Opera 50 is out with anti-Bitcoin mining tool

The final version of Opera 50 was released earlier today. It is a modern web browser with interesting and exclusive features you may or may not like. Let's see what's new in this version.

The most important feature of Opera 50 is a new Cryptocurrency Mining Protection feature.

The new feature is named "NoCoin". When enabled, it prevents JavaScript miners from running in your browser. The official announcement says the following:

Bitcoins are really hot right now, but did you know that they might actually be making your computer hotter? Your CPU suddenly working at 100 percent capacity, the fan is going crazy for seemingly no reason and your battery quickly depleting might all be signs that someone is using your computer to mine for cryptocurrency.

This cryptocurrency mining can sometimes continue after you have first visited the site. But we, as the only major browser with an integrated ad blocker, have a built-in solution to keep miners from trespassing onto your machine.

After we recently updated the rules for our built-in ad blocker mechanism, we eliminated cryptocurrency mining scripts that overuse your device’s computing ability. Simply enable Opera’s ad blocker to prevent cryptocurrency mining sites from doing their dirty work on your computer.

So, if a website you visited is going to use your computer to mine some cryptocurrency, the new feature should protect you against the issue.

The new option can be found under Settings - Block Ads - NoCoin.

With NoCoin turned on, pages embedded with cryptocurrency mining scripts will be blocked in a similar way the built-in ad blocker disables ads.

Chromecast support

Chromecast is the device that helps you effortlessly stream content from your browser to your TV screen or home audio system without having to connect annoying cables each time. Google recently revealed that it has sold 55 million units since releasing the device in July 2013. For your convenience, Opera 50 now supports Chromecast playback.

VR Player Enhancements

Opera 50 comes with a number of improvements to the built-in VR player.

Oculus Rift Support

The Oculus Rift support will be enabled with Opera 50. Oculus Rift headset owners can now use their devices with the Opera VR player.

Software decoding

The team behind the browser implemented software decoding for GPUs which do not support YouTube’s VP8 or VP9 formats. 

Automatic format detection

Opera 50 features a JavaScript-based video format detection feature for a set of popular web sites (YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, etc) for the proper playback mode.

Exit button

A new Exit VR button will allow users to properly stop VR playback. By clicking the “Turn off” button in the Opera VR 360 Player, your device will return to its native home screen.

Save as PDF

Finally, the browser will allow you to save web pages to a PDF file.

A new menu command can be found under "File". See the following screenshot:

There is another method to save a page as PDF with Opera. It is possible to use the Print dialog. You need to open your printing dialog and choose “Save as PDF” as your printer. There are multiple options that control how the PDF will be generated including layout, headers, margins and so on.

You might be curious what the difference is between these two methods? The new 'Save Page as PDF' option will store exactly what you see on your screen. The Print dialog will produce a print-friendly PDF file. It will be generated from the print version of your web page. Some elements like images or frames could be stripped and overall page layout may look different. So, the new option is optimized to save exactly what you see and to be convenient for offline reading.

Besides these changes, the browser includes a number of stability fixes, Chromium 63.0.3239.108, and changes to the built-in VPN feature.

Download inks

• Opera Stable for Windows
• Opera Stable for macOS
• Opera Stable for Linux – deb packages
• Opera Stable for Linux – RPM packages

Source: Opera