Opera for Android Gets a Nice Start Page Refresh, World Cup Integration

Opera announced an update to its Android web browser with a major refresh of its start page and a dedicated football hub for the upcoming World Cup.

“The start page has always been the first thing you see when you open Opera – right after you install it, and every single time you come back,” Opera’s Shriya Sharma writes. “For us, that makes it one of the most important moments in your entire browsing experience.”

Opera says the new start page is cleaner, calmer, and designed to get out of the way. It puts the search box front and center, a more spacious layout, and new wallpapers designed to give a warmer and more considered feel. The Speed Dial icons have been rounded and softened to help give the page a more settled feel, it adds, and there are links to AI Mode and private browsing.

Thanks to the upcoming World Cup, Opera for Android also includes a live scores carousel you can enable on the start page or access from the menu. You can tap into any match, view starting lineups, statistics, scores, and other data. And you can enable notifications to keep up on your favorite team, the schedule, and even things like goals and red cards.

“The news feed is powered by AI and adjusts to what you read over time,” Sharma adds. “Player pages are also available on Opera for Android and Opera Mini, which means you can look up your favorite players and see their stats and recent news. A tournament this big means everyone has an opinion on the squad, so being able to pull up the actual numbers in seconds is the kind of thing that ends arguments.”

You can download Opera for Android from the Google Play Store.