Software update: Opera 41.0.2353.46

Opera has released version 41 of its web browser of the same name. Opera switched from its in-house render engine Presto to Blink three years ago. This is part of Chromium, which is also used by Google Chrome, among others. Opera is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS. There are also versions for BSD and Solaris, but they are still based on the old technology. In version 41 Among other things, the browser starts up faster and there are improvements to the video display, which include lower battery consumption during video conferencing and hardware acceleration for videos in a separate window.

Faster and better browsing – Welcome Opera 41
We all know the feeling. You want to check out your favorite website, but when you open your laptop or turn on your computer, you realize the browser is closed. You click on the browser icon and then have to wait while the browser opens all your previously opened sites…

We have a solution for you that makes your browsing faster: Opera 41 includes a new, smarter startup sequence that cuts away almost all the wait time, no matter how many tabs you open on startup.

In addition, Opera 41 has several other improvements, like longer battery time when video conferencing and lower CPU usage for video pop-out.

Smarter startup sequence = faster browsing
For more than ten years, the Opera browser’s default setting has been to let you start where you left off. Now, the new smarter startup sequence makes the browser start up faster by prioritizing which of the previously-used tabs are likely to be most important for you. As such, the most recently active tab and any pinned tabs will load first, while less important tabs will be loaded with decreased priority. For most users, this will feel like the tabs are opened immediately, without waiting time.

Test results show an average improvement of 86% when testing startup time with more than 42 tabs open in the previous sessions.

This year, we have stepped up the game for browsers and cut as many pain points for users as possible. That’s why we have introduced unique features like VPN† native ad blocker† battery saver and video popout. For this release, we devote our focus to speed and performance. Here are some other improvements that make Opera more powerful than ever before:

Longer battery time when video conferencing
When using battery saving mode, Opera now detects which video codec can be hardware-accelerated and tries to choose that codec when doing video conferencing via WebRTC (this includes services such as Google Hangouts). This should save a lot of CPU and battery for our laptop-using, video-conferencing hobnobbers out there! And, even if the Opera browser can’t find a hardware-accelerated codec, it will now try to limit the pixel count when in battery-saving mode to reduce CPU usage, if possible.

Hardware-accelerated video pop-out
since Opera became the first browser to introduce the video pop out back in May, the videos displayed have been handled by software. This could cause extensive CPU usage, which again could lead to general system slowdown on low-end computers. With Opera 41, you get a fully hardware-accelerated video pop-out. This should greatly limit the need for CPU support and free your PC resources for other things while you watch your favorite movies. The test results show up to 30% less CPU usage after this change.

Personalized news reader improvements
Operas personalized news reader, one-stop news tailored for users’ needs, has received a long list of improvements, including an option to add a source even if the user doesn’t know the exact RSS URL, as well as history navigation, so you can go back to the previous view. Learn more about the long list of personalized newsreader improvements in the Opera 41 beta blog post†