An Opera release somehow got past my “infallible” system for not missing anything important. Back to the drawing board I guess.

The Opera users among you probably noticed the browser having trouble disengaging itself from the Windows taskbar lately. Opera 45.0.2552.812, released on May 15, finally fixes this annoying issue. A handful of other minor bugs are addressed in the new version. None of the fixes are related to security.

Though it’s not mentioned until close to the end of the page, a recent announcement on the Opera blog entitled ‘Opera is Reborn‘ is actually about a specific new version of the browser: 45.

Opera 45 includes numerous changes to the user interface, mostly related to aesthetics: colours, backgrounds, icons, and animation. The integrated ad-blocker now reloads pages automatically when ad blocking is switched on and off. Social messaging software (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram) is now integrated into the sidebar. Video performance is improved slightly on some hardware. And you’ll now see warnings below password and credit card fields on web sites that don’t support encryption.

Many of Opera 45’s changes come from the experimental browser Neon, which Opera released a few months ago to test some ideas and elicit user feedback.

You can peruse the full change log for more information. That log includes changes to development and pre-release versions as well.

If you use Opera’s built-in VPN (Virtual Private Network) feature, you may have found your computer running out of memory, or using more memory than usual. Opera 44.0.2510.1218 fixes the memory use bug and two bugs related to screen drawing. There are no security fixes in this release.

Opera 44.0.2510.1159 fixes a small number of bugs in the browser, including some annoying crashing issues. The change log provides additional details. None of the changes are related to security.

A new version of Opera fixes a few minor bugs, none of which involve security. The full change log for Opera 43.0.2442.1144 has additional details.

A memory leak is fixed, the Chromium browser engine updated, and a couple of Mac-specific issues addressed in the latest release of Opera, 43.0.2442.991. No security fixes are mentioned in the change log.

The folks who develop the alternative web browser Opera are working on improving page loading time, and if their own benchmarks are any indication, those efforts have paid off.

Opera 43 shows significant speed gains over Opera 42, due mainly to the introduction of two new technologies: ‘instant page loading’, which predicts the site you’re looking for as you’re typing in the address bar, and PGO, which optimizes the browser code to make it run faster when it’s most important.

The new version also includes improvements to URL highlighting/selecting. Previously, there was no way to highlight linked text. With Opera 43, highlighting linked text works as expected if you use a horizontal motion, and if you use a vertical motion, the entire link is copied, as before.

There are loads of other changes in Opera 43, as you can see from the lengthy change log. However, none of the changes seem to be related to security vulnerabilities.

Opera 42.0.2393.351 fixes a handful of bugs, several related to the 64-bit version of the browser. See the change log for details.

Opera 42.0.2393.517 fixes four more issues, some of which first appeared in 42.0.2393.351. See the change log for details.

None of the changes in either new version seem to be related to security. Opera will usually update itself shortly after a new version becomes available.

A new version of Opera fixes several bugs, many of which only affect Mac and Linux systems. There don’t appear to be any security fixes in this release. The full change log has additional details.