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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."
I love Opera. I'd love it even more if it came with the possibility to create extensions.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
I'm glad they finally released; I'm looking forward to it.
However, I am weary of all these new features; it seems like it is possible they could turn Opera into a bigger resource hog.
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.
I didn't want to bloat my summary by going into too much detail about that, but to be specific they've created a new rendering context for canvas which is designed to make it easier to create 2D games by giving more raw access to the framebuffer. It is using the designed-in extensibility for canvas (which was, of course, a Safari extension to HTML in the first place!) and Opera is working with other browser manufacturers on a 3D rendering context for canvas which will allow full hardware-accelerated 3D when it's done.
It's becoming increasingly vaugue these days what constitutes a "standard" in the web sphere. Various other organisations are springing up outside of the W3C and proposing their own extensions and new specs, and I for one am quite enjoying the new stuff we're seeing as a result of this "competition". Other such third-party "extensions" include XMLHttpRequest (Microsoft), canvas (Apple), opera-2dgame (Opera), Web Forms 2.0 (WHATWG) and probably other stuff I'm forgetting. Opera supports all this stuff and also supports several W3C standards to boot!
The only problem with it would be if it automatically (not overridable in settings) used its built in when ever you click a torrent file. Though I understand a half decent built in client would be nicer.
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html# top
;)
Open in Opera, then in Firefox. I don't know how to answer you better.
Oh, don't even bother with MSIE...
So, I guess once you can see that face on acid correctly in your browser you really have reached the end of the Internet, there is nothing more to see. Good bye, all the Opera users, it's been nice while it lasted.
You can't handle the truth.
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.
Insightful? Good god. Opera may well be closed source but it's a far better browser than Firefox which still suffers from memory issues and runs like a pig if you happen to hit the wrong website with the wrong combination of plugins installed.
Firefox has been getting better of late it's true, but it still suffers from the common Open Source Project issue that the sexy visible eye-candy stuff gets priority over unexiting but essential background code.
Which is not to say I don't like and use Open Source software, indeed given the choice between equal programs one Open Source and the other not then Open Source usually gets my vote. However to roll out closed source as if it's some fundemental problem with a truly excellent browser smacks of RMS zealotry.
"Sounds like"...? Have you actually tried it?
I am an avid Firefox user but I have always been impressed with the speedy interface Opera offers, despite all the extra features they put in. And from release to release, they manage to simplify the interface more and more. The options menu is no longer the scary mess it used to be, I suppose they are learning from Firefox's success. They may be adding a lot of stuff in that people would consider bloatware, but they manage to add it in a way that the browser doesn't seem to be suffering from it one bit. Take into consideration the constant advancement of the rendering engine and the unusually wide spectrum of platforms it supports and you've got quite a good browser.
I'd also like to hear your reasoning for complaining about the built-in BitTorrent client. After all, downloading is one basic feature of a browser, so why not jump in at exactly that point and help advance the system to a more server-friendly standard. Most common users don't know about Azureus and uTorrent and whatnot, so I think it's a good way to introduce the protocol to a wider audience.
parasight.de
Ah, I see they fixed some stability issues. That's pretty much the only problem I had with Opera 9 Beta 1, though even when it crashed, it wasn't an issue, because Opera simply let me continue my last session from before the crash. Bless the hearts of those Opera developers. :)
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/
It varies. Web Forms 2.0 is open and specified at the URL linked in the original summary, though it isn't actually finalized yet. It's also designed to be backwards compatible, so there's no reason why you can't go ahead and use most of it on sites now and suffer no ill-effects. As for canvas, I believe it now works in Firefox, Safari and Opera but obviously not IE. SVG can be added to most browsers via a plugin if they don't support it already.
Certainly we're not going to be making use of most of these things tomorrow, but it's getting to the point where IE is the only one left that doesn't support them. Obviously that's a biggy, but the IE team has shown recently that they are willing to play nice by implementing everyone else's adaptation of their XMLHttpRequest object, so it's not inconcievable that they'd implement some of these other new toys if they prove useful.
