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Opera 9.60 Released, With Upgraded Mail Client
Kelson writes "Opera Software has released Opera 9.60, the latest version of their web browser & internet suite. It's an evolutionary release, focused on performance optimization, improving the email client and adding more items to the Opera Link synchronization service."
If you haven't tried Opera, I highly recommend you give it a spin. It's a great browser and it's worth using for regular browsing; even better than Firefox, in my opinion. Firefox's extensions still give it the edge for web development, but Opera is quite close. Here are my favorite features Opera has over Firefox:
A sexy default look. I think Opera generally looks much sleeker, and the smooth-scrolling is worlds better (parabolic instead of linear, I think). It's a tiny aesthetic change that makes a big difference in ease of use (I don't lose my place) and feel of the app.
Speed dial. You've got your top nine right there in front of you.
The Wand. It's a huge time-saver if you have multiple logins for a site. Just click the username you need to use, and Opera submits the form with the creds you picked. It's faster and less clunky than the dropdown that Firefox uses.
The Trash bin. It lets you pick any recently closed page; you don't have to Ctrl-Shift-T through all the tabs you just closed to find the right one.
Quick search. Firefox has inline search too, but Opera simultaneously highlights *all* occurrences of the search text as you type.
And finally...
Dragonfly, the Opera javascript debugger. This baby is impressive. It's much easier to use than Venkman and rivals Firebug. The script window lets you pick any loaded script (inline scripts have their own entry!). The DOM tab (which is less spastic than Firebug's) lets you inspect all of your elements in folding-tree style. The Styles pane with then show you the explicit and computed styles on the element. Fantastic.
So give Opera a try. You might find a thing or three that you like.
Miren al Pepino! Los vegetales invidian a su amigo, como él quieren bailar. Pepino Bailarín!
They don't have ads anymore. They stopped using ads YEARS ago.
> whats not to love.
Proprietary applications without full source code availability ("of course I trust some American companies browser with my bank's passwords...")
Opera is Norwegian.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
Blazing-fast fullpage zoom: using the + and - keys makes Opera a delight to use for those of us browsing at high resolutions with websites designed for low resolutions. With 30" monitors like mine, it's an absolute must.
note:Firefox 3.1 has a horribly slow full page zoom on my dual core 2.2 Ghz AMD.
Instant page backtracking:. No re-rendering delay. (oh how I wish I could use Opera on my iPhone just because of that). The bonus is that any text typed by the user is also saved. A lifesaver for those of us who post on forums and hate to see their comments "eaten" by server and network errors.
Snappiest interface of the bunch: It shows quickdial tabs faster than the firefox plugin. Closing tabs and opening new ones is faster. Scrolling is faster. The reduced input latency makes interacting with the browser more enjoyable. Chrome is second best in this regard.
All of this makes up for the slightly higher incompatibility issues Opera deals with and the lack of addons (segmented downloading? Adblock? etc.). I can always fire up Chrome or Firefox if I need to.