A few days ago, Opera publicly announced that its web browser has reached the noteworthy figure of 300 million active users, counting not just those who use it on their computer, but also those who use its different versions for smartphones, tablets, and smart TV sets. In addition, Opera Software’s CEP, Lars Boilesen, also took the opportunity to announce that there will be an important change in the future versions of the browser: They will move from the Presto rendering engine to WebKit, the utility that Google Chrome and Safari use.
Integrating to WebKit will be a progressive but complete process, according to the CEO. They won’t integrate the engine in their programming, rather they will adapt the virtues of the open-source code on which Chrome is based, the most popular browser today. They also mentioned that their developers hope to also collaborate with the development of both WebKit and Chromium, and thus improve the user experience. The first versions of the new Opera will be introduced at the next Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, starting with the preview of Android.
Its interesting to compare Opera’s figures with those of the other browsers. Opera is the least used on computers, with just 3.72%, almost more than half of what Safari has, which is next on the list. This is still very far from Google Chrome, which passed up Internet Explorer (26.27%) as the most-popular browser, and boasts of 37.20% of all users, 14 points away from its all-time rival, Firefox, which as 23.28% of the total. Could this be the reason why Opera is going to move to the same system as Chrome?
These figures correspond to the sum of web and mobile browsers, but if you isolate the statistics, and focus only on mobile, Opera becomes the third most-used browser with 15.38% total use, only out-ranked by the stock Android and iPhone browsers – a number that should be considered nothing short of a great success, especially if you compare it with other rival mobile web browsers. Chrome, for example, only has 1.26% of the total.
Download Opera on Uptodown
Version for Windows | http://opera.en.uptodown.com/
Version for Mac | http://opera.en.uptodown.com/mac
Version for Ubuntu | http://opera.en.uptodown.com/ubuntu
Opera Mini for Android | http://opera-mini.en.uptodown.com/android
Opera Mini for iOS | http://opera-mini-web-browser.en.uptodown.com/iphone
Official Website | http://www.opera.com/
