On the left-hand side are a group of icons, and there is some interesting functionality built in here. Mind you, we would have liked the option to shut a tab from within the browser box itself (it only has a minimising button) – right now, you either close the tab from the File menu or minimise it and then delete it from the bar on the right. Yes, we could get finicky and say we want previews of websites when the mouse hovers over the buttons but even without that, the effect is very pleasant indeed. Drag a bubble on to an open site and you can view the two websites together, side by side, in split screen mode. You can drag any bubble to the centre of the browser below the search/URL bar to make it a bookmark bubble, which will appear whenever you open a new tab. The right hand side serves as a collection of open tabs and is basically a collection of bubbles, each representing the site you have opened. Click on a bubble to open the site it represents in a more traditional “browsing rectangle.” Or enter the URL in the address bar, and you will see the site you are headed to appear as a bubble on the right-hand side of the browser. There is also a transparent box that serves as both a search and an address bar. The launch screen of the browser is totally transparent, so you get to see the wallpaper on your desktop (though not the apps on it, thankfully) and a bunch of colourful bubbles representing the sites that the browser recommends. For unlike other worthies which promptly present you with a white box and an address bar, Opera Neon gives you… well, bubbles. So you can imagine how pleasantly surprised we were to see the folks at Opera (those who gave us tabbed browsing, remember), suddenly dip into their design reservoirs and come out with what they termed a “concept browser” because praise be, it looks like no other browser out there.Īnd this hits you from the moment it launches.
Which while not bad in itself, can make browsers a trifle dull and predictable. A classic case of substance triumphing over style, as it were. Changes are found mainly in terms of features and functionality, rather than appearance. In fact, browser design has tended to be a bit on the stagnant side of late, with the predictable box like interface, space for tabs and so on.
For, no matter how long the changelogs and how numerous the bug quashes, the stark fact remains that modern day browsers on computers look rather like their mums and dads from a few years ago (a few years is enough for a few generations to mature in tech!). The times they might be a-changin’, but when it comes to browsers on computers, you might be forgiven for thinking that it’s yesterday once more.
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