They say beauty is only skin deep, but with so much effort focused on the internals and new features in the recent versions of Opera for Android, the time has come to redesign the way our browser looks. 

Version 54 comes with a major design shift, with which we go beyond dark and light modes and add plenty of colors. The first iteration of the new design, codenamed Squircles, also includes flatter elements and softer edges. Our current users will, however, still feel the comfort of familiar and appreciated features. We have also added several new exciting features to the crypto wallet, and many other small but important improvements to give you the best possible browsing experience.

New design philosophy

If you look at the previous user interface, it was built on the first iteration of material design, with “physical” cards, sharp corners and shadows. The new UI which we are presenting to you today is flat, with no extra information in layers and shadows. This makes it visually cleaner. We have also shortened the animation times and made the paths for moving objects simpler. What this means for you is that you can get to your end goal in the browser more quickly.

We have based this new design philosophy on emotions and how you feel when you use Opera for Android. We have found that you typically don’t have time and want to get to what you want as quickly as possible. The new design helps you achieve this goal by reducing unnecessary distractions: it abandons the former sharp geometry, introducing the concept of transition focus.

What this means in practice is that you will be delighted with the beautiful interface without the fluff: transitions should be as fast as possible.

All of Opera’s features, like the free unlimited VPN, the built-in ad blocker and Crypto Wallet, follow the same line of thinking – you should be able to access them as fast as possible. At the same time, the browser maintains a multitude of options which let you adjust it to your specific taste and make browsing even more visually pleasing.

Themes

Everyone’s preferences are different, and we show our respect for that through the multitude of options for tweaking your browser from within the settings. The Appearance section is now reworked and expanded with more (colorful) options to make the browser your own. We have also added an option to harmonize with the Android system’s Dark Theme setting, but the choice is of course always yours. This means you are now getting 10 color options: blue, red, gray, green and purple – each one of them in light or dark.

Improved Crypto Wallet

In addition to our existing support for Ethereum (ETH), version 54 is introducing support for Bitcoin (BTC), the world’s most popular crypto currency. You can now choose to add a Bitcoin card to your wallet, making it possible to send and receive money from the web.

We have also added support for the Tron blockchain and Tron DApps.

Other improvements

We get a lot of support mail from users about annoying push notifications from sites they have visited. While these notifications are a standard part of the web and require user opt-in, we know that it’s easy to sometimes just tap OK on dialogs that are in the way. The default action for such notifications is now set to deny, rather than allow, to ensure that you don’t allow them by mistake.

We have also added support for the emerging Web Authentication standard (WebAuthn) to make it easier for you to sign up for or sign into websites.

We hope you have enjoyed this blog post and that you enjoy the new Opera for Android. Happy browsing!

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