Opera has attracted a lot of perception since they announced to abandon their own rendering engine (called Presto) in favor of Webkit, which is mostly maintained by Google these days. Since then they switched again to the Webkit fork called Blink, which is Google's new baby.
The first preview has been anticipated for quite some time and a week ago Opera published it in their Opera Next version (which always represents the next major iteration of the browser). The first receptions have been very critical, since Opera removed the mail client M2. I only used this client a couple of times but I was always impressed by the smooth and elegant management and responsiveness.
The most critics claim that the following points have been missing:
- There are no bookmarks
- Opera Link does not work
- The notes have been removed
- The sidebar (usually found on the left) is missing
- There are no UI modifications possible
- Opera Dragonfly has been replaced by the standard webkit tool
- The address and search bar have been merged
For me personally the missing bookmarks (along with the missing notes and synchronization application) are really painful. Also the switch from Dragonfly to the standard Webkit tool seems wrong.
Personally I hope that Opera keeps the good things (like the stash) and adds some of the missing things (Opera Link, bookmarks and notes, Opera Dragonfly). Otherwise I will probably move on to Torch, which is also a Webkit based browser.