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Norwegian company Opera Software has released Opera 30 to the browser's stable channel. Prior versions should receive the update automatically thanks to the browser's automatic update feature.
The new version is already available as a download on the official website from where it can be downloaded and installed/run on supported operating systems.
Opera 30 ships with new features and feature improvements such as faster switching between tabs, support for sidebar extensions to display contents in the browser's sidebar panel, and an option to undo the deletion of bookmarks on the system.
The company added a button to Opera's interface to cycle through tabs. It displays the titles of all open tabs and recently closed tabs of the browser window in a menu when activated.
A click or Ctrl-Tab (Ctrl-Shift-Tab) activates the feature which cycles through tabs in chronological order.
The order can be confusing in the beginning as the majority of modern browsers support sequential tab switching only.
A setting was added to the preferences of the browser to disable the new sort order and go back to the regular sort order instead:
- Load opera://settings in the browser's address bar and hit enter.
- Locate User Interface on the page that opens and uncheck "Cycle tabs in most recently used order".
Opera 30 supports a sidebar that you can add contents to. Hit Ctrl-Shift-s to toggle the sidebar. A click on the plus icons redirects you to the sidebar extensions gallery on the Opera website that lists browser extensions specifically designed for the sidebar.
There you find extensions to display bookmarks, notes, the browsing history, news or Google Keep information in the sidebar.
Support for extensions improves what users can add to the sidebar which already shows when you browse the list of sidebar extensions.
The third and final new feature that Opera Software added to version 30 introduces a trash folder to the bookmarks.
Instead of deleting bookmarks outright, they are now moved to the trash instead first from where they can be recovered which is helpful if they have been deleted accidentally.
An option to bypass the trash appears to be missing. This means that you will have to delete the bookmarks in the trash to get rid of them permanently. An option to bypass the trash by holding down a modifier key such as Shift would be useful.
The new version of Opera does not reinvent the wheel but it improves the browser gradually. As is the case with rapid release process updates, they are usually not as impressive due to the lack of time between updates.
Now You: Which browser is your favorite currently and why?
