As I understand it, the mute tabs feature was primarily created to target advertisements. You're using one tab, and then an ad suddenly starts talking on a tab in the background. It's not a media controller, it's for media that CAN'T be controlled.

The current implementation is only problematic in my mind if you have so many tabs open that the button takes up the entire area. It only shows up when there's actually sound coming from the tab, and there's an animation to emphasize the clickable area.

One thought might be to move it to a right click context menu. make "mute tab" the first item on the list if there's sound coming from the tab.

The devs can't assume you have an adblocker (well maybe they can now, even if it's rudimentary), so until the built in version becomes good enough that it's never a problem, it has to be prominent, since there's a only fraction of a second to grab your attention as you reach for the tab.

  If I pull the handbrake on my car, I expect handbrake operations. I do not expect the window to open or close based 
   on the state of the handbrake.

Problem here is that I think we're thinking of two different situations. I'm thinking of ads playing at inopportune moments, I think you're thinking of media players (maybe pandora or spotify) playing in the background.

I'm going to alter your metaphor slightly, and say that the handbrake is the mute functionality (it fits better anyway). Your complaint is that if you're on the highway going 70mph, you don't want to accidentally hit the handbrake. Fair enough.

I'm saying that if I'm rolling down a hill towards a lake, I want everything from turn-indicators to windshield wiper controls to turn into a handbrake and flash red at me.

You're not wrong that it should probably be in settings, but simply getting rid of it by default as has been suggested is a badly engineered solution.

  If I pull the handbrake on my car, I expect handbrake operations. I do not expect the window to open or close based 
   on the state of the handbrake.

Problem here is that I think we're thinking of two different situations. I'm thinking of ads playing at inopportune moments, I think you're thinking of media players (maybe pandora or spotify) playing in the background.

I'm going to alter your metaphor slightly, and say that the handbrake is the mute functionality (it fits better anyway). Your complaint is that if you're on the highway going 70mph, you don't want to accidentally hit the handbrake. Fair enough.

I'm saying that if I'm rolling down a hill towards a lake, I want everything from turn-indicators to windshield wiper controls to turn into a handbrake and flash red at me.

You're not wrong that it should probably be in settings, but simply getting rid of it by default as has been suggested is a badly engineered solution.

please bring back tab stacking!

I'd also appreciate something more reminiscent of the old opera skins. The navigation bar is what's constantly at the edge of my vision, so I'd rather customize that than the background of the speed dial and settings menu.

As I understand it, the mute tabs feature was primarily created to target advertisements. You're using one tab, and then an ad suddenly starts talking on a tab in the background. It's not a media controller, it's for media that CAN'T be controlled.

The current implementation is only problematic in my mind if you have so many tabs open that the button takes up the entire area. It only shows up when there's actually sound coming from the tab, and there's an animation to emphasize the clickable area.

One thought might be to move it to a right click context menu. make "mute tab" the first item on the list if there's sound coming from the tab.

The devs can't assume you have an adblocker (well maybe they can now, even if it's rudimentary), so until the built in version becomes good enough that it's never a problem, it has to be prominent, since there's a only fraction of a second to grab your attention as you reach for the tab.

I'm observing two problems on Opera Version 38.0.2220.29

1. The toggle switch in the adblocker menu (dropdown when you click on the shield in the address bar) doesn't visually update until you close and reopen the menu. The setting itself will change successfully though, since the shield will toggle from blue to clear and back.

2. I'm not able to see the bookmark creation dropdown menu. I click on the heart to create a bookmark, and the heart turns red, but there's no menu to select where it goes. The bookmark ends up in the last location I was able to select before this bug started up. I believe I saw a partially rendered corner of the dropdown menu once, after clicking the heart half a dozen times rapidly to try and bring up the menu.