Opera has launched a new concept of a browser, the Neon browser. Please note how am avoiding saying Opera has launched a new browser, rather a concept of a browser. A futuristic browser to be precise or rather an idea of what the browser of the future could look like.
Well, when you look at currently available options of browsers when you see one, you have seen them all. There is nothing that particularly stands out and differentiates them as far as the conceptual design and user experience is concerned. On the functionality and speed front, there is some bit of different no doubt, but the design is more or less the same. It has remained the same for long. Perhaps too much time, I need to add!
That is why Neon design breathes a fresh lease of life. It actually feels like a new fresh coat of paint, and the addition of new lighting in different new locations. More like a new interior décor, kind of feeling! Well, enough with the expression and more on what is this new Neon browser.
First of all, Opera is not replacing is conventional Opera browser with Neon browser. If anything, Neon is inferior to Opera browser given it has lesser features. The company also plans to import features you could like on Neon into the Opera browser. For lack of better example, think of Neon as a lab rat for creating a new medicine, only the best and safest drug will be passed on from the mouse to a human patient.
That said, Neon is an attempt to break the monotony of the current browsers and takes us through a time machine traveling forward in time and looks at what the future browser could look like. How can the browser evolve?
Neon is a Fresh and clean Browser outlook
Opera Neon opens in an arty ‘homepage’ with your most frequented pages listed from bottom to top; the top most being the most visited one. Instead of the ‘homepage’ opening up with a custom background, Neon picks up your desktop wallpaper and uses it as the background. It happens is such a smooth transition you would think the browser is transparent.
In place of the same-old, same-old squares and rectangles that make up the icons of current browsers. Icon on Neon come in circular shapes that highlight either the Web Page logo or if it is a specific article, then it highlights the primary piece of the art of the page is built upon. If you did not have any articles open, then you get ‘favicon’; a small icon that a brand is based on.
Conventionally, browsers keep open tabs align horizontally at the top of the browser window. Neon keeps them in a vertical column at the right side of the browser window. According to Opera, the open tabs will operate as if being pulled down by gravity; the frequently used tabs will rise to the top of the column as the least used tabs sink further down like a stone.
The left-hand side of the browser window has five icons. A ‘+’ sign for adding a new tab, and a series of vertical lines that has a video player, a camera icon that allows you to take screenshots, a paint icon that takes you to a gallery of snippets taken, and a download icon where your downloads are.
And just like the Opera browser, the ‘video player’ can be separated from the rest of the tab as a standalone video window. That way, you get to continue doing your work on the browser, while you watch your YouTube video in the separate window.
The Neon browser remains just that, a conceptual browser. Nothing someone can recommend you do your daily routine browsing on, but something Opera wants to use as its own garage from which to pick on the best ideas to bake into its mainstream Opera browser. If you feel like giving it a test drive, click here to download it.