Slashdot Mirror
Opera 10.0 Released, With Integrated Web Server Functionality
sherl0k writes "Opera 10.0, dubbed Opera Unite, has been released. Built into the Web browser is a full-fledged Web server, complete with nifty little gadgets such as a 'fridge' that people can post notes onto, a chat room, a widget to stream your music library anywhere, and a built-in file-sharing mechanism. It also scores 100/100 on the Acid3 test."
Readers fudreporter and TLS point to The Register's report on the new release and a
5-minute video demo, respectively. Update: 06/16 15:18 GMT by T: Roar Lauritzsen of Opera Software writes to point out that "release" isn't quite the right word here; though you can download it, version 10.0 is still in beta, and the version with Unite is a labs (experimental) release.
No kitchen sink?
I'm sure all seven Opera users will be thrilled.
Pretend for a second that I don't know anything about Acid 3. Pretend I'm just a regular Joe-sixpack web user.
Why should I care that my browser scored 100/100 on the Acid 3 test?
Somewhere in the summary you REALLY should mention this is an ALPHA release, not a final release.
Thanks.
I'm posting this from Opera 10. It seems quite different from the last version. Slashdot looks very, very good. To enable the file sharing, you have to click the "+" tab at the bottom and explicitly enable the web serving goodness. It includes a media player, to share your music collection around. I think we might have a game changer here. hanzie.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
It's a botnet writer's wet dream; a victim that will host your exploit once you've pwned it.
We can only hope that it's secure, or else the two dozen people who actually use Opera will be very unpopular indeed, at least until the RIAA has then rounded up for sharing their tunes with (world + dog).
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Looks great, except that 10.0 isn't released yet, and Opera Unite is a "labs build", aka alpha release.
something sitting in the back of my head telling me that i would trust Opera to do it FAR more better than Netscape - if not for the reason that when Netscape did it.. no one thought people would be evil with it.. second Opera is by far one of the most secure browsers out there, let alone the fastest (although chrome is giving it a run for it's money on that front).
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
I don't think it's a good idea to run a web server on the average user's PC for security reasons. If there is a web server running on an un-patched (or not patched up to date, rather) and improperly firewalled it could be compromised in a small amount of time. Seeing as many have personal data on their PC as well this makes it worse. Plus, isn't it common practice to separate web servers from the rest of a network also for security reasons?
Building a firewall-piercing file server into a browser, a program which typically has full network and file system access, is going to cause many incidents of accidental file sharing.
Why does a web browser have full access to the file system, other than read-only access to its own "program" and "files to upload" folders and read-write access to "user profile", "cache", and "downloaded files" folders?
Yo dawg, I heard you like surfing, so we put a web server in your browser so you can surf while your surf!
So when was the last time you tried Opera? I still use Firefox for a few things, and even IE, but the vast majority of my web browsing is done in Opera. It's faster, it's cleaner, mouse gestures are installed by default, and I like the way they use tabs better. With 10, the speed-dial tool actually got to be slightly useful, which I hadn't expected. It's been ages since I found a site that just plain didn't work in Opera, except ones that require ActiveX, and those don't work all that well in Firefox, either.
So why the hatred? Given that it's just a browser, and can't have killed your dog/cat/relative, I don't get it.
If you don't like it, don't use it. But don't insult those of us who find it to be a more usable browser.
10.0 has auto updates, but as other commenters have pointed out- 10.0 is in beta and seperate from the "Opera Unite" stuff of the article. You can learn more about auto update and try it out on the beta page
Why does a web browser have full access to the file system, other than read-only access to its own "program" and "files to upload" folder[...]
It has filesystem access because, even without a file server component, users want to upload files
Uploading a file doesn't need file system access; it needs file chooser access. In the Sugar toolkit used by OLPC's XO laptops, for instance, apps that let the user select a file send a request to the file chooser service, which then opens the file and passes the equivalent of a file descriptor to the app. (In fact, a Sugar app's installer doesn't even let a single program request both directory listing and network connection privileges; the user has to apply them manually after the fact.) Another way to do this is to have the user use the operating system's file manager to copy the file into "files to upload" before uploading it, and then the "Browse" button behaves more like the pop-up menu that a <select> element creates.
Actually, no, Opera is not one of the fastest browsers out there as This, on Mac OS, and this on windows show -- note, what is showing as opera 9.8 is 10.0 beta, I've yet to test the final release of 10.0, but you're of course welcome to try to duplicate my results.
