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Opera Browser Beta Adds Voice, More
An anonymous reader writes "According to an article at DesktopLinux.com, the first public beta of Opera 8 is available for free download. It adds voice input/output and a host of other niceties. Key new features include improved RSS handling, fit to window or paper width, a start-bar for easy access to the most commonly used functions, and automatic update checks. The beta release supports Windows only, but a general release is scheduled for early 2005. Opera and IBM have partnered on XHTML+Voice (X+V) technology for several years, co-announcing a Multimodal Browser and Toolkit early in 2003."
So now we can hear the fat lady sing?
T minus 3 posts until Firefox is mentioned. T minus 5 posts until Opera not being free is mentioned T minus 10 posts until someone calls Opera bloated. Anyone want in on a pool?
I think everyone here that likes firefox should give the Opera beta a try. I've used it since yesterday and it's a top quality piece of software in my opinion.
Firefox might be better than IE, but Opera is much nicer, faster than firefox.
Start Opera, and start saying:
"double-u, double-u, double-u, dot, slashdot, no.. wait... backspace, backspace, slashDOT, nooo, backspace, backspace, SLASHDOT!! NOOO, ARGHHH"
Linked page says Opera 7.54u1.
3 2enen800b1.exe 3 2enen800b1.exe
Opera 8.00 Beta 1 - ftp://ftp.opera.com/pub/opera/win/800b1/en/std/ow
Opera 8.00 Beta 1 w/o Java - ftp://ftp.opera.com/pub/opera/win/800b1/en/std/ow
Who cares about the voice thing ?? How many of the readers will care to actually speak to their browser, imagine a office full of people all talking to their browsers.. that's simply stupid.
I think that Opera people should care most about fixing things in it's browser instead of adding features that nobody (95%) will use.
Like M2, it simply sucks with IMAP, i was using it till i tried Thunderbird, did the switch about 5 minutes of starting it up for the first time.
The opera forums are full with complaints, why don't Opera listen to them, i'd do so before my userbase flies right into the open (and free) arms of Firefox.
I get a bit tired of paying again just to get a browser that crashes less.
Actually, this update is free for paying Opera 7 customers, and the final version will be too. See this article.
It adds voice input/output
I can't let you go to that URL, Dave.
I know you and Frank were planning to change to Firefox, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Et Cetera...
From the Changelog
:)
Support for XMLHttpRequest; Gmail Web mail is fully supported.
Now that should get the attention of slashdotters
Better formatting: Opera is the most innovative browser on the market, bar none. This is fact, whether people like it or not. Firefox would be not where it is today without Opera.
Why I like Opera better:
- Gestures are implemented better, more customizable, and can be used across the WHOLE browser app and not just the browser window.
- Tabbed browsing is better, more natural.
- Rewind and fast forward
- The way Opera handles cache on windows, by cache'ing the GDI objects instead of just the page data.
- The start bar
- Better and easier customization
- Smooth image zoom
- Simply faster
- Sessions and reloading all my pages after a crash.
- MSR/Fit to width/SSR
- The option to have the progress bar pop up at the bottom of the window and hide when it's done.
- Wand, it's simply better.
- Author/user modes
- All images/cached images/no images toggle
- Native windows skin. With OpusOS, it's great.
- Paste and Go
- That a page is actually a window and I can break it off from the main window if I want.
- Trashcan that keeps track of closed pages.
- Reload every
- Hotclick
And all the little details that aren't features. Firefox simply can't provide all this, even with extensions. And if there were an extension for each thing.. it would use a lot of resources, be slower, and they would not work as well together.
Ummm. Do they plan to have voice output in that thing?
If so I think I'm terribly afraid. Just imagine what happens if your browser gets hijacked by less savoury sites.
HOT XXX PRETEEN SLUTS is bad enough as a pop-up.
And the cavernous echoes that come with the goatse guy. Shudder.
20 minutes into the future
It amazes me that, after so many years, Opera continues to lead in browser innovation. Sure, Mozilla has copied tabbed browsing, popup blocking, mouse gestures, and a few more, but Opera has so much more. Small screen rendering, WML support, slideshows, keyboard shortcuts everywhere, ... And it's a lot faster and smaller, even with mail and IRC client built in.
And now they bring voice recognition. If they get that to work on Linux, I'll be happy to buy a couple more licenses from them.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
What also needs to be mentioned is that the Licence has changed for paid customers. Quoting:
http://virtuelvis.com/
I think Opera Software should care about staying in business before it thinks about what most people will or won't use. In all fairness, Opera doesn't have 95% of the browser market to begin with. It never has, and it's extremely unlikely that it ever will.
