Opera 9 with Widgets and BitTorrent Now Available

ZarK writes "Technical Preview 2 of the upcoming Opera 9.0 browser is now available for download. In addition to the general bugfix and rendering improvements there's also new features, like x-platform type widgets, improved content blocking, bittorrent support, thumbnail preview of tabs and more. Improved functionality also comes in the fact that a good lot of the scripts from userscripts.org will now work, advanced settings have improved in opera:config, and more browser customization is available at the opera community. However, some clear indications that this is still an alpha release is the experimental support for NTLM which breaks the proxy functionality for some users, and the fact that widgets are always on top."

Its CSS, CSS2 and CSS3 support is superb.

[CyricZ]

This release of Opera offers excellent support for CSS, CSS2, and even CSS3. Many have suggested that it is, at this point, superior to that offered by any existing browser on the market. Of course, this is the cutting edge of their product line, so one would expect it to be at the top of its game.

Bittorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure if adding bittorrent functionality is a good idea unless it doesn't use up RAM when not being used.

I initially switched to Opera 8.5 from Firefox because of better security and speed. Now I use Opera primarily because I love usability features like the URL trashcan and dropdown panel that appears when clicking URL bar. But at some point, enough is enough, and adding new features can make a product worse, not better.

Re:A darn good job.

[CyricZ]

You must not have used Opera to make such patently incorrect claims. They do not cut corners with their engine. It supports the various standards just fine, if not far better than its competitors.

When compared to Firefox, its performance is superb. I know a number of people who used to use Firefox, but ended up switching to Opera 8.51. They just got tired of the memory leaks of Firefox, and were especially disappointed by the very poor 1.5 release.

Opera has become to Firefox what Firefox became to Internet Explorer. Put simply, it is a superior browser. Trying it out for a day is often enough to make one switch.

Re:A browser with native BitTorrent

[Jozer99]

I have been using this all day. This was my first experience with Opera, but I figured it was time to give it a try. Here is what I thought: Ease of use: Still not up to Firefox standards, but about as good as IE7 (I'm not a huge fan of that interface). You can easily change the theme, but some things are frustratingly un-customizable (in Firefox you can drag just about anything anyplace and expect it to do something). Speed: WOW! Even on my dual core 2.8 with 2GB RAM, Opera still renders pages noticably faster than IE or Firefox. Plus, no (or fewer) pesky memory leaks. Also, Opera tended to use about 2/3 of the RAM as Firefox with as many tabs open. How do they do that?!?! Downsides: Opera has a couple downsides. For one, it still doesn't have IE's universal exceptance, I still had to open IE to get to Yahoo! sites (shudder). Plus, I found that Opera had mysterious and quite common rendering errors on CSS heavy pages (as in navigation bars would not show up). This maybe because of the beta status, but it was frustrating. Opera also has much fewer plugins and add-ons available to enhance functionality. This is probably due to the smaller user base and closed source nature of the program. After a day with Opera, I am sad to say that I switched back to Firefox for my main browser. However, Opera will remain on my machine, and I will continue to download new versions to see how things improve.

Bye Firefox ... its been fun

[arrrrg]

I tried this out today, and I'm sold. After seeing stats on how Opera is significantly faster than Firefox in almost every category, I finally decided to check it out. While I miss one or two extensions (Bugmenot and Forecast Firefox), I can do without these. Other than that, the built-in mouse gestures, keyboard + location bar shortcuts, ad block, torrents, better download manager, fast forward (hit the button or press ctrl-x and automatically go to the next page of google search results, next part of any article, ...), and so on means that out of the box it is a firefox killer, and much faster to boot.

Re:A browser with native BitTorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

You can easily change the theme [in Opera], but some things are frustratingly un-customizable (in Firefox you can drag just about anything anyplace and expect it to do something).

As much as I hate Digg, people posting in http://www.digg.com/software/Opera_9.0_TP2_is_out [digg.com] have provided some of their Opera screenshots. If you can manage to read through Digg crap to find some, I think you'll find that your statement isn't completely correct; in Opera, it's incredibly easy to rearrange the UI. Just right-click on a toolbar, hit Customize and play. You can place any toolbar anywhere, and have any icon/function anywhere. Plus, Opera has a really nice keyboard/mouse gesture editor so you can assign any combination to any set of actions.

