Access your favorite sites quickly and view more pages using less data
Last updated on 03/04/21
There have been 5 updates within the past 6 months
Also available on Android, Mac, and Windows
Editors’ Review
Opera is a mobile browser based on the Blink engine, which Google uses for its mobile and desktop versions of Chrome. While the Chrome browser dominates on Android and Safari rules iOS, Opera for Android carves out some space for itself, thanks to features like a built-in ad blocker, easy access to multiple search engines, text wrapping, and the ability to force a website to load the desktop version of its layout.
Pros
Imagine Chrome but with ad blocking: Mobile ads can be infuriatingly intrusive, getting between you and the content you want. Opera can block pop-up windows and ads with a toggle in the settings: Tap the red O in the upper right, then tap Settings. However, we’d also like the ability to whitelist ads, which lets us support sites that play nice. As of version 37, Opera makes ad blocking an all-or-nothing proposition.
Usability improvements: Opera offers a host of handy settings:
Tell Opera to load the desktop version of a website, if you don’t like its mobile interface.
Force text wrapping, so that when you zoom in on a paragraph, the text will adjust to fit your screen. Some websites block your ability to zoom in, but Opera has a setting to override that, too.
If you want to sync your data between the desktop and mobile versions of Opera, the company has its own account system that you can use, separate from Google’s.
Site Settings keeps a detailed index of every app on your device that has asked for permission to access your location, set notifications, or use your camera or microphone. You can change or reset your permissions with a few taps.
Better data-saving options: In Chrome, you can only turn the Data Saver off and on. All your videos and images get compressed at the same level. In Opera, you have four compression levels — Off, Low, Medium, and High — and you can decide to compress images and leave videos alone.
Cons
Lacks casting: Being unable to cast videos from directly within the browser isn’t a big downside, but it’s worth mentioning. While Chrome and Opera for Android share a large amount of code, Opera lacks the casting feature. Even Firefox can do this now, at least with Chromecast and Roku devices.
Ad blocking could use better controls: On the desktop, an ad blocker usually lets you select which page elements you want to block, or it lets you choose from different curated blocking lists, or both. Sometimes page content will not load at all if you block a certain ad provider or tracker, so it’s important to be able to refine your filtering or temporarily disable all blocking on a particular page. In Opera, blocking is an all-or-nothing toggle in the Data Settings section of the browser’s settings. This is a relatively new feature, though, so we can give Opera the benefit of the doubt that this feature may be enhanced as time goes on.
Bottom Line
Unless you really need the prediction service or in-browser casting, it’s honestly difficult to recommend Chrome over Opera this point, at least on Android.
Full Specifications
What’s new in version March 3, 2021
Thanks for choosing Opera! This version includes improvements to Flow, the share dialog, and the built-in video player.
