Opera 20 for Windows and Mac released
Your browser is the desktop app you spend the most of your time with. And, as with any other tool designed for everyday use, you expect it to be highly efficient and reliable, while also preferring it to be just that little bit stylish.
Opera Software presents some fresh browser design trends you can discover this year. You can explore them now in Opera 20, the latest version of the Opera for Windows and Mac web browser.
1. Beauty becomes the priority
Opera has completely rebuilt its desktop browser to introduce beauty into the browser. The aesthetic design, a new color scheme, refined icons and attractive, customized themes, give you a more elegant web experience. But, the best part of that beauty lies under the hood — the seamless integration of the technology inside the browser, with an elegant UI, is what makes the user interaction seamless, stylish, and intuitive.
2. Simplicity makes the difference
With a new design, a streamlined frame and lean, monochromatic icons, you can enjoy a clean experience that better enables you to focus on content. For maximum efficiency, features, such as the address and search fields, have been combined, while some other options, such as the Off-Road mode, are kept out of the way until you need them.
3. More ways to interact with content
Options, such as the Discover feature in Opera’s browser, gives you different ways of finding and interacting with web content. The Discover feature is like a one-stop shop that gathers news, sports or other interesting content for you in one place right there in the browser. No extra surfing is necessary.
4. Visualization comes in a bigger way
Opera’s Stash feature allows you to collect snapshots of saved webpages in one place, so you can compare them visually in your private content list. A different example of visual expression inside a browser is the refreshed Mac disk image background for Opera 20, released today. Now, animated Norwegian trolls will now guide you through the installation process.
5. The browser gains a more native look and feel
To give a browser a native look and feel, designers spend long months drawing, fine-tuning and testing platform-specific solutions. There are more and more tiny differences between Windows and Mac versions of the browser, such as the placement of a tab closing button or an icon style that blends right into the look of the operating system. Opera’s integration with Windows and Mac has been also improved lately with support for Windows Jump Lists and Mac presentation mode.
“A well-designed browser allows you to get the most out of the web, while being refined and elegant,” says Sebastian Baberowski, Director of Product Management for Desktop products, Opera Software. “To achieve this, interaction designers spend long hours on making every aspect of interaction sleeker and better looking. Try out the latest trends in browser design, and discover the web in a more appealing way.”
Download Opera 20 for Windows and Mac at opera.com. With this new version, users are able to drag and drop pages between Speed Dial and the bookmarks bar. Other improvements include dedicated menu items for Speed Dial and the Stash and Discover features, as well as improvements to extensions. You can now choose from among over 800 Opera extensions, available here.