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First Beta of Opera 10 Released
Miladinoski writes "Opera Software ASA today released the first beta of their tenth version of the Opera browser. In addition to the browser's known features, like mouse gestures, keyboard shortcuts, voice navigation, mail and RSS support, speed dial and so forth, it now includes a Turbo mode which unclogs your connection to get faster browsing, a new interface, a tabbed browsing update and customizable speed dial. Opera 10 continues to follow the web standards by getting 100/100 and pixel-perfect scores on the Acid3 test. The beta is currently available for every modern OS platform."
Opera 10 continues to follow the web standards by getting 100/100 and pixel-perfect scores on the Acid3 test.
Yeah, I think anything running the latest versions of Presto (Opera) & Webkit (Safari, Chrome) are getting 100s. Two nights ago I put the latest and greatest Chrome in WinXP SP3 on my eeePC and got a 100/100 even though it said Linktest failed.
Odd thing is that the more popular a browser or layout engine is, the worse it seems to do on the Acid tests!
My work here is dung.
Unclogs your connection?
So the internet is... like a series of tubes?
Opera follows standards, and Slashdot (even the homepage) looks like shit in Opera.
Really, Slashdot looks like shit in most browsers with blatantly obvious bugs everywhere, like the infamous white on white comment titles.
I guess that means that for all the talk and the bullshit, Slashdot totally hypocritical when it comes to standards.
Fix your fucking code or get off your high horse.
http://www.opera.com/docs/changelogs/mac/1000b1/
"This new Opera feature increases your internet bandwidth speed on slow connections using data and image compression technologies. Opera Turbo uses Opera proxy servers to compress the traffic before it reaches the Opera browser on the clientâ(TM)s computer; see this Opera reference. Opera Turbo can easily be configured to suit your browsing needs:"
So it basically does what their mobile browser already does for your desktop. Cue tinfoil hatters in 3,2,1...
Seems quite fast, even compared to regular Opera. Entire pages just appear, rather than slowly loading/displaying...
Kudos to the team!
The link to the "Turbo Mode" was kinda weak and just went to a Changelog, so I found this article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/03/opera_10_beta_debut/
Dubbed Opera Turbo, the server-side technology reduces the amount of data that must be downloaded to render a given web page. It works by scaling back the size of some images and stripping out certain content types, said Opera spokesman Thomas Ford. Some content based on Adobe Flash, for example, isn't loaded unless a user clicks a button. In essence, Turbo works by establishing a proxy server through which compressed website content is funneled to the browser. It will not work with content that's encrypted using the Secure Sockets Layer protocol and delivers a benefit only when used on connections with limited bandwidth.
A fairly interesting concept. I wonder if Firefox is working on something like this. Seems it would be a useful idea to explore at least for embedded devices or when you are tethered through a cell phone or whatnot.
"The beta is currently available for every modern OS platform."
Really? Says who? I can't find any such statement on Operas site, and if it's true - where's the build for AmigaOS 4.1?
I installed it and used it on my Windows & Ubuntu machines and really liked Opera. It's clean and fast, and I love the sync option. For some reason I have trouble committing to it. I also liked the speed of Chrome and, God help me, IE8. I know they're great browsers but I guess I'm just happy with Firefox.
Just FYI: in addition to the beta being available for all modern OSes, I see there is also a version for Windows.
I love Opera's speed. And I can live with the bloated features no one uses like Email and BitTorrent. But the sad fact is, a lot of sites don't work the same in Opera. I remember in particular that the uTorrent web GUI's Javascript didn't work at all.
And it's a shame that Opera rocks the Acid3, but nobody really cares because most websites aren't coded to standard; they're coded to work in the 96% of people's machines, and 96% of browsers fail at Acid3. Opera's mostly been a victim of a million different cooks in a million different kitchens cooking for a million different people.
Which makes me sad. I'm willing to be patient for a while, and this is a beta, but there's been almost no real discussion on the Opera Desktop Team blog about it. I may well eventually cave and reinstall the QT3 dependencies, but I do hope that I won't have to.
The internet is more like a plumbing trap.
People pour masses of crap down it, but occasionally you need to reach in and search for a valuable item, and you come out covered in shit.
What were we talking about again?
I've been a big fan of Opera for a long time, but I'm growing more and more disappointed in it. First off, I have 9.64 and I get an 85 on the ACID3 test, but that isn't my biggest issue. My biggest issues usually evolves CSS and JavaScript. AJAX sites not working or menuing on some of the Net's largest sites not working. (forget using MLB.com) Not to mention I've seen Opera's footprint being over 700M and still growing before. Granted I had more than a few tabs, but that is ridiculous! It's currently 215M while FF3 is 250M which I find acceptable, but that isn't always the case. (I use both browsers at the sametime)
And I can live with the bloated features no one uses like Email and BitTorrent.
It ain't really bloat if it doesn't slow it down at all, in my books.
