Opera’s Reborn browser lets you chat with your friends while watching cat videos

Google’s Chrome, Microsoft’s Edge, and Apple’s Safari browsers may be dissimilar from each other in many ways, but they do have one similarity: more folks use them than they do Opera. The Norwegian browser maker hopes to change that, however, with its Reborn browser, which brings with it a fresh coat of paint and some messaging capabilities.

On the surface, Reborn features a flat and minimalistic aesthetic, with the browser now incorporating a “dark theme” when you want to avoid having your retinas burned at night. Of note is the sidebar, which now features bouncy animations to give it a sense of energy. Adding to that sense of vitality is the ability to change the new tab page wallpaper to different images.

Under the hood, Reborn features built-in ad blocking and VPN functionality, both of which were introduced in 2016. Keep in mind that the latter will not replace a fully-featured VPN, but should work for a few things, such as getting by geo-locks when browsing the web. Also, you can whitelist certain sites to shield them from Reborn’s ad blocking feature.

The main attraction, however, is Reborn’s ability to pin Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Telegram messaging apps to the left side of the browser. This eliminates the need to have them exist as separate tabs, and there are keyboard shortcuts to switch between messaging apps. The feature does make the interface slightly busier than before, but it does allow Opera to differentiate its browser from the competition.

Interested? Opera’s Reborn is now available as a free download for Windows, MacOS, and Linux.