The Opera browser has always done the world-wide web a be differently than most of the other major browsers out there. It’s this unique styling that has seen the adoption of the browser rise to be placed alongside the like of Chrome, Firefox and whatever it is Microsoft keeps bundling into every PC on the planet.
The new Opera Neon is what the company is called a “concept browser” that has been designed to allow users to focus on the most important part of the internet – the content.
The very first thing that you are going to notice is the radical departure from what we know a browser to look like. No matter what browser you use, the basic structure looks pretty much the same.
You get a window with a homepage and an address bar at the top. Maybe you have some extra bits and bobs on there, but those basics are always there. Neon does things differently right from the get go.
Neon looks more like a traditional operating system than a traditional web-browser. It features Speed Dial visual tabs and the omnibox bar which floats above the almost desktop environment. Neon also brings your desktop wallpaper into the mix, so the browser sort of lies on top of it in this really strange, yet neat way.
Opera also implemented a physics engine like some sort of video game that lets tabs and objects respond to the user like real objects. I know that sounds weird –and it is– but it means everything has weight and will move about in a “natural way” on the screen.
Neon also features a split-screen mode to make organizing this easier as well as letting you gather all those media-playing tabs into a single screen known as the “Player Panel”. It’s also no easier than ever to take snapshots with the “Snap-to-gallery” feature that also keeps everything organized and easier to call back up.
The Opera Neon browser is free to download right now, but understand that it’s still pretty early, so you can expect to run into some issues while the team work out all the bugs. Users are reporting the odd crash here or there, so don’t expect to ditch your old browser just yet.
Still, Neon currently holds its own in testing against all the other major browsers and I could easily see myself making the full switch in a few months.
Download Opera Neon at: http://opera.com/neon
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