Opera

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Browser maker Opera has filed to go public

Norway-based company Opera Ltd. has filed for an initial public offering in the U.S. According to its F-1 document, the company plans to raise up to $115 million.

In 2017, Opera generated $128.9 million in operating revenue, which led to a net income of $6.1 million.

While many people are already familiar with the web browser Opera, the company itself has had a tumultuous history. Opera shareholders separated the company into two different entities — the browser maker and the adtech operations.

The advertising company is now called Otello. And a consortium of Chinese companies acquired the web browser, the consumer products and the Opera brand. That second part is the one that is going public in the U.S.

Opera currently manages a web browser for desktop computers and a handful of web browsers for mobile phones. On Android, you can download Opera, Opera Mini and Opera Touch. On iOS, you’ll only find Opera Mini. More recently, the company launched a standalone Opera News app.

Overall, Opera currently has around 182 million monthly active users across its mobile products, 57.4 million monthly active users for its desktop browser and 90.2 million users for Opera News in its browsers and standalone app. There’s some overlap across those user bases.

More interestingly, Opera only makes money through three revenue sources. The main one is a deal with two search engines. Yandex is the default search engine in Russia, and Google is the default search engine in the rest of the world. As the company’s user base grows, partners pay more money to remain the default search engine.

“A small number of business partners contribute a significant portion of our revenues,” the company writes in its F-1 document. “In 2017, our top two largest business partners in aggregate contributed approximately 56.1% of our operating revenue, with Google and Yandex accounting for 43.2% and 12.9% of our operating revenue, respectively.”

The rest is ads and licensing deals. You may have noticed that Opera’s speed dial is pre-populated with websites by default, such as Booking.com or eBay. Those are advertising partners. Some phone manufacturers and telecom companies also pre-install Opera browsers on their devices. The company is getting some revenue from that too.

The browser market is highly competitive and Opera is facing tech giants such as Google, Apple and Microsoft. At the same time, people spend so much time in their browser that there is probably enough room for a small browser company like Opera. The company will be listed on NASDAQ under the symbol OPRA.

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Opera launches a new mobile browser

Opera today announced a new mobile browser, Opera Touch, that shows that there’s still plenty of room for a competitor in the mobile browsing world. Opera Touch takes some ideas from the company’s experimental Opera Neon desktop browser and packages it into a highly usable package for Android, with an iOS version coming soon.

It’s not so much that Touch reinvents the wheel, but that it seems to have been designed with the idea of putting the user first. This starts with small touches, like putting the tab switcher and access to your bookmarks at the bottom of the page, so that you never have to do some finger gymnastics to reach the top of your screen again (or use two hands, which I guess is also an option…). Safari users are surely quite familiar with having access to these features at the bottom of the screen, but on the main Android browsers, it’s been oddly absent.

When you hold it down, this “fast action” button also gives you easy access to your tabs and a simple tap lets you quickly start a search or type a URL.

“We have moved the browser’s key functions within your thumb’s reach,” said Maciej Kocemba, product manager at Opera, in today’s announcement. “This means that, unlike in most other browsers, you can more easily browse and search the web when on the move.”

The browser also comes with Opera’s ad blocker, if that’s your thing, as well as cryptojacking protection.

What’s maybe most important, though, is that the Opera desktop browser (version 52 is launching today) and Opera Touch can now easily share information with each other without the need for logins and passwords. You simply scan a QR code from the desktop version with Opera Touch and you should be ready to go.

This new feature, dubbed “Flow,” didn’t quite work for me when I tested the new mobile and desktop browsers ahead of the launch, but I assume that’s just pre-launch jitters. When it works, though, it should free you from having to email links to yourself, something too many people still do, despite the fact that most mobile browsers support some kind of syncing with their desktop counterparts. Often, though, those features are rather hidden.

Of course, not everything can be perfect. One feature I sorely miss in Opera Touch is the ability to actually manage my bookmarks. Touch automagically fills in your list of most often used sites, but there is no way to pin a bookmark to a specific spot in that list. To be fair, most people probably just type the first few letters of the site they want to go to and that’s fine, but a bit more flexibility here would be nice.

If you’re interested in looking at an alternative browser, Opera Touch is definitely worth a try. It works best in combination with the desktop version, but it’s also perfectly fine as a stand-alone mobile browser.

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Opera shuts down Max

 Only a few years ago, Opera Max was the rising star in the browser maker’s portfolio. The service offered a system-wide data-saving proxy that funnelled all app data through Opera’s servers to compress images and videos. Now, however, Max is heading for the deadpool. The company, which is now owned by a consortium of Chinese firms, today announced that it will shut down… Read More

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Opera Max Can Now Compress YouTube And Netflix Videos

Opera Max 8.18 image Opera Max, Opera’s data-saving proxy for Android, has long allowed you to save some of your previous mobile data by compressing text, video and images when you surf the web or use apps like Instagram on your phone. What Opera Max couldn’t do, however, was compress HTTPS videos and that meant no support for the likes of YouTube and Netflix. Read More

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Opera Launches Redesigned Opera Mini For Android

discover Opera Mini, the little brother to Opera’s regular mobile browser, is getting a major makeover on Android today. The company says the new design, which is pretty much in line with the regular Opera mobile browser, is meant to give the browser a more native look and feel. If you’re confused about why Opera offers both its regular mobile browser and Opera Mini on Android,… Read More

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Opera Buys SurfEasy To Add Secure VPN Services To Its Browser Software

opera surfeasy Opera, makers of a suite of software for browsing the web on mobile and desktop devices used by some 350 million consumers, has made another acquisition to build out the services it offers to users. It has acquired SurfEasy, makers of a virtual private network (VPN) app that lets users browse the web more securely. This is Opera’s first security-focused acquisition, and it is made in… Read More

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Opera Brings Back Cross-Platform Bookmark Syncing

Opera A few months ago, Opera (re-)introduced cross-platform bookmark syncing in its beta applications for the desktop and Android. Today, it’s launching this feature into its stable channel for desktop, Android and iOS.
When Opera moved to WebKit in 2013, it gained a couple of new features, but it also lost quite a few more. The company always said that it would bring most of these back, though. Read More

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Opera Adds Free Apps To Its Android Data Savings App Opera Max

14692097377_70ca426cad_k Last year mobile browser company Opera launched Opera Max, a data-compressing Android app that let users save money on their mobile data. Now, to drive more usage of the product, Opera is adding another feature to Max: apps you can use for free. App Pass, as the service is called, is aimed first at users in emerging markets, where smartphone adoption is booming, but the average smartphone… Read More

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Opera Buys AdVine To Expand Its Mobile Ad Network In Africa

Mobile users in Uganda Opera — the Norway-based company that develops data-compressed web browsers, app storefronts, and other cloud-based services for mobile and other platforms — has made another acquisition to build out Mediaworks, its mobile advertising subsidiary. It has bought AdVine, a mobile ad network based in Cape Town, South Africa. This is Opera’s first acquisition in the… Read More

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