May 21, 2019

Opera jumps into gaming with Opera GX browser – whatever that is

By Tech Online Things

You may not have heard of it, but Opera is a web browser competing with the likes of Chrome and Firefox to be the best browser. It may not have much going for it in terms of market share, but it’s a quality browser. Now, it seems the company behind the browser wants to offer something special for gamers with the announcement of a gaming browser called Opera GX.

Beyond the name of the new browser and that it’s “a new and special version of our browser made with those of you who play games in mind,” next to nothing about the browser is explained. There is an image of what the browser will presumably look like, with an apparent dark theme and red accents.

In a twist, readers took to the comment section below the announcement to gripe about the move. Few seem excited about the introduction of a new version of Opera when they believe more can still be done to improve existing platforms, like the new Opera Reborn 3.

Opera-come-lately

Some of the feedback centered around Opera following in the wake of the introduction of gaming features in the Vivaldi browser. While Opera claims the new browser is “the first browser built for your gaming setup” on its Opera GX early access sign-up page, Vivaldi recently launched a feature to link the browser with Razer Chroma devices.

Commenters on Opera’s blog post appear to expect this is the same sort of feature planned for Opera GX.

Some gamers may appreciate having more browser options to take advantage of their RGB gaming devices, but the audience isn’t likely to be huge. Opera only has 1% of the browser market share, and Opera GX would only see a fraction of that share.

Now, if Opera GX could offer some enhancements for game streaming with services like Google’s Stadia, then it might have something compelling to offer more gamers.

  • Here’s our review of Windows 10, including the Edge browser