14 DAY TRIAL // Coming hot on the heels of last week's update and rebased on Chromium 62.0.3202.18, today's Opera 49 developer update brought smoother video playback to macOS users and integrated the VK messenger on the sidebar.
Opera's development team spent some time testing video playback on Macs, enabling a smoother playback when watching your favorite TV shows and movies online, along with snappier seeking, faster loading of high-resolution videos. These improvements should have a very possite impact the CPU, RAM and power usage on your Mac.
"Opera 49 makes videos better on macOS. You will get smoother playback, snappier seeking, high-resolution videos will load faster and the overall video experience should be noticeably better," said Maciej Kocemba, Product Manager, Opera. "The new solution has positive impact on both CPU and RAM usage, as well as power usage."
Kocemba also said that these video playback improvements implemented in the latest Opera 49 developer update would be more visible when users play high-resolution videos on YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Vimeo, and similar video streaming websites. Tests were conducted on a MacBook Pro 17-inch, Early 2011, with macOS Sierra.
Russian Opera users will now enjoy built-in VK support
Today's Opera 49 developer update also added support for the Russian-based VK online social media and social networking service, which is integrated directly in the sidebar to easy access. If you don't see the VK icon on the sidebar after installing the update, you'll need to open the context menu by right-clicking on the sidebar to, and enable VK support from the list.
It's worth mentioning that VK support joins the existing WhatsApp, Telegram, and Facebook Messenger built-in support in Opera. As usual, a bunch of issues were resolved in this Opera 49 developer update, which you can download for macOS, GNU/Linux, and Microsoft Windows operating systems right now from our website, but please don't use this version for any production work.
