“Now, you can pimp your mother******* browser.”

This is an actual line from what is likely to be probably the most polarizing software program advert of 2023: Opera’s team-up with rap legend Xzibit to advertise — er, pimp — Opera GX’s GX Mods, customized modifications to the Opera GX browser.

What mods? According to Opera, distinctive seems to be (animated wallpapers and themes), sounds (keyboard and UI) and shaders (GPU-driven results that render in real-time whereas shopping the online). In the phrases of my colleague Michael Crider, this seems to be like one thing you’d see 15 years in the past. Well, to be truthful, so does Xzibit.

Opera GX debuted a few years ago, promising CPU and GPU optimizations for players, and later adding features like Discord to the GX browser as properly. Over time, Opera started customizing it an increasing number of for players.

To this getting old reporter, the entire thing sounds greater than a little bit cringe, capitalizing on the nostalgia of the “Pimp My Ride” sequence, a three-year run that started *checks notes* 21 years in the past on a channel that’s now recognized for catfishing, RuPaul, and no matter “Ridiculousness” is. That could be MTV, which *checks notes once more* was as soon as recognized to play music movies.

But hey, Xzibit most likely was paid about what the common journalist makes in a yr only for posing and (hopefully) toking up whereas animated characters bounce round. Good for him. After all, if we made a sequence of movies the place Gordon Mah Ung screams about the awesome power of the GeForce GTX 1080, can we actually be too crucial?