Microsoft Edge is geared more toward professionals who need to use it for meetings and productivity (opens in new tab). While Mozilla Firefox is renowned for its privacy features, we found Opera to look and feel more streamlined and modern.Ĭompared to Safari, Opera definitely comes out on top in terms of the vast array of extensions that can be added from the Chrome library. Opera’s main competitors are Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox.īecause it’s built on Chromium, Opera looks and feels a lot like Chrome, a leader in the web browser marketplace. You can download Opera’s mobile browser for Android and Chromebook from the Google Play Store (opens in new tab) and for iOS from the App Store (opens in new tab). It works on desktop versions of MacOS X 10.11 and later, Ubuntu 16.04 and later, and Windows 7 and later. Opera is available for MacOS, Linux, and Windows devices. In private browsing mode, once you close out of the window, your history, cookies, and form data are automatically deleted. These include options to clear your browsing history and block cookies, as well as permissions settings that will prompt Opera to ask for your go-ahead with location sharing and camera/microphone functions. On the plus side, Opera offers an assortment of privacy (opens in new tab) customizations that are standard with most web browsers. Also, it lacks encryption (other than HTTPS) and a tunneling protocol, leaving a lot to be desired in terms of privacy. That seriously limits you when it comes to accessing services like Netflix anywhere in the world – with most VPNs, you can choose your desired country. However, Opera’s VPN only allows you to choose between the Americas, Asia, and Europe for IP masking. Opera is one of the only browsers with an onboard VPN, allowing you to mask your device’s IP address (opens in new tab), and you can toggle the VPN on and off as you please. Toggle the integrated ad blocker on and off.Functionality is limited, though, so if you need to take or edit screenshots in a more advanced way, you’ll need an extension. Take a full or partial screenshot of the active page.Send encrypted content and links (articles, images, and videos) between devices using My Flow.Search with Google and use the auto-fill prediction function, or choose from alternative leading search engines.

Opera browser engine to go with