Re:A browser with native BitTorrent

[AKA Panama Jack]

BTW, Opera can use ANY Netscape compatible plugin. So basically if the plugin can be used on Firefox it can be used in Opera. :)

Other useful links

[Lawmune]

While we're on the topic of bonus links, here are some other useful resources for people who just downloaded Opera 9.0tp2:

Widgets user guide [opera.com]

Search engine customization tutorial [opera.com]

Content blocking tutorial [opera.com]

Setup info for tab thumbnails [opera.com]

(Regarding that last one, I am still convinced that tab thumbnails are kind of silly, and that Opera's tiling function is already much more useful. See here: The Problem with Tab Thumbnails [cjas.org])

Re:A browser with native BitTorrent

[AKA Panama Jack]

I have the latest Quicktime and Flash 8 along with Shockwave installed under Opera 9 TP2 without any problems. They work like a charm. So you might want to see what you did wrong during the install. If you use their installers they will automatically install into Opera. If you copy the plugin files from anotehr directory make sure you place them in the program/plugin directory in Opera.

And I thank GOD that Opera doesn't support ActiveX. ActiveX is one of the most insecure pieces of programming I have ever come across. Using ActiveX is akin to browsing the web and opening email attachments without a firewall or antivirus package installed. An open invitation to disaster.

Re:Bittorrent and Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/FirefoxMyt hs.html [comcast.net]

SVG Capabilities Improved

[jeff_schiller]

I am loving the SVG implementation [codedread.com] in the Opera 9 Previews, I update information on my blog. TP2 includes several fixes to the SVG implementation over TP1 and TP1 was a HUGE leap from Opera 8.x. Opera now covers more SVG functionality than Firefox 1.5 does, and is faster on my PC.

Opera is the new native SVG implementation to beat.

Re:Hmmm...maybe I'll try it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, to create a new search now you only have to right-click in a search field on any page, select "Create search" from the menu and voila :) Pick your shortcut and you can search from the address line just as with google searches (g define:slashdotted). or use F2

Why I love Opera

[linuxguy]

1. It is fast. Very fast. Firefox is dog slow in comparison. At least on my Linux system.
2. It is lean, very lean. 4.7MB and tonnes of features. How do these people do it?
3. It is easy on memory. Firefox has bad memory leak problems. Earlier today Firefox was taking up 300MB+ on my system. I close all tabs and it did not free any memory. Enough is enough. This is the primary reason I am ditching Firefox.
4. The keyboard shortcuts are sane and there are lots of them.
5. It is more standards compliant than Firefox.
6. It now works with maps.google.com.
7. Did I already mention that it was fast?

Additional links

[zxSpectrum]

Here are some additional links with more information and screenshots, so you won't have to wade through all of the Opera forums to find them:

• The Slashdot Widget [opera.com]
• Pictorial walkthrough of Opera 9 [virtuelvis.com]
• UserJS.org [userjs.org] -- Granted, Opera can run many Greasemonkey scripts, the userjs.org feature of Opera allows some additional capabilities. These scripts are all compatible with Opera, and have undergone QA to verify that scripts are non-malicious, and as efficient as possible
• Widget developer tutorial [opera.com] - If you want to get started writing widgets, here's where to go
• Screenshots and explanations around the tab (and ctrl-tab) thumbnails [opera.com]
• Opera Search engine customization [opera.com]
• In-depth information about the content blocker [opera.com]
• Opera User stylesheet information [lofotenmoose.info]

Re:FlashBlock

[hkmwbz]

You can find "Flashblock" [virtuelvis.com] for Opera too.

Tips & Tricks after a days use

[Anonymous Coward]

Been using this now and tried to find all the hidden goodies, and here's my few tips. Note that all shortcuts mentioned are only tested on Windows:

• Right-click in a search field and select "Create search" to define a new search with a shortcut. The shortcut can now be used at the address bar just like "g define:slashdotted" can.
• You can press "F2" and type "slashdot" and you will go to http://slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org]
• CTRL-B is a keyboard shortuct for Paste & go
• F12 gives you a Quick Preferences menu
• Tools-> Preferences-> Advanced-> Shortcuts-> Mouse setup-> Edit-> Application will give you the mouse gestures. I changed "GestureUp" to this: "Enter fullscreen & view address bar, 2 | leave fullscreen & Go" , changed "GestureDown, GestureUp" to "Wand" and added "GestureLeft, GestureRigth" to be "Stop"
• On any page, hit "." (dot) to get a non-intrusive search on the page
• Right-click on the page and try the "Block Content.." function, it's very nicely implemented
• You can create your own buttons [nontroppo.org]
• Create your own Widgets [opera.com] using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SVG and AJAX, and they _should_ work on all platforms the TP2 is available on.
• I like Tools-> Preferences-> General-> '[ ]Show close button on each tab' to make the interface less cluttered, and rather use my middle-button to close tabs.

