Opera 88 is the new version of the web browser for PC and, unlike what has been happening for a long time with many of its versions, this one does not go unnoticed, or is reduced to incorporating the changes corresponding to the version jump, such as the fixes and optimizations, security patches, etc.
In fact, Opera 88 is the Norwegian browser’s most exciting release since its last and first releases at the end and beginning of the year, respectively, improving features like Pinboards, adopting Chromium’s monthly update cycle or, perhaps somewhat strange, with functions such as the protected copy.
And the fact is that although Opera is a complete browser in terms of functionalities, something more is missing from the fun that it had before in each launch, which was not reduced to collecting what Chromium brings and adding its own, all below the hood. It is enough to attend to the official announcement of Opera 88 and the four lines to which it is reduced.
However, in those four lines there is a novelty at a practical level that browser users will be interested in knowing: are you an Opera user and do you usually open lots and lots of tabs? Opera 88 brings a change that has been expected for years to arrive in the Chromium environment and derivatives: Firefox-style scrollable tabs. In case you haven’t fallen yet, here’s an image.
In essence, this method of scrolling tabs consists of reaching a certain size – as you know, the more tabs you open, the more its size is reduced, until it only shows the icon of the site and even shrinks it – the side flaps that are opened are opened. shown in the image, where the open tabs are hidden so that it is not useless.
After testing it, however, I think Opera needs some polishing, because compared to Firefox, it feels a bit “hard”, to qualify it in some way. The scrolling of the tabs only appears when you have many open and the icons of the sites are barely distinguishable. This is not optimal or expected behavior.
All in all, Opera 88 is the first Chromium derivative to introduce this feature in its default configuration and it is essential to recognize it, because although there are other alternatives to manage open tabs -such as vertical tab bars, among others-, this is the most intelligent.
Apart from tab management, the second novelty of Opera 88 has been released for the moment only in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Poland and goes shopping: shopping corner it’s called and it’s exactly what it sounds like, a kind of shopping assistant full of features with which to have all related online activity in one place.
As they have dug into gHacks, this Shopping Corner would have “price comparison, coupons, trends, news and” the best offers “for the Opera community”. A function similar to a certain extent to the one that Microsoft Edge already incorporates, but, it seems, somewhat more ambitious.
In any case, although Shopping Corner has been released together with Opera 88, it is still not available in these parts, so we will have to wait until it is before trying it out and judging its usefulness.
