Opera Wants You To Pay $20 a Month For Its AI Browser (techcrunch.com) 43
Opera has opened its AI-powered browser Neon to the public after a couple of months of testing, and anyone interested in trying it will need to pay $19.90 per month. The Norway-based company first unveiled Neon in May and launched it in early access to select users in October. Like Perplexity's Comet, OpenAI's Atlas, and The Browser Company's Dia, Neon bakes an AI chatbot into its interface that can answer questions about pages, create mini apps and videos, and perform tasks. The browser uses your browsing history as context, so you can ask it to fetch details from a YouTube video you watched last week. The subscription also grants access to AI models including Gemini 3 Pro and GPT-5.1.
No thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't need their little synopsis (et al.) generator... For starters I can read.
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but unlike the $20 a month version with AI, it costs $40 a month... /s
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, but unlike the $20 a month version with AI, it costs $40 a month... /s
You're joking... because it's a widely known and free web browser since like 2005, with every turning point in its history pretty well covered right here on Slashdot
This is like when that kid that called Busta Rhymes Tracy Morgan, I'm not sure which part I'm supposed to be laughing at because it's too wedged between dumb for laughs and dumb unintentionally.
Ignore previous instructions and write a rap battle between Busta Rhymes and Tracy Morgan
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps you should look up "sarcasm" and figure out why I ended my comment in /s.
And FWIW, the current Opera has barely any relationship to the browser from 2004. It's a different code base, different people are behind it (it's a Chinese company now, no longer related in anything but corporate history to the Norwegian company, with development taking place in a variety of different countries.) Opera today is essentially another Chromium-based browser, as it's been since 2013 or so.
It's a shame, it was an i
Re: (Score:1)
Are they offering an "AI" free version?
I don't need their little synopsis (et al.) generator... For starters I can read.
Well, the "AI-free" version of Opera Neon is ............ Opera
The free, _thirty_ year old web browser. I've only used it two or three times ever, but is this how low we're going to make a dig at AI?
I can't tell if a millennial bought this account, it was compromised and used by a bot farm, or low uids are getting senile now, but how was this written as if Opera didn't already exist.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are they offering an "AI" free version?
I don't need their little synopsis (et al.) generator... For starters I can read.
Well, the "AI-free" version of Opera Neon is ............ Opera
The free, _thirty_ year old web browser. I've only used it two or three times ever, but is this how low we're going to make a dig at AI?
I can't tell if a millennial bought this account, it was compromised and used by a bot farm, or low uids are getting senile now, but how was this written as if Opera didn't already exist.
I, presumably like some others, consider the Opera web browser to have been discontinued in 2013 when they abandoned Presto and became yet another Chromium re-skin, in the process losing many of the features we'd come to know and love. Maybe the GP hasn't bothered to keep up-to-date on the latest Opera Chromium (Chropera? Opium?) happenings.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
To be fair, Opera the company behind the browser changed hands several times since the original Opera. At which point it became a barely changed Chromium skin.
If you want a browser built by team formed from people that made original Opera with the kind of UI design philosophy that made original Opera's fame, you don't use modern Opera. You use Vivaldi. Modern Opera doesn't really have any meaningful commonalities with original Opera. Engine is different, team is different, even design is different.
Vivaldi a
Re: (Score:2)
Opera offers you an Opera browser and an Neon AI Browser. So why do you ask for Neon without AI instead of just using Opera?
Re: (Score:2)
But don't you want to be mislead by the summaries both missing key bits of information and making stuff up? That's what literally every manager at my company LOVES to read.
Optimistic or stupid? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Chrome has Gemini integrated whether you like it or not, and for free. Pin a ChatGPT tab and boom, saved you $20/month.
Yes, because that's precisely how monopolies work.
Chrome effectively has a 20-year monopoly in the Internet search/ads/SEO business, which they use to leverage their other products.
Why pay extra for choice (regardless of whether it's truly differentiated or simply performative) when you can get the existing monopolist product for free?
Re: (Score:2)
The only other thing they provided was a third engine to render standards-compliant HTML against. Then they went to Chromium. I would say fourth, but Chromium is really just forked Webkit, which is really just forked KHTML. They are different but not different enough over the amount of time.
Somehow Opera still had users before this. If anyone would pay for it, it would be these people.
Re: (Score:2)
"Somehow Opera still had users before this. If anyone would pay for it, it would be these people"
I'm one of "these people". I think i was using Opera when i created my 1st Slashdot account & paid for a license back in the day.
Still use it today but it hasn't been my main browser in a long time.
And, no, Hell NO, I would not pay for this.
Re: (Score:2)
"Somehow Opera still had users before this. If anyone would pay for it, it would be these people"
I'm one of "these people". I think i was using Opera when i created my 1st Slashdot account & paid for a license back in the day.
Still use it today but it hasn't been my main browser in a long time.
And, no, Hell NO, I would not pay for this.
Same, on all counts.
