Opera is releasing a new feature to its Web browser that should make the Internet less annoying and much, much faster.
Opera is already the fastest mobile browser for video, and now it sets its sights on desktops and ads.
Online ads have been around for so long that we've even learned to ignore them on most websites. However, that often makes things worse because marketers now have to make their ads even more annoying to stand out and catch our attention.
Even though we've had ad-blocking extensions for almost as long as we've had ads on the Internet, it's only just recently that both people and major corporations such as Apple have been more open to such software.
As Opera explains, it is now the world's first browser maker to incorporate a native ad-blocking feature into its software. Because its ad-blocking technology natively operates from within the Web engine of the Opera browser, its solution offers unmatched speed over any other ad-blocking extension made by a third-party developer.
As a result, without bloated ads, top websites would load up to 90 percent faster. At least that's what Opera says in the opening line of its announcement regarding the new native ad-blocking technology.
Does the Opera browser itself actually pull in websites from servers that fast? Not really.
What Opera explicitly states is that its browser's latest trick allows for an average of 45 percent faster browsing compared to Google Chrome using the AdBlock Plus extension. Moreover, using a test machine visiting 66 "content-rich websites," Opera took an average of 5.3 seconds to open them. Firefox took 6.4 seconds, Chrome 7.7 seconds and Internet Explorer at 10 seconds.
"But what if ads could be better, less intrusive and not slow down the browsing so significantly?" Opera rhetorically asks readers in its new blog post. The company then points out that it's also working with advertisers to help them understand why big, bloated ads are bad for both Internet and customers.
It seems, however, that Opera isn't ready to completely block advertisers from their browser. Moreover, Opera's ad-blocking feature is turned off by default. Users will not only have to remember to turn it on, but they're also going to have to dig into the settings and find out how to activate the feature, too. It's not very difficult to do, but it's an extra step.
The ad-blocking feature is only available in the developer version of the browser at the moment, as the company is still testing the technology. Users who want to give it a go and see if it makes their Web browsing faster will have to download that version of Opera first. If you do try it out, drop by our comment section and let us know how it fares.
