Hello everyone! I’m happy to introduce another update of Opera for Android. This time we have focused on a number of features requested by the community which I hope you will enjoy. We would also like to highlight how the data savings feature can make it easier to browse on congested networks.

Full control of your data savings

Opera for Android comes with a very useful data savings feature. Presently, networks are under stress and some of us are experiencing slower connections due to the sheer volume of traffic. The European commission has successfully urged Netflix and other streaming services to switch from HD streaming to SD in times of peak demand as we stay home.

Common feedback from frequent users of the data savings feature has been that it is not always obvious enough what mode is active, and that the accessibility of the data savings switch could be better. We have solved this by introducing a data savings badge, which indicates whether data savings is active and how much data is being saved. You can also quickly access the data savings switch and additional settings by simply tapping on the badge. The badge appears when you first activate data savings, and will then stick around as long as data savings are enabled, or until the next browsing session.

To speed up browsing on congested networks, we also recommend switching on the ad blocking function, which speeds up page loading.

You can use these features to limit your bandwidth usage: either because you would like to smoothen your own browsing or to simply leave more network bandwidth for others.

Improved offline pages

Frequent users of offline pages have been regularly asking us to give this feature a bit of love. We decided to do just that by adding the ability to customize your storage location for offline pages. This means no more space issues for those whose internal storage is full, but who have plenty of space on an external card. 

Having access to the physical file location also means that you can move offline pages freely between devices with simple file operations. While working on this feature we also decided to make a few improvements on the UI: file sizes in the list, updated icons, an informative badge in the address bar when viewing an offline page.

Quicker Speed Dial access

A long time ago, Opera pioneered the concept of the Speed Dial, giving you faster access to your favorite pages. When studying user patterns we have seen that users still gravitate towards using the address bar when they are not on the start page, and often type more than they need in order to reach their frequently visited sites. 

Now we are introducing autocompletion to your Speed Dials, meaning that once you start typing something that matches the URL or title of a Speed Dial, it will be autocompleted directly in the address bar, enabling you to simply tap go without having to explicitly pick a suggestion from the drop-down list.

YouTube the way you prefer

While we have made sure that YouTube works flawlessly in our browser, a portion of our users prefer a more dedicated UI for video watching and browsing. We have listened to this and are now introducing the option to automatically switch to the YouTube app whenever you end up at youtube.com. The choice can be changed at any time in site settings to best suit your personal preferences.

Web 3 domain names & more 

On the crypto front we have made additional improvements to our cutting edge Crypto Wallet. This update includes support for Web 3.0 websites with .crypto domain names (Unstoppable domains) as well as .eth and .xyz (ENS: Ethereum Name System) using IPFS. 

We are also expanding our Crypto Buy feature to more countries. This means it’s easier than ever to top up your crypto wallet directly in Opera. Check your wallet for this feature if you are in Europe, Australia, New Zealand or Hong Kong!

Once again, I hope you enjoy the improvements in this release of Opera for Android, this time triggered to a large extent by your valuable feedback. We really appreciate hearing from you. Keep the community alive and the ideas flowing so we can build the best possible product that we all enjoy using.

Happy browsing!

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