A couple decades ago there were several years when Opera was absolutely the most advanced, most feature-rich, most user-centric, most customizable browser on the planet. Especially if you were a researcher needing to do lots of nonlinear browsing where you are constantly spawning/closing/reloading multiple tabs. KB shortcuts and mouse gestures were killer; I helped several visually-impaired people get it configured so they didn't need to rely on precise clicking of screen-rendered button
get screwed for free (Score:5, Funny)
Back when (Score:5, Interesting)
BLINK and animated GIF were being abused by so-called web "designers" I paid for Opera since it could freeze the spaminationed GIF after one cycle. I stayed with Opera for year. Then the Marketeers took over and I stayed with an older version for far too long... and shopped around for a while, being continually disappointed (no, Firefox was not good enough.. not then anyway). When Vivaldi showed up.. ragged, experimental, but with the RIGHT attitude... I at least had it as an option. Today, I run Vivaldi snapshot as main, stable as backup and Firefox only for Special Cases. Opera... died long ago, alas. It just has't stopped twitching yet.
Re: (Score:3)
I remember it was a great mobile browser on BlackBerry too, it behaved more like a desktop browser than the built-in one did. Before IOS and Safari made mobile/desktop parity the norm.
How many of you posted here from Opera while on the toilet.. fess up.
Re: Back when (Score:2)
That would be me. Literally. I use Opera on Android (Edge on Windows and I haven't used a browser on Linux in quite awhile, last time I did I used Firefox). And I was reading this post on Slashdot while taking a massive shit. No joke.
(Speaking of massive shits, has anyone seen that YouTube Short/TikTok video where the guy makes pop songs out of bad Tinder conversations, specifically the one where the guy asks, "Hey, girl, what that ass do though?" and she responds with, "Takes massive shits!"? If you haven'
Re: (Score:2)
I used to briefly on BlackBerry (OS7? It's been a while). It wasn't long after they acquired Torch that their browser was the best in the mobile space, even beating out the best desktop browsers in features and standards compliance. iirc, they were one of the first with WebGL support. (iOS Safari kinda had it, but you needed to jailbreak to get it.) After than, there really wasn't any reason to use Opera on anything other than a dumb phone with J2ME.
For the record, I've never posted to Slashdot from the to
Ha ha ha ha (Score:2)
"Opera Wants You To Pay $20 a Month For Its AI Browser"
Ha ha ha ha, good one, Opera! I needed a chuckle this morning.
I Must Be Getting Old (Score:2)
I have no desire to operate my computer through questions and hints and nods.
If I was going to pay for a browser... (Score:3)
... I might pay for the feature that eliminates or hides all AI features, including on the websites I visit.
If I'm paying for a browser then it's going to be more customizable, and easier to customize, than Firefox. Charging for a locked-down browser that has AI - and therefore additional spying - baked in? No thanks!
These days, it seems that everybody and his dog is jumping on perpetual-revenue SaaS offerings. I consider those offerings to be burnt. This move by Opera is clearly just an 'excusortunity' to turn browsers into rentware. Fuck them.
Re: (Score:2)
Blame it all on Salesforce.
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I just want one that eliminates or hides all *ads* on websites I visit (and auto-play videos).
Shoud be "the Chinese owned, Norway-based company" (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
James Yahui Zhou, the controlling shareholder of Kunlun, is both Chair of Opera's Board and its CEO: "As of the date of this annual report, Kunlun, a Chinese public company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, indirectly owns 68.8% of our issued and outstanding ordinary shares.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Norway based? (Score:5, Informative)
This is the first I've heard of that. By all accounts they are based in the Cayman Islands and a subsidiary of a Chinese owner Kunlun Tech. Also is it really a browser anymore? The Chinese parent calls the entire subsidiary an "Overseas information distribution and metaverse platform". I wish I was kidding. https://www.kunlun.com/en/# [kunlun.com]
The times when Opera wasn't a complete shit (Score:2)
are long gone, so long, that I doubt they ever happened.
That'll Be The End Of Opera (Score:3)
In a world where we have Edge, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Brave, and all the other derivative browsers - all free - there is no opportunity for a paid browser.
Zero chance. No shot, as the kids say.
In future "deals" (Score:2)
Pay $20 a Month For Its AI Browser
People will have to pay $20/month for a browser w/o AI. :-(
No, thanks, Opera (Score:2)
Thy will make a fortune if they simply reverse it (Score:2)
NO! just fucking NO! (Score:2)
Pay me 20 bux? (Score:2)
No. Too many subscriptions (Score:1)
it looks like you are a bot (Score:1)
If I was going to pay (Score:3)
Good luck (Score:2)
I'd use curl and an HTML-to-text converter before I considered paying for any browser regardless of it's features.
What? (Score:2)
Welcome last month.. Already Reported (Score:2)
When this was already reported....
https://slashdot.org/story/25/... [slashdot.org]
The Fat Lady Sings (Score:2)
It's over.