Opera is one of the most popular alternatives to Google's own Chrome browser and with good reason. It blocks ads, saves data, and has an excellent reader mode. There's also Opera Mini for an even faster, lighter experience. Another reason for Opera's popularity is active development. Already this year, in a reaction to an increasing fear among users, a crypto-mining blocker was added to both versions.

The main mobile browser has a separate Play Store listing for its beta version, and a new update has just been released for it. There are two additions to note: a night mode and a private mode indicator. Since dark themes are very fashionable right now we can expect the first of those to go down very well with users.

You can activate night mode with a little toggle in the Opera menu, just underneath the option for blocking ads. It can also be fine-tuned in the settings, where you can change the brightness level to make it even more eye-friendly at night plus you can also turn off the dark theme so that night mode only dims the screen.

The other new addition is the private mode indicator, although it's not immediately clear what it does. It's already obvious in the app when you're in private mode as the color of the URL bar is darker. After comparing with the stable version, it seems the indicator is a notification reminding you that you have private tabs open (below). This is very handy, and something that's already a feature of Chrome.

To try out these new improvements there's no beta to sign up for on the Play Store; just download it separately using the link below. If you'd rather sideload it, you can do so by grabbing it from APK Mirror.

Opera browser beta with VPN Developer: Opera
Price: Free
4.4
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