users will now be able to access decentralized websites hosted via the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) using Unstoppable Domains' popular .crypto NFT addresses from the Opera browser. This will include platforms such as iOS, Android, Windows, Mac or Linux. Right now, Opera has over 320 million monthly active users across its offerings, following the addition of a crypto wallet to its browsers in 2019. Unstoppable Domains was launched in 2018 and provides domain names to users with no renewal fees. Users of Unstoppable Domains are granted full ownership and control when they claim a domain because it is minted as an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain. Domain names such as .crypto replace complex wallet addresses for payments across over 40 cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges in addition to accessing the decentralized web through Opera. Maciej Kocemba, Product Director at Opera said that the company believes in giving all people the ability to access the full web, regardless of the technology behind it. The Opera product director was further quoted by Business Insider: "We have always supported web innovation, and the decentralized web or Web3 is the natural next wave. Making Unstoppable Domains accessible in the Opera browsers means our users can try blockchain technologies for themselves. Registering your .crypto domain, which is forever yours, is a great first step into Web3," the company's product director Maciej Kocemba said. Opera is quickly becoming a leader in pushing for the adoption of Web 3.0, also often described as the decentralized web.

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Opera has acquired YoYo Games, a British game development platform best known for GameMaker Studio 2, and is launching its Opera Gaming division. Engadget reports: Opera has bought the company for a simple reason: Opera GX. The gamer-focused web browser was launched in early access back in June 2019. Its headline feature is a slide-out control panel that lets you limit the browser's bandwidth and see which tabs are demanding the most CPU and RAM resources. Opera says it will create a new division, sensibly called Opera Gaming, by combining the Opera GX and GameMaker teams. "We have always had big plans for improving GameMaker across all platforms, both from the perspective of improving accessibility and further developing the features available to commercial studios," Stuart Poole, General Manager of YoYo Games said. "And now we can't wait to see them arrive much sooner."

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