Opera has just released version 18 of its browser for Windows and Mac, confirming with each new version its maturity and viability as a big alternative to the leading browsers. The knockout features of this new version include the option to move and separate tabs by dragging them with the mouse, the inclusion of custom themes, and a search engine manager, among others.
The tab-drag feature is one that’s become available on most of the important browsers. Now, Opera will also let you drag tabs and separate them to create new browser windows. The other novelty in the interface is the return of custom themes after their disappearance from version 15; now you can choose whichever one you want from the official Opera add-ons page, or even create your own if you fancy.
At the internal level the software has been updated to a more recent version of Chromium and support has been added for media capture, which means that now microphones and webcams can be used without having to resort to third-party plugins. In addition, it now includes the option to set your preferred search engine in the upper address bar, with tabs included by default for Google, Yahoo, Bing, Amazon, and Wikipedia.
