Ars takes the brand new Opera R2020 browser for a spin

Enlarge /. The "Split Video" option that Opera provides for YouTube and related videos is very helpful. Aside from disconnecting the video from the browser, the useless controls / info elements that tend not to accidentally make your video too ugly when you pause it are removed.

Jim Salter

When the issue of web browsers comes up, most people only think of Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and whatever Microsoft is doing this week. (Just kidding, Microsoft – the new Edge is unironically great!) But today we're going to take a look at the multi-year Bridesmaid Opera, which released a new version with the code name R2020 this Tuesday.

Operating System Support

Opera R2020 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux. Opera Touch for mobile devices is available on Android and iOS. We tested Opera on both Linux and Windows and Opera Touch on Android. MacOS and iOS ports have not been tested.

Linux

Enlarge /. Note, all: this is the right way to package and distribute third-party software from your own repository in Debian-derived distributions.

Jim Salter

me @ banshee: ~ $ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opera-stable.list
# This file ensures that Opera Browser is kept up to date
# as part of regular system updates

deb https://deb.opera.com/opera-stable/ stable non-free # Opera browser (final versions)

We were absolutely delighted to see a Google Chrome offering of a .deb file when we visited the Opera download page from an Ubuntu 19.10 workstation. In addition to the initial native packaging, installing Opera from the provided .deb file also offered the ability to automatically add the Opera repository to the Ubuntu system repository list, which automatically performs additional security and feature upgrades. (Native RPMs are offered to Fedora and OpenSUSE users in a similar manner.)

• None of the paid video streaming sites worked in Opera on Ubuntu. Kudos to Amazon Prime for being one of the few companies to go out of their way to troubleshoot and send helpful messages!

  Jim Salter

• Netflix was also caught for DRM errors, but its message was significantly less helpful than Amazon Prime's. You got so close, Netflix …

  Jim Salter

• Disney + did not work properly and caught no errors, so we have a never ending splash screen.

  Jim Salter

• Hulu didn't work properly and caught no errors, so we have a never ending splash screen.

  Jim Salter

• CBS All Access did not work properly and did not catch any errors, so we have a never ending splash screen.

  Jim Salter

For the most part, everything was perfect – except unfortunately for commercial streaming video sites. Although playback on YouTube was perfect – in fact, Opera does bring some really nice new features there and on other websites with embedded videos – Widevine DRM support was broken, and therefore none of the paid services we tested were functional.

We found (and tried) a few suggestions that included patching monkeys with copies of the Widevine library from an installed copy of Google Chrome, but none of them worked.

Everything else we tested in Opera worked very well on Ubuntu 19.10 – in fact, most of our testing was done on this platform – but the complete lack of working DRM support makes Opera a no- for many Linux users Go unless and until it's corrected.

Windows

• Under Opera on Windows, even CBS All Access – the most stable streaming service – worked perfectly.

  Jim Salter

• Netflix works fine on Opera on Windows.

  Jim Salter

• Amazon Prime Video works perfectly under Opera on Windows.

• Hulu works well on Opera on Windows.

• Disney + works well on Opera on Windows.

There is not much to say about Windows support – or Opera on Linux would not have had any problems with video playback. Fortunately, the DRM plugin worked fine on Windows without fumbling, and all of the streaming sites we tested just worked.

In addition … it is a third party Windows app. You download it from the manufacturer, install it and it updates itself independently of everything else on your system. This is almost certainly the flagship operating system platform for the browser, and – as far as we can tell – there are no problems or glitches below it.