I just tested the world’s first mindful browser — it’s calmly convinced me to ditch Google Chrome – Tom’s Guide
Opera Air is a breath of fresh…well you get the rest
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Let’s be real. The internet is a chaotic place right now — packed to the gills with highly addictive sites, a chaotic news cycle, and an overwhelming amount of things to doom scroll. That is why Opera Air almost feels perfectly-timed to bring a very mindful and very demure solution to all of this.Yes, I’m talking about that Opera who also makes the rather in-your-face GX gaming browser. In a complete 180 to this, Opera Air strips a lot of the UI clutter you see in Google Chrome, and places a focus on mindfulness with binaural beats and meditation exercises.At first glance, I was a bit nervous this was all going to be gimmicky but after testing Opera Air for a week, I’ve fallen in love with the air of calm focus it gives to my day-to-day.Normally, buried somewhere deep in my Chrome tabs, there will be the Chillhop livestream providing smooth rhythms to fill the silent void and help me focus. It’s great and all, but one key missing element is what’s called binaural tones — bass notes played at different frequencies that encourage certain subconscious reactions.Well, binaural beats are built directly into Opera Air and I really felt each of the many options have a different impact on my state. For example, when hitting some admin tasks, the ‘Energized Focus’ track with a 12Hz bass tone really helped me zone in and become a one-man production line. And when the day ends, entering ‘Deep Relaxation’ with a 5Hz tone prompted a relaxed state over the 30-minute duration to the point that I ended up falling asleep!There are some others here with lofty claims that I couldn’t really test (the 4Hz tone of ‘Dream Recall’ helping you recall your dreams to name one of a few), but keeping a balanced state of mind is critical to doing great work, and this is the only browser I’ve ever used that does this.We all know the advice to take a screen break every hour, but I’d be hard pressed to find someone who actually does this. The very purpose of a browser is you keep you locked in on using it — hours logged visiting websites and being advertised to on your usage habits is the entire business model.Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.So I consider it a breath of fresh air to use a browser that actively gets in the way and tells me to take a break. There are four exercises you can choose from, which are all narrated and come with a nice spa-like gentle soundtrack:Basically, these are the equivalent of those Apple Watch stand reminders, but less annoying and actually a great reminder to center yourself when you’re working to keep all those metaphorical plates spinning.Hygge (pronounced “hooga”) is very much at the center of Opera Air, and the company knows this with a full marketing drive around it. There’s even a competition to go spend a week working from a Hygge desk in the Nordic wilds (make sure you wrap up warm if you enter)!It’s a trend that is slowly creeping back into home office design that is centered around being content with simplicity and keeping cozy without any interruptions. This is exactly what Opera Air achieves with a super clean UI and all of these legitimately useful mindfulness additions.Plus, you’re getting all the productivity features that come in Opera One R2 too, such as the built-in VPN and ad blocker, and the option to download and use an AI model offline. The Air-ification of web browsing just put it one step ahead of using Google Chrome for me.The internet may be a chaotic place right now, but I feel fine.Jason brings a decade of tech and gaming journalism experience to his role as a Managing Editor of Computing at Tom’s Guide. He has previously written for Laptop Mag, Tom’s Hardware, Kotaku, Stuff and BBC Science Focus. In his spare time, you’ll find Jason looking for good dogs to pet or thinking about eating pizza if he isn’t already.Google Chrome just got three new modes — and it’s a game changer for performance Google Calendar just got the dark mode we’ve been waiting for — here’s how to activate itYouTube TV subscribers may lose access to Paramount content — here’s why
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