Opera passes an even tougher css test than acid3 -- unlike firefox and safari, it renders the titles of slashdot comments correctly.
Yes, that's a joke. To see what I'm talking about, use firefox or safari to navigate to the slashdot homepage, and then click on the "Read More..." link for a story in the news, science, or technology sections. (This Opera article is in the tech section, but if you have your default threshold for comments set high, like I do, you won't get any titles of comments displayed right now, simply because there aren't any highly up-moderated comments yet, so you won't get any comments displayed.) What you'll see is that the titles of stories are displayed in white on a white background.
This comment explains that it's due to a CSS bug in the stylesheets in certain sections. Here is a bug report that I did today in sourceforge. I couldn't find any earlier reports of this problem by searching on sourceforge's bug tracker, but they might exist -- this problem has been around for quite some time now. As a work-around, you can click on the story's title in the threshold form.
It would be interested to hear whether this is universally reproducible with firefox and safari, but please be very careful to follow the exact instructions above. It depends on which section the article is in, and it depends on whether or not you're getting a cached version of the story.
The fact that the slashdot crew hasn't noticed this bug on their own after such a long period of time makes me wonder how much attention they really pay to the site. (This is assuming that the bug really does occur for all firefox users.) We've had dupes and grammatical mistakes in summaries forever, but now that the firehose is handling submissions, it looks like the whole site is just on autopilot.
Find free books.
A quick look shows the OS X version passes Acid3, is about 10% slower on javascript benchmarks compared to the last version, and still has no support for system services so it can't use the same spelling checker as all the other OS X programs or the grammar checker or other tools. Basically, I don't see anything that is here to motivate me to switch. Opera may be a really nice browser for Windows, but it is still subpar for OS X.
I'd probably use it more frequenty if it had some Ad blocking capabilities.
It does. Right-click on the page, "Block Content...".
By the way... http://www.opera.com/docs/history/
Integrated content blocking appeared in Opera 9.0, officially released on June 20th, 2006. Almost three years now.
And a little bit of history: http://www.schrode.net/opera/url_filtering/
Rudimentary ad blocking through urlfilter.ini appeared in Opera 6.02, released on May 15th, 2002. So, Opera has effectively had a form of ad-blocking capabilities for over seven years.
It's not as flexible as what you get through specialized Firefox extensions, but it's there, there are pre-made filters available for download, and like I said, it's been a part of the browser for seven years.
I've been a long time Firefox user, played with Chrome, but when I got my EEE 1000HE I decided to try Opera as I'd heard it was fairly fast and I didn't want to slow down that little processor.
Opera is great! Not only did it not slow down, but I got voice command (which I had back with OS/2 Warp too:) which is great given the smaller keyboard. Its fast, works well, and I appreciate the built in bit torrent client (I don't need more software to clutter up a Windows box).
Opera - I'm impressed!
Many ads depend on JavaScript and Flash to be served now. From my own experience, turning JavaScript and Flash off globally except for some domains (I'm using Opera 9.64 with sites preferences) will remove 99% of the annoying ads out there. That works across all browsers, that's why I don't need AdBlock Plus when I already have NoScript on Firefox.
So, does Opera have any functionality at least as good as AdBlockPlus and NoScript?
They are the /only/ reason I use Firefox. Really, for webbrowsers, AdBlock Plus is the killer app - if Opera can block ads at least that well, I'll be done with Firefox for good. If not, I have no reason to use it.
Thanks for that, but this is how the uTorrent UI works. The WebUI mimics the Windows UI's functionality, so it's an interactive JavaScript application (using XMLHttpRequest) rather than a set of web pages.
It has already come up in this thread but I think it warrants another post on the subject. And just some quick background: I used Opera as my main browser since right around IE3. Looking it up now I see that IE3 came out in Aug 96' and Opera was released to the public in 96 as well. One of the main reasons I liked it was how they supported the nix platforms, albeit just with binaries, as well as Win32.
Anyway suffice to say I used Opera for a long time, recommended it to friends who I thought were advanced enough to use it (Bit of a backhanded statement I know but oh well.), and even was sad when I moved away from it late last year. And the reason I finally did move away from it was that Firefox + Ablock + Noscript simply is a better overall experience.
And yes I know Opera has/has had it's own content blocking for ages now, that is not the point. It is not nearly the same thing as plugging in Adblock, picking your list, and then you just go. I also say this having already used, and continue to use, my hosts file as a filter as well.
As good as Opera is, and I still think it does a lot of things better/faster than anything else, the again overall experience with Firefox when you have it's addon support makes it better. And Firefox is also a much better replacement when moving an end user away from IE.
Opera, unless they do some really bad things, will always have a home on my PCs but right now Firefox is better for day to day usage.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
opera:config
->User Prefs
-->Allow script to receive right clicks
I use this: http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/opera/
It took one minute to copy the file, and I didn't see any ad since then.
just type /. in the address bar :)
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