@burnout426, these are welcome, thoughtful responses. I appreciate that you took that time, and has me thinking Opera still may work for me, and I was too quick to dismiss. I haven't uninstalled anything. In fact I've been so utterly disgusted at the state of the browser landscape, I can't see a single browser I even like anymore. Seems like most browsers are jumping on the poorly implemented AI bandwagon, complete with privacy, tracking and security concerns thrown right out the window. Or vendors are so concerned about losing market share or monetization opportunities, that they've lost the forest through the trees, and are selling all our data as capitalism implodes in real time. I shouldn't be surprised that bloatware IS the browser now; You don't even have to buy a new PC anymore! Browsers like Brave have decent privacy features but is far too barebones to be a productive-use daily driver.
Hopefully the eventual need for our AI assistants to be able to modify all our software to do exactly what we want will push everything toward open-source. The design visibility to know exactly what our software does, and trust it'll do so with security and privacy confidence, is worth the price of giving up "feature rich" (privacy leaking) proprietary bloatware. Maybe then we'll finally see open source browsers worth installing, meant for mainstream use. For now, I'll make due with the less than ideal options available.
Back on topic though...
I'll follow your suggestion to uninstall Opera and reinstall. I suspect that could be the best way to make sure the issue isn't with Opera itself.
As for multi-profile support, I already went down that road the first time I bumped into this limitation. I get that most users see Workspaces as you stated, and likely Opera's Product Owners do too: visually/logically separate places into different spaces, for quick and easy changes in workflows. But I hardly see this as much different than managing different Windows for each workspace. For me in particular, I find Opera's concept of "Workspaces" to be extremely inadequate. More curious, there's multi-profile support in Opera GX. Is Opera refusing to support multiple profiles in Opera One simply an attempt to distinguish One from GX? If you're an Opera product owner reading this, and you're thinking "yeah, finally someone's got it," then I question the need for 2 browsers to begin with. If you'll hold back features from one, while shoehorning every feature equivalent of "RGB case fans" into the other, it seems like you're forcing both browsers to be insufficient for anyone but the demographics for which they're designed. There's a middle ground best served by one focused, but flexible browser. I think Opera's users are better served by a browser that may capture the likely broader market segment of middle-ground users who aren't looking for a stripped down experience (Opera One) or a "Gaming Focused," feature-bloated browser (Opera GX).
I just want a browser that isolates every tab into its own sandbox of session and cookie isolation by default. A standard browser experience should be available to the user with controls for how the isolation is allowed to be broken, including the necessary fine grained controls to pick and choose which specific sites can access individual sessions and cookies. You know, like you'd design a browser if you could. It's unlikely to be popular with the folks (browser vendors included) who make money off all that nonsense. Mentions of this sort of control put into users hands, has been the subject of many a privacy advocating blog post, including the likes of Chrome and Firefox, likely Opera too, as privacy was, at least outwardly, a priority for Opera, at some point. It just never seems to happen. Sounds like a good first-mover advantage to me.
Forgive the rantings of an industry jaded software developer/product owner. I've just seen too many companies fall into this kind of profitability trap, pivoting till they find the direction that allows market traction. With the game changing so quickly with AI tech, not just on the horizon--but here, now--capitalism's trappings will be the undoing of many a company, not finding their way out of before their runway is gone. True innovation over and above the rest is the only way to succeed, but even innovation doesn't guarantee success if the base product isn't at least doing what the others do. Someone will get it right eventually.
