The new Opera is now stable, but new releases are coming soon

Jul 2, 2013 09:38 GMT  ·  By

Opera 15, the new Chrome-based Opera, has landed in the stable channel. The Norwegian software company believes the version is solid enough to shed its beta label and to be offered as a fully-usable Opera browser.

It's important to note that Opera 15 isn't replacing the classic Opera 12 just yet. The old branch is still getting updated with stability patches, and will be maintained for a while longer. Still, you can expect the new Opera to become the sole focus of the company soon.

The stable release doesn't exactly bring anything new over the beta; there aren't any new features, but everything should be working smoother and faster.

The goal of this first release was to have a usable browser and nothing more. There are a couple of small features that are new compared to the old Opera but, overall, feature-wise, switching from 12 to 15 is a downgrade.

That said, you do get a very recent and fast Chrome underneath, with all the good and bad that comes with that.

If you're looking for an upgrade from your current Opera, the new Opera 15 isn't it, not yet anyway. But if you're looking for an alternative to Google Chrome that has most of the good features and none of the "Google," then Opera 15 may be for you.

But this is just the first release, as Opera 16 is coming in a few weeks' time and new versions will land periodically in a fast cycle, just like Chrome's or Firefox's.

Those eho can't wait this long will be able to switch to Opera 16 Next, the beta channel, which should be landing soon enough. There's no word on the Opera Developer release, but that should be coming as well. Users may have to wait for another cycle for it to become available though.