Opera has released its long-promised One R2 web browser with a few potentially major advantages over Chrome and Safari, including split screen tabs, a floating music player, and a raft of new AI features.
Split Screen, as we found in our hands-on, effectively turns the just-released browser into a multitasking system where you can work in two tabs at once. There are also “Tab Traces,” or visual cues that show which tabs you’ve used most recently. You can join tabs to be sure they stay together.
A floating music player, along with a detachable video popout, makes it easier to control web-friendly media services (such as Spotify) without disrupting your view.
Unsurprisingly, Opera is leaning more heavily on Aria AI features in One R2. New image generation and image understanding features both create new pictures and describe what’s going on. There’s a more capable command line, too, with a “Page Context” mode that can summarize or analyze site content as well as compare products while you’re shopping.
There are some primarily cosmetic improvements as well. You’ll now find dynamic themes with adjustable live-generated animations, customized colors, and action-driven sounds.
Opera One R2 is available now for Mac and Windows users. The company is also promising continued support for ad blockers, including both the built-in example and Manifest V2-based blocker extensions.
Opera remains a relatively small player in the web browser space with just under 3% desktop market share as of September 2024, according to StatCounter. However, that still makes it one of the largest alternatives on the market. And as we found out while talking to company leaders last month, Opera has seen a 51% jump in Western market users in the past four years (now 51 million). One R2 could attract users who want better tab management and theming, or at least keep people who’d be tempted to leave for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari.