The new release won't go well with diehard fans, but things will get better in time

May 28, 2013 07:10 GMT  ·  By

It's been a little over three months since Opera made a shock announcement saying that it would stop developing its own browser and browser engine.

It also announced then that it would instead start using WebKit on mobile devices and a custom Chromium (the open source version of Chrome) build on the desktop.

The first release of the Chromium-based Opera is now here, for Windows and Mac, and anyone can check it out, you can grab it here.

At first glance, the new browser, dubbed Opera Next 15, doesn't look that much like Chromium. While this is a good thing for Opera fans, it doesn't look like Opera either.

Granted, with browsers converging towards a similar layout and UI, there's little to differentiate them at this point. We talk more about the look and feel here.

Opera Next 15 is based on Chrome/Chromium 28, Chrome 28.0.1500.20 to be exact, the very latest beta release.

Chrome users may feel a bit thrown back by a few missing preferences, though Opera does come with a few features on top of Chrome.

Meanwhile, Opera users will feel really thrown back by the long list of missing features and options and the very, very short list of new features, unavailable in the old Opera.

It's a first release and things will get better, but don't expect diehard Opera fans to embrace this new version happily.

Opera doesn't really care, one way or the other. Sure, it would love for its users to switch over and it would love to get some Chrome or Firefox or IE users to make the switch as well.

But the only reason Opera is releasing a new desktop browser is because people would have been a lot angrier if it didn't. But that's it, Opera's sole focus is on mobile devices.

It doesn't care about the desktop market more than building a Chromium clone, and that's because the desktop market itself doesn't have much of a future.

Sure, desktops and desktop browsers will be around for a few more decades, but most of the world will be going mobile, or at the very least move towards a hybrid device positioned between a tablet and a laptop.

And there's no guarantee that such a device would be running a desktop OS; it will be touch-input based which means it will use a "mobile" browser.

That said, if you were looking for something as fast and secure as Chrome but which isn't Chrome, Opera Next may be an interesting choice.