Just upgraded to 9.0 on my work PCs (windows and ubuntu linux) without any problems.
Will upgrade my home PC within a week probably.
I just love how easy it upgrades, from version 7.x to 8.x and now 8.x to 9.x I've had my same skin/custom buttons and it just works. I remember upgrading previous versions and the skins would no longer work and I'd have to find a similar one and customize it from scratch again.
Now its so easy.
Only bad part is the new widgets menu.. I'm very anal/obsessive compulsive and I hate change (which is why ive had the same skin since version 7 and similar skins in 5 and 6).. now im all twitchy.. i hate when they add/remove menus =P
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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
"# Initial support for NTLM authentication."
It's about farging time already.
I'm guessing you don't use a whole lot of F/OSS, do you? In most cases, the reverse is the biggest complaint. A lot of F/OSS has tons of great functionality, and you could really accomplish so much with it... if only it had a better interface.
Rather than try to word it myself, I'm going to quote from http://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/vandf/2004.1-itch. html
Open Source software is produced by programmers. Programmers are very different from the general public (a far greater proportion of programmers are intuitives than in the general public, for instance). This means that when programmers produce open source software, since they are largely scratching their own itch, they will tend to produce the software for themselves, and in particular be perfectly content with the (programmer-oriented) user interface. - Steven Pemberton.Reading changelogs such as these should strike fear into the hearts of the Firefox developers, while that they squander so foolishly their hard-earned market share. If it wasn't for Opera, Joe Clickit wouldn't have reason to think FF was so poorly cobbled together.
Firefox, while it started with good intentions has become thick around the midriff. It's memory useage is embarassing, and I use Linux which is apparently the build target Firefox is most optomised for. How long can we be told we're sick of being told they're imagining FF's gushing memory leaks.. Why does an open-source application fall so miserably behind a closed-source competitor? The trend is the inverse.
One could equally ask why web browsers tend to include FTP clients. In practice, many people tend to use their web browsers to download stuff, and BitTorrent is an increasingly-popular way to download stuff.
Note also that Opera manages to do everything but the kitchen sink in less than 4MB, while Firefox's executable (on Windows) is 6.5MB before you even consider the multitude of XPCOM components, XUL documents, XBL bindings and JavaScript source files that make it actually work. I'll stick with Opera. :)
I'm torn. Obviously "Joe Average" isn't using Opera, but Opera does require less technical savy to use than BT. I think integrated BT is a great feature for the "Joe Lazy"s who want to quickly download something without worrying about details of BT.
Internet Archive: Live Music Archive
As an anecdotal evidence: back in the day (Opera 3.60) it did not support unicode (few browsers did) and it displayed russian pages in Unix encoding (KOI8) all quirky. I did not have source for Opera, but the binary was quite clear enough so that I could hack in a menu item and optional transcoding subroutine (disassembler, debugger, hex editor - usual tools) - I'm not making that up. You know - Mozilla may be open source but it is bloated enough that I don't want to fuck around trying to make it compile on my machine (and I'm not sure if it compiles with anything other that MSVC compiler for Windows). So - in this sense Opera was more open for me. The difference between binary and source code is more quantative than qualitative.
How about adding an Opera topic to Slashdot? It seems popular enough. (I swear by Opera myself.)
Opera's email client is awseome in general (and is usually my primary email client) -- but there is one issue that I've found that they have yet to fix: IMAP mail...
It's a bit of a weird one: If you use a non-opera email client (with IMAP, at least -- I don't use POP), and that email client is the first to see a new message, there are a few issues. (Say, you use your 'company mandated' email client to get the mail at work, then Opera at home.)
