I just don’t like it because of the bloat. I’m not using it, but that’s not because I’m in any way concerned that it’s owned by a Chinese company and it may or may not be phoning home to China with what I do. Over the years it got bloated in a similar manner as Vivaldi is, although Opera is still quite fast and lightweight despite its bloat.
It had a very nice UI and wasn’t yet bloated with useless features. At first the browser under Blink was very lean, clean and fast. Opera stopped being good about a year after they switched from Presto to Blink. One change that I would like to see is for the Microsoft Store's web app to use the same interface as its desktop counterpart. Now that Microsoft has opened up the store to support several frameworks, hopefully more developers will bring their creations to the platform. We now have Amazon, Epic Games Store, WhatsApp Beta, to name some quality apps that were released recently. It's certainly interesting to see more desktop programs coming to the Store. The improvements that we have seen recently on the store app certainly make it more tolerable than the previous version, which was clunky at best. Until recently, the Microsoft Store had been displaying irrelevant results for keywords, notably for the term Firefox, which I highlighted above. Thankfully, the Store's search function works correctly, which is saying something. It's not going to be a big deal for most users, but if you'd like to check the screenshots, or read the system requirements from your web browser, you can't do that. The main Opera browser that was released 3 months ago doesn't have the share button or the direct link to the store listing either. And here's a similar search query for the term Firefox, which displays the proper result. the result is accessible exclusively from the Store app. The app doesn't pop up in the results, which can only mean it is hidden from browsers, i.e. Here's what the store's results will show you when searching for Opera. It seems a little odd, since all other apps have the share button at the bottom/top of the page. Did you know that Microsoft is replacing this screen with the Settings app? Read our previous coverage for more details. As a matter of fact, the app even shows up in Control Panel's Program and Features page, if you needed further confirmation about the two versions.
Opera GX's store app however, is identical to its regular browse, and uses the same profile. Opening the About Opera page confirms that the app is indeed the 64-bit version, it matches the latest stable release build, Opera_GX_.44.įirefox's Microsoft Store version uses a different user profile, and lets you run the app alongside the standalone desktop version.
The app is free, and is about 106.2 MB to download, which is about the size of the offline installer of the 64-bit version of the program, that you can find on its website.
The browser is available for both Windows 10 and 11. Now, Opera has put up its gaming-centric browser, Opera GX, on the Microsoft Store. Last month, Mozilla joined the competition by releasing Firefox on the store. Opera browser made its Microsoft Store debut, alongside Yandex browser, when the new Store experience was announced by the Redmond Company in September.