- R2 is a new major version of the popular AI-centric browser, Opera One, first released in 2023
- It introduces new ways to enjoy videos and music on the web
- Now available for early testing
Oslo, Norway – June 26, 2024 – Opera, the challenger browser company from Norway, is unveiling Opera One R2, the newest version of its flagship browser for Windows, macOS and Linux. With this new release, Opera is once again improving its AI-centric browser, this time with specific focus on multimedia playback, tab management and innovative design. Opera One R2 is now available for testing by browser enthusiasts in the Developer stream, with its full release scheduled later this year.
“Our research shows our users spend hours in front of their PCs every day, and that the browser is by far the most popular application they use,” said Joanna Czajka, product director at Opera. “With Opera One, we revolutionized their browsing by adding AI and a new way of working with tabs to the experience. With Opera One R2, we are focusing specifically on the multimedia experience.”
Opera One hits its second version with R2
First presented in 2023, Opera One revolutionized modern browsing by centering the users’ experience around Aria, Opera’s native browser AI. The Opera One release also introduced a new modular design and reengineered browser architecture with a multithreaded compositor to Opera’s flagship product. Opera One R2 is a continuation of these changes and brings a further design update.
Prioritizing Multimedia and a New Look
Today’s internet users are consuming more multimedia content than ever: music streaming is booming, and video content dominates the internet, accounting for more than two thirds of global traffic. Recognizing this trend, Opera is bringing Multimedia to the forefront of browsing with the release of Opera One R2 and improving users’ experience with it.
With this release, Opera One R2 is improving the multimedia Player feature and even freeing it from the sidebar, where it is currently housed. The updated Music Player allows users to pause or skip a song by hovering over it in the sidebar, no need to switch tabs or apps. And much like with the floating Video Pop-out module, the Music Player controls will soon be free from the sidebar to be moved anywhere around the browser. Additionally, Video Pop-out has been redesigned to better fit the new look of Opera One R2 while retaining its functionalities. It allows users to detach any video from any platform and place it, or resize it, wherever they want and however they want.
Whether it’s to skip a song that doesn’t match the mood, hit pause/play, or simply have a video playing next to what they’re doing, these features provide an easy access point to multimedia content.
Opera One R2 also brings a fresh look to the browser with the introduction of new themes. This means that Opera is getting a more customizable UI that fits each user’s personality better. These themes will also include sound effects for certain interactions with the UI.
Split Screen for tabs
As the browser that originally invented tabs, Opera knows how vital they are in people’s lives. That’s why the company introduced Tab Islands a year ago, a powerful tab grouping tool at the core of Opera One. Now, Opera One R2 is introducing Split Screen: a feature that allows users to work in two tabs simultaneously by placing them next to each other – in the same browser window. This feature aims to improve users’ productivity when browsing with Opera, giving tabs a new dimension, and improving their overall experience with the browser.
Along with Split Screen, Opera is also bringing two other tab-related features:
The new Tab Emojis allow users to decorate and mark tabs with emojis. This makes tabs easily recognizable and adds a pinch of fun to them. There’s over a thousand emojis to choose from, and it’s up to users to decide which meaning they give to each emoji.
With this update, tabs will also begin to leave traces that subtly highlight the most recently visited ones among them: the lighter the underscore, the older the tab and vice versa. This allows users to see their most recent tabs at a glance. The feature will automatically appear for users who open more than thirty tabs and won’t bother tab minimalists.
Improved AI Capabilities
In 2023, Opera laid the foundations of modern browsing by redesigning its flagship browser around AI, becoming the first AI-centric browser to reach a mass audience. Opera’s browser AI, Aria, helps users with tasks like summarizing content, writing reports, finding up-to-date information, translating documents, and even planning trips. Gathering the most relevant results of the experimental AI Feature Drops program, with Opera One R2, Aria’s capabilities are being upgraded to give users even more AI tools when browsing the web.
Opera is bringing features such as Image Generation and Voice Output to Opera One R2. These allow users to generate images directly from their prompts in Aria’s sidebar chat or the browser command line,* and to have Aria read answers aloud – improving its accessibility. Aria is also gaining Image Understanding capabilities that make it possible for users to upload images to the sidebar chat for Aria to analyze. For instance, Aria can recognize a specific car or shoe model, give context about a famous landmark, and even solve math problems.
Finally, this update also brings Page Context mode, which lets users do page deep dives from the command line.* In Page Context mode, users can have content summarized, find specific information, and even get translations of the webpage they’re on.
The Opera One R2 features will be gradually rolled out in the Developer version of the Opera One browser over the course of the coming weeks. Download Opera One R2 here.
About Opera
Opera is a user-centric and innovative software company focused on enabling the best possible internet browsing experience across all devices. Hundreds of millions use Opera web browsers for their unique and secure features on mobile phones and desktop computers. Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Oslo, Norway, Opera is a public company listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol OPRA. Download the Opera web browsers and access other Opera products from opera.com. Learn more about Opera at investor.opera.com and on X @InvestorOpera
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*The command line can be accessed through the shortcut: Ctrl + / on Windows and Cmd + / on Mac. Page Context Mode is accessed by clicking Tab while using the command line. In some cases – and depending on the keyboard layout – the Aria Command Line shortcut can vary due to different positioning of the forward slash ( / ) character, for example, in the Nordics it’s ctrl/cmd + shift + 7.