10 MACWORLD APRIL 2020
MACUSER FIVE SAFARI ALTERNATIVEScrwb) work just fine, too.
If you want to sync bookmarks and
tabs with your iPhone or iPad, there’s
Opera Touch (go.macworld.com/optc),
which like all iOS browsers, uses Apple’s
own WebKit rendering engine. It has a
built-in ad blocker like the desktop app,
but no longer includes a free VPN.EDGE
After years of going its own way, Microsoft
switched its Edge browser to the Chromium
engine (go.macworld.com/edrv) and joined
the open-source consortium that develops
it. Along with the change comes a versiongreat tool for, say, watching Netflix
selections from other countries.
That’s not the only trick up Opera’s
sleeve, though. It can pop out videos from
webpages, has a built-in ad blocker, and
there are integrated messaging clients that
can connect to Facebook Messenger,
VKontakte, and WhatsApp. There’s a nice
battery saver feature that reduces
background tab activity and pauses some
plug-ins and animations, too.
Opera has a respectable list of
extensions (go.macworld.com/opad), but
being based on Chromium, many of the
Chrome extensions (go.macworld.com/
Among Opera’s unique features is a built-in messaging sidebar.