This year, Opera celebrates 20 years of its web browser being available to users. To mark this milestone, the company has released Opera 42, a new version of the browser that packs some handy new features that are sure to please longtime users and more recent adopters alike.
One such feature is a built-in currency converter intended to streamline the process of making purchases from international retailers. Users simply need to use their mouse to highlight a price tag on an online storefront, and they’ll be presented with a conversion to their local currency.
The browser supports conversion in 32 currencies, using figures sourced daily from the European Central Bank to make its calculations.
Opera 42 also introduces improvements to the browser’s newsreader functionality. Users can now access web feeds for the sites they’re visiting by clicking the newspaper icon in the address bar, at which point they can add the feed to their favorite sources and receive a notification whenever new content is published. This feature is disabled by default, but can be switched on from the settings menu.
Startup should also be quicker as of the latest version, thanks to a clever tweak to the way tabs are loaded. Instead of simply loading tabs in order, Opera 41 will take into account which ones were used most recently before the user closed the program.
Finally, the new iteration of Opera improves upon the install process thanks to the inclusion of its network installer for 64-bit builds. The installer is able to detect the architecture its running on and install either the 32-bit or 64-bit version of the program, and it’s even able to upgrade from the 32-bit version to its 64-bit equivalent.
Opera 42 is available now — more details on the new version can be found in the blog post announcing its release.
