Opera Neon – Opera’s Take on Future of Internet Browsers

Web browsers aren’t the most interesting piece of software available, considering that most, if not all of them, are functionally identical to one another.

However, it appears that Opera is looking to challenge our perception of the web browser as the company has released a concept browser called Opera Neon for everyone to try out.

What makes Opera Neon unique

Unlike most web browsers that open up a tab page or a website as your home screen,

• Neon’s home screen is overlaid on your desktop with circles depicting your bookmarks and frequently visited websites.
• The address bar hovers right above your bookmarks and frequently visited pages instead of being located in the upper section of the screen.

Similarities to other browsers

Though Opera Neon is a one-of-a-kind browser in many ways, there are also some features in line with the other browsers, such as:

• Opera Neon comes with a multi-tab support.
• The tabs are depicted in the form of circles located at the right-hand side of the screen.
• To open a new tab, you can either click on one of the circles found on the home screen, drag one of the circles to the right-hand side of the browser, or enter a website address into the address bar.

Browse two websites in one go

For those who would like to browse two websites at the same time:

• Opera Neon comes with a built-in split-screen browsing feature.
• Dragging one of the circular tabs onto the currently opened tab will give you the option to have both browsers shown on one-half of the screen.
• The size of the opened tabs can be adjusted according to your preference.

The left-hand side menu

Apart from the features of the right-hand side bar, Opera Neon’s left-hand side menu is also interesting and shows,

• A series of browser tools.
• "Player" tool that collects songs and videos that available for play on all your opened tabs.
• "Camera" tool that lets you take screenshots of an opened web page.
• "Gallery" tool that lets your browse all of your screenshots.
• "Download" tool that lists down all of your downloads.

While Opera Neon seems quite promising, the browser is still rather rough around the edges, so you may not want to use it as your main browser for now. But the good thing is that Opera Neon supports both MacOS and Windows, and those interested in trying it out can download it here.