Opera will be the first major browser with a built-in ad blocker, if a feature currently offered in the developer build makes its way to the general release. Ad blockers for other browsers are created by third parties and released as an extension.
Install Opera Developer right now, start browsing, and before long you’ll see a popup asking “Would you like to block ads and surf faster?” If you click yes, ads will start being blocked.
Publishers probably aren’t going to be happy with that, but Opera doesn’t stop there. Click the ad blocker’s icon and you’ll see how many ads have been blocked on a particular page. From there users can run a benchmark, comparing the load time for the site they’re currently browsing with and without ad blocking. The intent seems to be to teach users the degree to which ads are slowing down their browsing experience.
“Our goal is to provide the fastest and the smoothest online experience for our users,” Krystian Kolondra, told PC World. “While working on that we have discovered that a lot more time is spent on handling ads and trackers than we thought earlier.”
Advertising isn’t a feature of the Web anyone loves, but it does help pay for content that is currently free to users. Publishers, already hit by decreasing ad revenue, have long argued that ad blocking hurts their ability to make content, and will even ask users to whitelist their pages.
Opera has a long history of adding features not included by default on other browsers: tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, browser sessions, and private browsing all showed up on Opera before arriving on other major browsers like Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Chrome. But those innovations never translated into a large market share for Opera, which first came out 21 years ago in April of 1995. Opera’s market share has never cracked the double digits, and according to StatCounter, it currently has a two-percent share of the desktop/laptop browser market.
Adding an ad blocker probably won’t lead to a huge spike in numbers: ad blockers are readily available on other platforms, after all. But Opera is clearly showing what side of the ad blocking fight they’re on, something users and publishers alike will surely notice.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.