Unfortunately, it still looks completely out of place.
It's highly functional. Of course it looks out of place on a Mac.
Now it seems that they are following MS lead by providing proprietary bloat instead cross platform functionality.
Huh? I run Opera on Windows, various Linux distros, Mac and Open Solaris, you can also find it in use on Wii, Symbian, FreeBSD, Windows Mobile, Nintendo DS. That's not enough platforms for you?
"I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
i can just see it now... your mom calls from her vacation abroad: "Hey! How you doing? Can you turn your laptop on i want to show uncle henry your photos of the wedding", "mom, it's 3am... i wish i had put my photos on flckr!"
Fractional horsepower web servers [scripting.com] are not a new idea, but baking them into the browser is
Not even remotely true, I'm afraid. The early WWW papers describe the browser and server being integrated, with the browser UI containing a simple editing tool for editing pages on your local server. It wasn't until later, when dial-up users became common that the two components were separated. The every-client-is-a-server model was at the core of the early Web.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Did they just slap a GUI on Emacs?
*Runs away*
/* No Comment */
The same way you didnt think your post through--a quick read through the comments (not even the article!) reveals that its NOT integrated into opera, its a widget aka addon. "I hear you can get virus extensions for firefox, so clearly mozilla is retarded". What?
The "Fishbowl" browser had an integrated web server.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010502014727/chronofish.com/FishBowl/
-CF
Sure, I don't want a web SERVER either (in the common parlance)- but maybe a server that just does some quick task for me: I find value in being able to easily share my photos with people with little to know real effort on my part. I currently have to FTP/batch to my webserver and "reindex" the site so thumbnails are generated. I would find value in having an EyeFi memory card dump pictures into a folder and they are immediately available to view- no work done at all on my part.
Opera PPC OS X is just 12 MB, the actual executable is way below it.
In fact, if you dig deeper, you figure the amazing fact. Core renderer is below 1 MB. Yes, 1 MB of ultra portable pure C is the "Opera". Rest is done via the functionality it already has. E.g. lsof when you use the "bulky" IRC function of Opera, you will see the thing you see as "IRC" is actually a web page along with CSS!
Same with the "Web server". It must be amazingly tiny, even less than the rendering engine since it is clear that they are heading to mobile with this.
Opera and Firefox has different development models, concepts and even targets. Ask Firefox developers if they will remove 80% of code just because they want the exact same binary to run on my horribly outdated, OS dead UIQ3 Sony Ericsson P1i. That is what Opera does.
With Google, Google Backed Mozilla, MS Backed IE, Apple backed Webkit, I really don't think Opera dreams about "World Domination!". Look at these silly people, they want to boycott Opera because MS backed blogs called for it. Why? EU judicial system investigates MS (did you see IE icon's size on Win 7?) and MS pulled one of "I am taking my toys and going home" tricks again by not including IE in EU Windows. So, it is all Opera's fault now (as they can't mess with Google/Firefox) and they want to boycott Opera (as if they ever used!).
I mean, as ordinary user, I can see the stupidity but they can't? I bet they do and they never dreamed of being some 20-30% market share browser because of these facts which aren't really too technical.
The big speed difference I notice between Opera and some other browsers isn't so much in the HTML/JS performance but in overall responsiveness. Opening a tab is nearly instantaneous, even on older systems. The browser just gets out of the way and lets me work. That speed difference won't be shown in most benchmarks.
How many ordinary non techie end users actually know what opera is?
Webserver, extras etc ? I wish it had a browser....:-)
That's a very fancy and colourful benchmark, but what exactly does it measure? I tried it on hald a dozen different Linux browsers, and it came out with Firefox 3.0.11 on bottom, well below Iceweasel 3.0.11 (same codebase), with Opera 10 Beta and Konqueror 4.2.4 almost indistinguishable from each other and quite a bit faster, with some WebKit based browsers much faster than those. Problem is, Konqueror is slower than Firefox in all other benchmarks (WebKit's Sunspider, for instance) and in user experience as well. That benchmark doesn't reflect reality.
I mean seriously did we lean nothing with Windows 200o default install of IIS.
Yes, the server and all services are disabled by default.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
... isn't this just what the Iranians are looking for? This kind of democratic peer to peer communication removes the need to rely on central social networking sites and puts the internet back in the hands of the people.