14 DAY TRIAL // Opera doesn’t have the huge market share of Google Chrome and it’s not bundled with the world’s most popular desktop operating system like Microsoft Edge, but it’s still one of the best choices out there when it comes to a feature-packed browser.
And the recently-released version 68 pushes things even further, as it adds new functionality to the browser on all supported desktop platforms.
The main highlight in this new version of Opera is the added support for Instagram, which you can now access with a single click right from the sidebar.
But what I consider to be the top new feature in Opera 68 is the so-called “Workspaces.”
The name is pretty straightforward and it suggests what this feature is all about from the very beginning, as it creates workspaces within Opera to better manage your tasks.
In other words, Workspaces is a new tab group feature that takes advantage of the signature Opera sidebar for better tab management.
Of course, tab grouping isn’t necessarily a new thing, as other browsers come with similar functionality as well, including Google Chrome, which has recently added such an option in the latest updates. The first time I tried tab grouping was in Vivaldi, which allows you to group multiple pages under a single tab for better management.
And obviously, there are so many extensions out there that can do pretty much the same thing, but I still like Opera’s approach the most. And here’s why.
First and foremost, Workspaces lets you create separate tab groups that are then displayed in the sidebar using an icon that you pick – there are several icons that Opera comes with, and for now, custom icons or pics aren’t supported; this is one of the features that could be added in a future update, as using my own icons could help make tab management even more straightforward.
You can rename and delete tab groups as you wish from the sidebar – I, for one, think the best way to use Workspaces is for separating work sites from personal sites. This means you no longer have to close your personal pages when working and the other way around, as you can simply hide them by launching the dedicated workspace from the Opera sidebar.
At this point, Opera allows you to create up to five different workspaces. I’m not sure why such a limitation is necessary, but I assume it’s related to performance. However, with three workspaces, each grouping approximately 10 tabs, I haven’t noticed any substantial hiccup, other than the typical RAM usage increase that’s more or less specific to Chromium-powered browsers.
Once you create a workspace from the sidebar, you can easily send tabs from one group to another by simply right-clicking them in the tab bar. Drag and drop doesn’t seem to be supported, so this is another feature that should be added in a coming update. For example, I think it’d be more straightforward to simply drag a tab over the icon of a workspace rather than right-clicking every tab that I want to move to a new group.
But all in all, Workspaces is the kind of feature that could actually make many give up on their current browsers and move to Opera. Again, while such functionality is already available in other browsers, and some extensions bring it as well, having it offered out of the box is much more convenient, especially when it comes alongside so many other tools that Opera comes bundled with.
The new Workspaces feature is available in Opera on Windows, Linux, and Mac.