A New Concept – Opera Neon

I find that it doesn’t hurt to try out new things that will challenge my way of thinking or doing things.  There’s nothing worse than getting stuck in a rut.

Over the weekend, I had read about Opera Neon, a concept browser from Opera, and read their rationale that the web needs a new browser.  I was definitely intrigued so I immediately set off to download and check it out.

I installed the Macintosh version and was up and running in a few seconds.  And, in that few seconds, I realized that I was in a different world.

In my world, I turn off bookmark bars and status setting so that I get more room to read content rather than constantly scrolling.  So, I was really interested to see what would happen as the information indicate that Opera didn’t have tabs in the traditional sense.  Traditional tabs do take up screen real estate.

But before I got there, I experienced “newness” just in the setup.

Neon, rather than taking a traditional approach to a browser mimics a desktop.  In fact, you can bring in your desktop image as its background.  So, I did that.  Interestingly, like most browsers upon installation, you’re invited to bring in settings that are already there from another browser.  I expected to be able to import from Opera Next or Chrome since it’s based on the Chromium project.  Instead, the only option was to import from Firefox.  Not a problem.  I wonder if I had the actual production version of Opera that I could pull from there.  No matter.

And I was off.

My next step was to look for a few of things that I have come to rely on with Opera Next – Turbo Mode, ad blocking, and the VPN.  They don’t appear to be available.  That didn’t come as a big surprise; after all, it was a first download of a concept.  I did look to install some extensions – notably LastPass and Scribefire, two which I use daily.  Extensions aren’t available either.  OK, not a real problem, I can use WordPress’ internal editor and do an Option-Tab to copy and paste from Opera Next.  It’s still early days.

Instead of lamenting upon what wasn’t there, I decided to poke around to see what was there.  Exploring was really a pleasant experience.  Here’s a screen grab.

Regular browser users should notice a few things.

First of all, there are no tabs at the top of the screen.  Instead, take a look to the right side and you’ll see a number of bubbles.  These would correspond to the tabs that I would normally have open.  And, yes, you can have more than six.  I’d be dead in the water without all the tabs that I normally use.  Add more and you get scrollbars to go through them.  It was an interesting experience; I thought that I’d be scrolling forever but I wasn’t.  The latest used tab goes at the top and the browser works to identify the tabs that you use most and they bubble to the top.  I didn’t find the need to go looking; perhaps that says more about my untidy browsing habits.

On the left side, you’ll see a number of icons that let you quickly access media, crop part of the screen, check downloads, etc.  That’s a very nice touch; I often have to go searching for the features in the menu or use an extension.  As with Opera Next, videos can pop out and play while you go about your business.  If only I had fast enough internet access to truly enjoy that.

But look in the centre.  Here is where I was really blown away.  You have the ability to have side by side browser screens open.  That is a feature that I took to immediately.  When working in a Google document, it’s often so nice to have another resource handy.  In the screen capture, I have Monday’s post on the left and today’s editor on the right.  See how productive I can be?  The reality is that I might just have Twitter or Facebook open in one so that I don’t miss a thing!

The new tab takes on an interesting format for Opera’s Speed Dial.  The new address reminds me a bit of the Edge  browser.  But the floating bubbles for bookmarks stole my attention.

Click one and you’re on the site.

It was an interesting and yet uneasy tour of the browser.  I liked that there was so much new to explore and play with.  I didn’t like the frustration when I would reach for something that I would do in a traditional browser and it wasn’t there or worked differently.  I guess we just get engrained with a certain skillset.

If you don’t like any of your existing wallpapers, the Neon browser has a couple of new wallpapers “inspired” by Neon that you can download and use.  They are very well designed; I may end up using one of them eventually.

If you want to explore and possibly get thrown out of your comfort zone at the same time, download it for Windows/Macintosh from here.

Is this a look at the future of browsers?  In a world where every browser works essentially the same way to the end user, it was a refreshing experience.  I can’t wait to see where Opera takes it.