Opera today announced Opera for Android 48, which blocks annoying cookie and privacy dialogs and adds several other new features.
“Opera for Android 48 is finally here, and it contains a range of new features worth highlighting,” Opera’s Stefan Stjernelund writes. “In this version, you will find a cookie dialog blocker, browser startup options, home screen shortcuts, improved autofill management, new text size settings, and other UI and functionality improvements.”
Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!
"*" indicates required fields
Here’s what’s new.
Cookie and privacy dialog blocking. Thanks to new EU regulations, websites are repetitively popping up annoying cookie and privacy dialogs all over the place. So Opera for Android will finally offer some relief and let you block them from appearing.
Browser startup and shutdown options. As with other web browsers, Opera for Android will now let you configure what happens when you launch it (e.g. optionally reopen active tabs) and close it down (where you can “close or preserve your open tabs when you exit the browser”).
Home screen shortcuts. Opera for Android will now let you make home screen shortcuts for specific browser functionality like “New tab,” “Search,” and so on.
Credit card improvements. Like other browsers, Opera for Android supports mobile payments and can save credit card data. But it will now offer to save a credit card when you use it to make a purchase online, too. (You can, of course, opt out of this.)
Improved readability. A new text size setting lets you configure the general text layout of web pages to your liking. It works hand-in-hand with existing Opera readability features like text wrap its reading experience.
But wait, there’s more. Opera also highlights other improvements like its new clear data dialog, autofill improvements, and a way to force zoom for all web pages.
This looks solid, and in keeping with my new “Android Without* Google” initiative, choosing a non-Google browser that works across platforms is a great first step. As such, I’ll be checking out Opera for Android (again) this week.