Opera’s Desktop Web Browser Updated to R2020 Release, Workplaces and Sidebar Panel Introduced

Opera has released a new version of its desktop browser codenamed R2020 for Windows that boasts of its organising capabilities, along with several other features. It introduces the concept of Workspaces where you can organise your tabs according to context. It also lets you cycle between your open tabs using Ctrl + Tab. The R2020 release brings a Sidebar panel where you can place items you want to access quickly like messengers and other features. This is also where you can customise the various Workspaces you have set up.

We have all faced a similar situation where we have so many tabs open that we lose track of them. Opera plans to fix this issue with its new R2020 release by introducing Workspace. Essentially, you can group together the tabs that you feel are from the same context. So, if you have multiple tabs open for comparing ticket prices to some place, you can arrange these tabs into a Workspace named “travel”. As of now, you can set up five Workplaces in Opera R2020. You can also use Ctrl + Space to search for a particular tab using a keyword.

Another addition to the R2020 release is the Tab-cycler, which lets you switch between tabs using Ctrl + Tab. Pressing this combination of keys will switch to the next tab, quite similar to Windows' Alt + Tab function for windows. The new Sidebar has many uses as well. It lets you edit, add, remove, or hide your Workplaces, and even edit the various elements like Opera Tools, History, Bookmarks, and Extensions.

Some of the other features include highlighting duplicate tabs. Opera R2020 will highlight a tab if it has the same address as any other tab, making it easier for you to remove duplicate tabs. In the detailed blog post, Opera has also stated that it has increased user privacy and security by “using the HTTPS protocol to encrypt the data between the DoH client (Opera browser) and the DoH-based DNS resolver.” The Video pop-out feature has also been improved with the addition of a back-to-tab button and a next-track button.

You can download the R2020 release of Opera from the official website for Linux, Mac, and Windows.