Opera doesn't acknowledge the existence of emails that have been first detected with a non-opera browser. I noticed this because I kept looking for particular emails that had seemed to vanish on me. I finally noticed the problem -- Opera simply wasn't detecting the messages. They were sitting there in my inbox, but Opera coudln't see them.
Otherwise, I've been using the Opera 9 (beta) series, and I've been quite pleased.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Extensions have nothing to do with Open Source, and a lot to do with APIs. Both MSIE and Firefox offer the possibility to add extensions that change the browser quite a lot. The only difference is, that Firefox is better in politely asking the user before installing them, and has always offered a way to remove them as well :)
Note how, for example, the Google Toolbar was developed first for MSIE, and only much later for Firefox.
If you don't like having choices made for you, you should start making your own. - Neal Stephenson
have you found any decent skins for Opera on OSX? The nicest one I've found has variable tab length, which is annoying. (for example, if you go to a page with a long title, it takes up most of your tab bar. see this example.)
Not a deal breaker for most people, but the lack of good skins is enough to keep me using Safari+Saft (it looks very nice with Unified Aqua applied). Anyone have any ideas?
Today) Opera has missed the boat. They may have more features and more neat and whizzy things in a tigher package than anyone else, but they don't have the few things people want. Firefox is The Way and what I use when I want anything more than raw reading capability. The delays in getting versions out shows just how dead the "We'll do all the work for you" model is.
I'm sorry guys. I'm glad I could support you when IE was free, but you're just not fast enough or extensible enough.
A lesson for everyone) If you change the UI you put me into a position where I have the learn something new. It could be new elements, new keystrokes, or removing old keystrokes that used to work. Ultimately, if I have to learn something new to use you're product, I might as well learn something new to learn a product that works a little better. People like to be comfortable. If you force them to change, don't expect them to just change a little.
I have always loved the Opera browser, I really think it is the best browser available out there. Fast, standards complaint, everything well integrated together, it has also a very clean, nice, intuitive and easy to use interface. I really was a huge Opera fan. However I had to give up and stop using it essentially for one reason: it does not work well with new Google products. Gmail used to break every other week, maps didn't scrolled properly, I never managed to properly render the calendar. Dunno who's fault is this Opera for not implementing some relevant stuff heavily used by new Google's technology, or Google for heavily using technology on which there is still not yet a standard. I am now downloading the new Opera 9.0 to see it for myself, but does anybody knows whether the situation has improved, or if there is at least some interest on either party to solve this very frustrating problems??
A real disappointment is that you have to use "Wand" to manage passwords. I wish it would integrate with Apple's keychain and Apple's bookmarks. Then I could sync it more easily. I guess the Mac market isn't large enough for them to create better NAtive support for OS X.
I used Opera for years, but once firefox hit 1.0, I switched. I kept trying new Opera versions, but they fell short in compatability area or content control like Flashblock that I just couldn't live without.
But now with all the per site configuration, I may finally switch back. Per site identities, per site masking, per site control of multimedia; These were things I always said Opera needed to deal with a poor web pages. The diehard Opera heads would always tell me we have the change all the bad web sites. Being a realistic person, I knew that wasn't going to happen. So I stuck with Firefox.
But now I am ready to give Opera another shot. It was a great browser, now with more control and compatability, it may be back in my books.
Bravo Opera dudes.
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The implementation is the best I've ever seen.
You press shift+arrow keys to navigate between form inputs and links. I often use it instead of the mouse. Tab runs through form inputs. On a Mac you can also use alt-tab to switch between tabs. I don't know what the key is on Windows/*nix.
Firefox at least is working on it. The Gecko trunk is getting close, and there's a "reflow" branch that passes (but hasn't been merged in yet).
These fixes will miss Firefox 2.0, which will use roughly the same rendering engine as Firefox 1.5 does, but should be in in time for Firefox 3.0.
As for IE -- last we heard from Microsoft on the subject, they had no plans to target Acid2. Maybe IE8 if we're lucky, but if they maintain their current schedule, that could be in 2010.