14 DAY TRIAL // The new Opera browser, based on Chromium, has reached a stable release. The full revision number is 15.0.1147.130 and it is the first stable release since the Norwegian developer ditched their proprietary Presto layout engine.
Users upgrading from version 12 of the application may think they’ve landed on fairly unfamiliar ground given the new design, but much of the old profile (passwords, cookies, user-defined searches, and extensions) is migrated into the new release.
Bookmarks are brought into Opera 15 via the importing tool which checks the old profile and offers the possibility to extract the links to the Speed Dial component.
However, the fresh build no longer integrates an email client; it is now a standalone application, but when installed it’ll automatically detect and import all the details from the old Opera 12 profile.
In the case of notes, though, Opera 15 saves them into an HTML file (called “Opera 12 Notes”) on the desktop. Opera Link users can still access synced information from the web interface; keep in mind that this feature has not been fully integrated in the new browser.
Additional hurdles when migrating from Opera 12 to Opera 15 touch on extensions, which may not be enabled automatically and turning them on manually may be required.
Also, you have to migrate your passwords manually by running the browser with the “--presto-master-password=<master password>” command line switch.