Opera released a new update to the browser adding an embedded sidebar for some of the popular chat services including Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Telegram. It also received an update with its user interface for a fresh look and feel.
The biggest feature though is the side messenger:
Social messengers completely changed our lives, by allowing us to work, discover new things and communicate at the same time. This shift has come with smartphones, but desktops and laptops, while theoretically more powerful multitasking tools, have been left behind.
Browsing and chatting simultaneously is cumbersome and inefficient now, as you need to switch between tabs when responding to a message. We believe this needs to change. That’s why we bring you Opera Reborn, the first browser to allow messengers to reside within your browser, without the need to install any extensions or apps.
I do agree with them that have all the chat apps sitting around is cumbersome and annoying. On an average day, I have Slack, Telegram, and iMessage always open and always sitting right in front of me. I’d much rather have all those integrated into one, and a browser sidebar is a logical place since so many use the browser all day long.
I downloaded this new Safari today and I’m enjoying it. It still supports some of my most needed tools like 1Password, but it’s missing other stuff like Grammarly that I really want.
Also interesting is some of the features they’ve added recently, an included VPN and native ad-blocking. Plus it runs on Chromium, so you get dev tools you will be comfortable with. Opera seems like it could be a solid choice for a new default browser.
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