[thristian]

Well, it's basically just Chromium, so I doubt it would ever be more user-friendly, and effectively it is open-sourced.

[mikesname]

I think it's fair to hope for a more customizable Chromium, since customizability is one of the things Opera was known for. For me personally, things like a bookmarks sidebar and more flexible tab positioning would help tempt me to switch back to Opera from Firefox.

[rebugger]

Well there are 2 features I really miss in Chromium (which are implemented in Opera now): * easily Add/remove websites from the speeddial * closing the last tab won't quit the browser (this annoyed me the most)

[ewzimm]

Last time I used Opera there was no way to change the default search engine. That was a deal-breaker for me.

[jlarocco]

The saddest part about that is that opera was the first browser I knew of that allowed changing the default search engine in the first place, about 13 years ago.

[tracksmer]

It's not basically Chromium. It's using Chromium yes, but with a new interface.

[rplnt]

It's similarly featureless.

[tracksmer]

That can be said about just about any browser, such as IE, Firefox, etc. Too many features -> bloat + user confusion.

[rplnt]

Yet the old Opera was (and is) much faster than chrome/firefox. User confusion is valid if those are the users you are after. For the "what is Internet?" crowd there's Chrome already, and I think there's enough space for something else.

[rz2k]

As I understand it all browsers on iOS use UIWebView rather than their own engines. However, the Opera Coast browser on iOS has a great user interface that is different from Safari.