Opera’s latest release improves look and feel of mobile browsing

The Opera browser for Android smart phones and tablets is the first major browser that allows you to choose whether or not you want to see and respond to cookie alert dialogs that pop up while you’re browsing online, without compromising your privacy and security. Upgrading your web experience by downloading the latest Opera for Android browser means that your mobile device will now have a built-in cookie dialog blocker which, when you enable it, removes the cookie alert dialogs that may appear when browsing a website.

While cookie alerts are there to give us increased control of our online privacy, continually seeing complex dialog boxes about privacy practices and policies interferes with our browsing experience. Installing Opera for Android with its cookie dialog blocker means that your mobile browsing experience will become cleaner and neater, allowing you to focus on the content you’re interested in – while still being confident of your online safety and privacy.

The cookie dialog blocker can be switched on in browser settings. To configure the feature, go to Settings, tap on ‘Ad blocking’, and you will find the switch to toggle it on. When enabled by the user, the cookie alert blocker will hide dialogs but will not block websites from setting any cookies. To control cookie behaviour, the Opera browser has a dedicated setting that allows users to choose between accepting all or none cookies, or blocking third party cookies.

Opera for Android now also has home screen short cuts. Users with an Android 7.1 version or later can now do a long tap on the O logo on the phone’s home screen and navigate through the new home screen shortcuts. These shortcuts allow you to start a new search, scan a QR code or open a new private tab. In addition, you can now long tap on the + new tab button, and open a shortcut to a website on your device’s home screen.

The browser has added even further levels of personal control by adding a text size setting, accessed from its main settings menu, which allows you to adjust the text size on websites you’re browsing according to your preferences. This improves your reading experience, and is great news for visually challenged users.

If you’re into understanding the tech behind the cookie dialog blocker, here’s how it works… The cookie dialog blocker in Opera will attempt to block dialog attempts using a combination of CSS rules and JavaScript heuristics. The feature has been tested on 15 000 websites, and support for more websites is expected to be added as the feature is in continuous development. Opera users can also help the browser’s dev team prioritize which websites to fix first by reporting irritating cookie dialogs using the built-in tool in the beta version of the Opera browser.

Opera is available for download on Google Play Store. The cookie dialog blocking feature is today exclusively available in the Opera browser for Android, but is planned to be included in other Opera products soon.