Software update: Opera 43.0.2442.806

Opera has released version 43 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 43 pages are already loaded in the background while users are still typing the page name. Furthermore, the performance of the Windows version has been significantly improved and there is an option to include when copying a link or the text, or the url.

Speed ​​is what matters most

Since web content is getting heavier and heavier, web browsers need to load pages faster and faster to keep up with user expectations.

Last year, we sped up Opera with features like native ad-blocking, page-load speed optimization, and faster start-up. Now, with instant page loading and PGO, we’re giving it another boost that will squeeze loading time.

How instant page loading works

Instant page loading is a technology that predicts which website you’re typing the address for. Once recognized, it begins loading the site in the background even before you hit enter.

Instant page loading becomes smarter over time by learning which URL inputs led to a specific website. For example, if you type “nyt.com” on multiple occasions, it will learn from this and begin loading the New York Times in the background. In addition, when you search for something in the address bar, it will load the results likely to be clicked in the background.

Opera can predict what page a user is going to load not only from its behavior, but also when the current page uses the < link rel=prerender … > tag.

PBL for Windows

Another performance feature to land in the latest Opera version is Profile Guided Optimization (PGO). PGO is a compiler technique able to make software running on Windows significantly faster. With PGO, we can teach the compiler what usage scenarios are important so that Opera can perform those tasks even faster, using even less CPU.

PGO optimizes the most important parts of the browser, and brings some significant speed improvements. With this technology, startup is 13% faster*. Also, the browser engine has gotten a performance boost, confirmed by several benchmarks such as speedometer (60.3% improvement compared to Opera 42), JetStream (7.7%), and Octane (3.35%)**.

Test results on Speedometer after PGO. Higher score is better.

Classic link selection

In addition, Opera 43 brings you classic link selection. With this feature, you are able to select text in the link without triggering the link. Using classic link selection is really simple:

– Use horizontal click-and-drag to select the text.
– Use vertical click and drag to drag the link.

*These results are from a computer running Windows 7 x32 using an i7-4600 CPU locked at 2.1GHz. In the startup tests, Opera was stored on an HDD. We’ve compared x32 build number 43.0.2442.686 (PGO) and 42.0.2393.78.

**These results are from a computer running Windows 10 x64 using an i7-6500U CPU. We’ve compared x32 build number 43.0.2442.686 (PGO) and 42.02393.78.