Opera (the desktop browser, at least), has primarily been a browser of choice for niche groups of users. 5% is a niche market, and much less than 5% can easily be a niche market. If Opera happens to be the only browser that satisfactorily offers what those 5% or less happen to require, it'll be succesful enough to keep the business going.
Opera is now competing with Firefox, Konqueror (although not in Windows), and a host of others. Many of these new alternatives provide the satisfactory alternative to MSIE that Opera used to dominate in providing. Consequently, that market is diminishing, and it's probably not as viable any more because so many potential users can use something besides Opera. If Opera is to compete and survive, it's a sensible business decision to look for more points of difference to open new niche markets that aren't yet well catered for.
You might not personally like the way Opera's going, but chances are that you have plenty of alternative options anyway. Meanwhile, if you have a need for effective voice operation of a web browser as a particular group of people do, Opera might well be your first choice if they can pull it off.
Sadly I already moderated on this discussion - AC
Hi all,
I'm the IBM program director over this product, working in partnership w/ Opera. Some quick comments: The X+V spec unifies HTML & VoiceXML and is currently undergoing the W3C process for standardization. We wrote it together w/ Motorola & Opera and have made it open. We also have an Eclipse-based SDK available at http://www.ibm.com/pvc/multimodal and a prototype one at http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/mmtplus that allows you to visually build these multimodal apps.
Some of you may wonder why you should voice enable your Web content. First of all, one of my lead researchers is blind, and it's quite amazing to see how much he can accomplish today. Given that, in the future, I'm hoping a lot more content will be open to people with various disabilities.
Secondly, how useful is your cellphone for accessing the Web? It has a small screen & limited input. Now imagine just speaking into a multimodal portal: "weather forecast", "my portfolio", "eBay bids", "any high priority mail?", "am I free tomorrow at noon?", etc. The portal understands your input & fetches relevant info, which may also be tied into location based services. 50% of you will use multimodal services by 2010; this is intended as the replacement to WAP.
Warm regards!
Igor Jablokov
They changed the licence conditions too for version 8. Instead of having to buy Opera for Windows and Linux, you now buy one licence for "Opera for desktop", which allows you to install it on as many computers as you like within your own home.
Opera is many things. Before the bashing continues, however, I'd like to make a few things clear:
- it is NOT bloated; it's a 3.5 MB download
- it is NOT crashy
- it is NOT bad because of flashy ads because you can look at tiny, non-flashing google ads
- it is NOT unable to display pages propperly; it handles every webpage I'ver ever been to just fine
- it has a much nicer, more customizable UI than Firefox
- it is considerably faster than Firefox
- it has everything you'd ever want in a browser suite without needing any additional downloads or plugins
- you don't EVER have to use anything in it you don't want to, and even with email and chat turned on, it's still not bloated, and still has less of a footprint than Firefox
- if you turn off everything except web browsing, you'll never hear from it and Opera will have even less of a foot print
- it was well worth the $20 student price I paid for it. I rarely ever register software, and it was one of the few programs I did register without any regrets.
Opera is a magnificent piece of software. Who cares if it's not open source? Not every god damn thing in the world needs to be open. Who cares if it costs money? They're running a business, and selling a product, and a damn good one at that. You get what you pay for. Firefox is good too, but you also get what you pay for with Firefox.
To achieve with Firefox the functionality that Opera offers out of the box I have to download a dozen plugins. When that is done, Firefox is very slugish and the features don't feel tightly integrated. (I am using a slow computer)
:-).
Every feature in Opera feels very natural and intuitive, it doesn't feel bolted on. It is a beautifully refined browser and works great both on Linux and Windows. Of course, a pluggable Opera would be heaven
I still always recommend Firefox as an IE replacement, but for power users I will recommend Opera.
Cheers,
Adolfo
About the ads. The google ads take half the screen real estate that the graphical ones take and, to be honest, I have found them to be usefull more than once.
Opera 8.0 doesn't offer Java anyway, since it's installed only when needed.
Your FUD and lies are typical of certain Firefox zealots, and that is why I am more and more hesitant to use Firefox. I simply can't stand many of the users that keep trying to shove Firefox down people's throats with misleading statements, FUD and lies.Rendering problems - Firefox can't even render Slashdot correctly. How's that for "rendering problems"?
Clever signature text goes here.