On Tuesday, Opera Software released Opera 28 beta for the desktop and Android, as well as a new version of Opera Mini for iOS. The big deal with this release is that users can now access their bookmarks on any device on which Opera is installed. The only catch is that users will need to create or sign into an existing Opera account, which can be accessed here.
"So, despite the hype about the dominance of mobile and the rapid decline of computers, we're seeing people browsing the web in remarkably similar ways across their favorite devices," read the company's blog. "That's why we're giving you a more seamless, multi-screen experience, with bookmark synchronization."
According to the blog, Opera Software performed a study and discovered that Opera users surf the same sites on all devices. Further, 40 percent of the mobile Opera users surf the Internet at least five days a week, while 45 percent of the Opera desktop crowd wander around the World Wide Web in the same timeframe. Even so, the Opera team found it important to synchronize the user's bookmarks across all devices to make browsing fast and super convenient.
"The most popular Discover categories among mobile users worldwide are News, Entertainment, Technology, Sports, Lifestyle, Science, Business, Motoring, Health and Art," the blog stated. "Think people browse different content on their computer vs handset? Think again! The top-ten list for computer users looks exactly the same, except for Sports, which moves up from 4th to 3rd position."
According to StatCounter, Opera commanded just 1.63 percent of the browser market in February 2015, keeping a slow but steady pace for the past year. The browser trails behind Apple's Safari (10.21 percent), Mozilla's Firefox (16.53 percent), Microsoft's Internet Explorer (18.91 percent) and Google's Chrome (48.71 percent). These numbers include the desktop, tablet and console browsers.
In the "mobile" market (smartphones), Opera performs slightly better, owning 8.66 percent of the market in February 2015. However, Opera has seen a decline over the past year, commanding 13.68 percent of the market in February 2014 and dipping down to 8.74 percent in October 2014. The closest competitor is the UC Browser, which currently controls 11.65 percent of the market.
Back in October 2014, Opera Software introduced visual bookmarking, providing a thumbnail of sites similar to what Google does with the Chrome browser. The company also introduced easy bookmark sharing, which provides a big red button that allows users to share an entire bookmark folder with others.
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