Estimated reading time: 2 minutes.

Version 40 of alternative web browser Opera includes several major enhancements. Most notable among the changes are:

• free, unlimited, no-log browser VPN service: when turned on, the browser VPN creates a secure connection to one of Opera’s five server locations around the world;
• automatic battery saving features for mobile device users;
• Chromecast support via the Chrome extension;
• improvements to the video pop-out feature;
• the newsreader feature now supports RSS feeds;
• updated browser engine (Blink, aka WebKit).

Sadly, the folks behind Opera seem to be taking a (rather dysfunctional) page from Mozilla – at least in the way changes are reported. Release announcements for Opera are still in the same place on the Opera Desktop blog. But whereas changes in previous versions were reported in changelog posts on the desktop blog (such as this one for version 39), on a page on the Opera documentation site (which stops at version 37), and on the Opera history page (which also stops at version 37), there doesn’t seem to be anything like a change log for Opera 40. Hopefully this is a temporary issue, and something better is on the way. But I’m not holding my breath. This trend toward a general reduction in (and dumbing-down of) information provided to users is not helpful, in my opinion.