Opera 41 promises vast performance improvements, but is it enough to take on Google Chrome?

If you’re an “advanced” PC user, you most likely have dozens of browser tabs open at any given moment. In fact, it’s very likely that your browser startup itself involves dozens of pinned tabs.I use Chrome for all my browsing needs, and who wouldn’t? But with Chrome, or any other browser for that matter, I’m also used to heading over to the coffee machine while I wait for my startup browser tabs to load after I boot up my computer for the first time.Opera 41 promises to change that.Opera claims that version 41 of its browser will improve load times by 86 percent when more than 42 tabs open and an improvement of up to 50 percent when around 10 tabs are open. For someone like me, that’s a huge deal. If I use Opera, I won't have an excuse to get my caffeine fix in the morning!Opera’s tweaks don’t stop there, however. The company claims to have incorporated a number of under-the-hood tweaks, notably with regards to video playback, which will now be hardware-accelerated in video pop-out and video conferencing.[caption id="attachment_343290" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Image: Opera[/caption]This is geek-speak for, “Opera 41 will give you longer battery life when video conferencing and video playback will be smoother on low-end PCs.”Other updates include tweaks to the newsreader, which will now let you add feeds without the exact RSS URL, “history navigation” and more.Is this enough to convince me to step outside my Google Chrome comfort zone? I don’t know yet, but I am sorely tempted.