The change log, and the announcement: Opera 46 beta debuts with UI refresh.

"The release of Opera 45, code-named Reborn, has generated huge interest, marking a big step forward in the development of our browser. We continue the UI redesign project with Opera 46, that has just landed in the beta channel, and it comes packed with tons of tweaks and fixes.

Reborn continues

The Opera UI redesign process keeps on going as we've added several tweaks, new icons and layout improvements. Here are the most important changes:

– A new icon for start page customization.

– Speed Dial is now dark, when wallpapers are disabled, and dark theme is enabled.

– ‘View in bookmarks’ button appears in the bookmarks popup, if the page has been added already.

– It’s now easier to move a window, if multiple tabs are opened on macOS. The clickable area between the new tab plus button, and the tab menu button got slightly bigger.

– Sound notifications are now turned on, when the sidebar is unpinned.

– When importing bookmarks, items from the bookmarks bar will appear in the Opera’s bookmark bar.

– Macbook touch bar users can enjoy an emoji-enabled input field.

New backgrounds

This beta release comes with a little something extra, if you’re looking for the full Reborn experience. To complement Opera’s new look and feel, we have partnered with top industry artists Umberto Daina, and Feridun Akgüngör to create a custom set of fresh, and cool backgrounds.

VPN improvements

Also, Opera 46 comes with important fixes for the out of memory bug, when using our built-in VPN, and for another nasty crash, that might appear during startup.

Still, you might notice some problems, while using our VPN. Since more and more new users are trying Opera after the Reborn launch, our VPN's usage has quadrupled. We are working hard to add more servers to accommodate the demand.

Fixes

The list of fixes in Opera 46 is quite lengthy. Below, we have highlighted the most important ones:

– We fixed the issue of when sync was enabled, the Tabs menu item was missing in the navbar.

– We addressed the issue of misbehaving tooltips, both in normal, and private mode.

– Video pop out fix for Amazon Prime.

– Fixed issue, when the video pop out button was displayed in cases when it shouldn’t.

– Seeking quickly through videos could stall playback [Windows].

– Opera pins itself back to the taskbar, after being launched [Windows].

– Fixed the full screen video issue with 1px line at the bottom [Windows].

– We have removed the space from the tab bar, when a window is not maximized [Linux].

– Several audio, and video changes, including a fix for a nasty memory leak.

– Ad block improvement, and support for tag names.

Support for animated PNG

Opera now supports animated PNG, or APNG for short. APNG is a file format, that works similarly to GIF. The difference is, that APNG is smaller and supports both 24-bit images, and 8-bit transparency. It has become quite popular recently, particularly since Apple adopted the APNG file format for iOS 10 iMessage apps.

Watch the APNG demo, and learn more about this format.

Under the hood

This new beta version comes with updated Chromium to version 59.0.3071.26, and enabled expensive background tabs throttling (opera:flags#background-tab-throttling-max-delay-30s). This technology reduces the processing power required for background tabs, and improves battery life and browsing performance. Try it out yourself with this background timer throttling demo.

Enjoy browsing with Opera 46, and stay tuned for more improvements in Reborn this summer."

\m/ :cheers: