Opera 25.0

Though it does not enjoy the same popularity of IE, Firefox, and Chrome, Opera is one of the first alternatives that comes to mind when looking for a secure, feature-rich, and fast browser. With a redesigned interface and packed with powerful features, this version of Opera focuses on making web browsing a more enjoyable experience.

The new features of Opera 25 center on website organization and easy access. The start page presents a brand-new way of saving and organizing websites with Speed Dial, Discover, and Bookmarks. Speed Dial shows a 3x3 grid that offers a convenient manner to keep the most visited sites always at hand. This grid can be customized and it is possible to organize related websites into groups. The Visual Bookmarks feature arranges favorite webpages in small windows or thumbnails that display their content. That way, bookmarks can be viewed as a gallery of images and can be organized into folders with custom titles. The Discover section lets you find out selected new content, top stories, news, and articles of your interest.

Opera's new interface reflects an elegant, clean environment that arranges all browser options under a single button, and integrates the address bar with the built-in search in one single area. It lets you work with multiple tabs (in fact, Opera was the first browser to include tabs), pin the ones you want to keep at hand, and preview other tabs simply by hovering the mouse pointer over them. The Tab Preview feature will come in handy to take a glance at other web pages without leaving your current tab. Besides, Opera is highly customizable, supporting add-ons to extend its functionality as well as themes to tweak its appearance.

In terms of speed, Opera has always been a highly competitive browser and this version does not disappoint. Besides, if your connection is slow, Opera Turbo can help you optimize speed by compressing web pages and reducing image quality. As for security and privacy, Opera alerts you of suspicious web sites and gives you the possibility of blocking pop-ups. It also enables you to remove browsing data and history, and even navigate with a private session to avoid leaving traces of the sites you visit.

To sum up, Opera is a robust web browser that manages to stay on par with its competitors, combining an extensive set of features with remarkable speed and a clean, user-friendly interface.

Mariel Rearte

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