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Opera 9.0 Released
Nurgled writes "After teasing us for months with betas and snapshots, Opera Software have finally released version 9.0 of their web browser. The new version features correct ACID2 rendering, native support for the SVG Basic profile, a built-in BitTorrent client, support for Microsoft's designmode and contenteditable extensions, per-site configuration, Atom support, Web Forms 2.0 support, Canvas support (and some Opera-specific extensions), NTLM authentication, some support of parts of CSS3 and lots more. The full changelog is available."
p14nd4 adds "And for you *nix users, it hasn't hit their .deb repository quite yet, but there are regular installers available for the major players, including a fixed Ubuntu installer and an x86 Solaris version."
The main Opera.exe plus the Opera.dll that contains all the fun stuff still only adds up to a paltry 3.12MB (Windows version, obviously) even with all this stuff. It might be experiencing a bit of creeping featurism, but it doesn't seem to be suffering for it. I've noticed no speed decrease from Opera 8.51.
I'm actually quite pleased with the BitTorrent support; There have been many occasions when I've gone to download something and a site has offered both BitTorrent and a normal HTTP download, and I've picked HTTP just because it saves me launching some other app. Obviously the prolific downloaders aren't going to use it in preference to Azureus or uTorrent, but I expect it'd come in handy for more casual users and is also a good first step to greater adoption of BitTorrent.
Obviously you haven't used Opera9 at all. The BT client in Opera9 works similar to regular downloads and so does indeed show transfer rates and the number of seeds/peers. In addition to that when you download the torrent file it will allow you to limit your upload and download speed. It also shows the amount of data uploaded/downloaded and the number of current connections going out/in.
It supports netscape plugin API, and Widgets, is that enough entensions for you?
Anyway, my favourite new feature in Opera 9 has to be the 'create search' function to easily create new search engines for Opera to use (and to use in the search dropdown). I'd explain how to use it (exceedingly simple), but a good overview is perhaps here
The canvas extension in question is the opera-2dgame context. Some of what it features is:
There is work underway to get a similar API for the canvas into the specification.
Disclaimer: I am the author of the mentioned blog post detailing the opera-2dgame context.
http://virtuelvis.com/
Have you ever used Opera? There is quick & easy to use ad-blocking capabilities built-in ... It's under Tools->Options ... and there are like 4 stages ... ranging from Allow-All to Block-All
What I love about Opera is that all of the extensions I use in Firefox come by default in Opera (ok, it doesn't have FireSomthing but I can deal without that). And it's configuration is simple to back up and copy between machines. Anytime I sit down to Firefox I have to remember which of the tabbed-browsing extensions actually works and gives me the functionality I want (session-saving, duplicate tab, ability to reorder tabs, open absolutley everything in a tab not a window)
unfortunately, my own pet bugs still are there...
:)
1. opera constantly stats all files in the download list, including already downloaded ones;
2. bittorrent downloads don't work through an http proxy;
3. systray icon in kde breaks icon arrangement with 48px tall kicker
though it is good that google maps buttons now work and icon is transparent
Rich
Opera does have extensions. They call it User JS.
Here is a good repository: http://userjs.org/
I totally agree about the responsiveness and how snappy Opera is versus firefox, that was what initially got me using Opera a few years ago over Moz. It is my main browser as well on Windows. I have noticed that on some websites Opera does seem to have run away memory issues where I have to close it using task manager, it does not happen very often but it does occur. I have also noticed that if I leave msdn.com open in a tab that there seems to be a memory leak and I need to close and restart Opera to get the memory back as just closing the tab does not seem to work. When this last issue occurs the mem usage goes to 100MB+, it is quite annoying. Overall I am a happy Opera user, I don't need all of the extensions available to firefox as Opera has everything I currently need.
Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
If you like Firefox because of the the web developer toolbar, then you may be interested in the Opera W3-Dev Menu: http://tobyinkster.co.uk/opera
Not just plugins and widgets, it also supports user JavaScript, which is basically the same as Greasemonkey. In fact, it was the original inspiration for Greasemonkey, and Opera has even added compatibility support so that lots of Greasemonkey scripts can run in Opera unchanged.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Opera's User JS is just equivalent to the particular Firefox Greasemonkey extension, not an extension system on its own. You can "only" add site specialized Javascript functionality with User JS, not change chrome, and so on up to providing complete application extensions like DownThemAll.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
2. Firefox 'memory leaks' are just a myth. Firefox keeps the last few pages stored in RAM for the instant back/forward functionality.
If Firefox memory leaks are just a myth, then what are all those memory-leak bugs that were fixed in 1.5.0.1, 1.5.0.2, and 1.5.0.4?
Firefox does have memory leaks, but not to the extent that detractors often claim. Mozilla is working on these, and has even released a tool to help track down more leaks. It also has features, like the back/forward cache you mentioned, that consume lots of memory, which probably overshadow the actual leaks by several orders of magnitude.
The problem comes when people oversimplify, as in "I hope they fix the memory leak (singular)" or "Firefox doesn't have memory leaks, it has features." Either way, it obscures the actual problems.