Opera One is an exciting new way for the Opera browser, but with one big caveat.

opera is my favorite browser For a while. One of the main features that attracted me to browsers was Tab management solution, which was absolute perfection. Opera Workspaces blows all other tab management out of the water.

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But last week I was sent a link to download and preview the new app Opera One This browser is mostly in beta but has become my default. Granted, I’ve dealt with some issues, but this is beta software and that’s the norm. Should Opera One be your go-to tool? Probably not.but This browser is too good not to useeven in the early stages.

What is Opera One?

First, I have to say one slightly reluctant disclaimer about leaving Opera One as default. Yes, I think this is the coolest browser on the market right now, but it comes with a big caveat.

Artificial intelligence (AI).

i am not a fan. As a result of thinking in this way, AI platforms such as ChatGPT and OpenAI can have meaningful uses and are ready to wreak havoc on society, take away a job from a good person.

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I don’t write about AI. Because we don’t want to give the AI ​​more agency than it already has. But, sadly, it’s clear that Opera is heavily focused on AI. This is one of the features I disable with all my might. Luckily, Opera developers have made it possible with Opera One. Simply flip a switch to disable AI prompts. Hopefully browsers retain the ability to disable AI. If not, go back to Firefox and finish your work.

And that’s all I’m trying to say about AI.

let’s go back to Why Opera One is exciting.

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According to Opera One’s website: A more intuitive liquid navigation experience. ”

What the developers have done is employ a multi-threaded compositor within the UI to allow animations to be included in the browser. For example, when you switch from one workspace to another, the browser animates that shift to a very cool effect. Adding a new tab also animates it. With this new multi-threaded compositor, there’s no limit to what Opera can do with his UI.

supercharged tab

As I said before, Opera already had the best tab management on the market. But Opera One makes tab management even more effective. There are two new features added to the tab management mix. The first of these new features is called Tab Islands. This feature is difficult to explain for several reasons. First, because Opera itself doesn’t explain this feature very well. Then this feature crashed on my instance of Opera One and for some unseen reason still hasn’t come back. Once the tab island worked, I was able to left click on a tab and add it to the default tab island. All tabs added to that island are grouped.

However, inexplicably, the functionality came back only this time, and it was automatic. I did a test on the NBC News site. I first opened the main page and right clicked on the link to open it in a new tab. Running it a second time created a tab island.

As you can see, these two tabs are linked together. A small dot appears when you hover over the right edge of the rightmost tab on the island. Hover over that dot and a + will appear allowing you to add a new tab to your island.

Even in the current beta state of the browser and this feature, it’s exciting.

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Another tab feature that Opera has added is contextual grouping of tabs. What this feature does is automatically detect tabs with similar content and group them together. For example, if you have two ZDNET articles open in different tabs, Opera will color-code them so you know which tabs are related. Also, I must confess that after trying to add a third tab with a similar context, the contextual automatic tab grouping stopped working as well. But while it worked, it stood out.

Combine this with Opera’s excellent tab management and it’s hard to believe that any other browser can beat this combination of features. And maybe (in a future update) Tab Islands will work again, and I can explain it in a how-to.

If you’re a tab power user, you owe it to yourself Try Opera browserIf you’re lucky, try an early preview release of Opera One too. Please don’t follow my lead and make it your default. Otherwise you will run into problems.

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Another problem I’ve encountered with Opera One tabs is that they can’t be detached from the current window. You can open new Opera windows and open tabs in them, but there is no (current) way to pull tabs out of windows or move tabs from one window to another.

my conclusion

Aside from the built-in AI and the instability of the early release version of Opera One, the browser is like you’ve never seenIt includes all the exciting features already in Opera’s flagship browser, plus a multi-threaded compositor for great animation effects and easy organization of large numbers of tabs in ways no other browser can touch. We’ve added some new tab features that you can use.

We can’t wait for the first stable release of Opera One. Until then, however, we’ll stick with the early access version and address bugs as they arise. That’s the beauty of this browser.