Hm.. well that's what I've found so far :)

Re:FlashBlock

[ZzzzSleep]

Quoth ne0n

When I find a Flashblock extension for Opera I'll give 'er another shot. Until then, it's basically useless.

I'm not familiar with the Flashblock extension, but is this what you want?

Improved content blocker Cosmetic surgery for Web pages. Just right click on a page and select block content. Any content not greyed out can be blocked with a click. Select done and see the page the way you want.

From http://labs.opera.com/news/2006/02/07/2/ [opera.com]

Re:A darn good job.

[hkmwbz]

Opera 9 obviously improves on Opera's CSS support. I never said it was perfect (neither is Firefox's - by far). But Opera 8 already has better CSS support than Firefox.

Interesting Thumbnails

[tektek]

Not sure if this has been shown yet, but I noticed this about 5 hours after testing out Opera9: http://tektek.org/misc/opera9.png [tektek.org] Kind of a neat little add-in, not sure how much use it will be to me though.

Re:Additional links

[puke76]

Lets not forget the Kiosk feature [opera.com], giving you command line switches to lock down the browser for an internet cafe or kiosk. Firefox is extremely difficult to lock down in this way, and requests for similar features have been turned down by the developers.

Re:A browser with native BitTorrent

[aichpvee]

Wasn't this discussed enough the last time Opera had BT built into a tech preview? The target users for an integrated torrent client are very different than for a standalone client. If all web browsers had built-in torrent support then pretty much any file up for download on the internet could be switched to a torrent for distributed serving without any noticeable change to the end user.

Big time downloaders who want more features will obviously still use standalone clients. But it's hardly bloat to have it in the webbrowser.

Re:XSLT support added

[:jax:]

A major development is the addition of XSLT support using a native XSLTProcessor object just like Mozilla. This is significant because Opera has been strongly opposing XSLT for a long time now. Web developers using XSLT for the presentation layer would find this news heartening.

That isn't quite true. We have been sceptical to XSL-FO, and we still are, but have been neutral/pragmatic on XSLT. Server-side Opera.com has been using XSLT for years [opera.com] and I think [opera.com] there should be different best practices client-side and server-side and I don't think the usecase for client-side XSLT is reducing server load, but when it is used for the benefit of the user it can be a good idea.

Re:A browser with native BitTorrent

[baadger]

Here is my configuration [tinypic.com]. It's Opera 9.0 TP2, with just a few mods. I use the Breeze Simplified skin. I disabled the sidebar _toggle_ (A thin strip down the left hand side, but F4 toggles the sidebar anyway so I don't use it). The actual sidebar is hidden by default. I've added everything you see to the status bar too, none of it lost me any pixelage (I think this is a great example of how customizable Opera is).

I don't see how anyone can say the Opera UI is not very customizable unless they haven't spent half an hour playing around with it. On the other hand after months of use I still find new ways of doing things occasionally. To the right you can see is how I prefer my Fox, the two browsers are pretty much on par with each other in terms of screen real estate.

As you can see from task manager though, Opera' virtual and peak memory footprint is _larger_ than Firefox, I made comment on this yesterday [slashdot.org]

Re:A browser with native BitTorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

As for the "bloat" of Opera 9 TP2, the file size is only 4 Mb (for Windows). For comparison, Firefox is around 5 Mb but doesn't have a lot of the extras Opera includes into their browser (ie the mail, chat, bit torrent support, etc). I know Firefox is more customizeable with the addition of extensions, but why spend the time to search out and download all those extensions, worry about conflicts and incompatibilities with the current version of Firefox, and spend time to adjust all those extensions, when you can download one neat package containing almost everything the above-average browser would need?

For what it's worth, the browser has been running very smoothly for me while using it. I'll be interested to see how the new alpha of Firefox will compare to this technical release.

Re:Bittorrent and Firefox

[Maian]

I'd mod this flamebait if I already didn't post a reply elsewhere on this thread. Here's a very thorough reply from a Firefox dev/contributor: http://robert.accettura.com/archives/2005/12/19/fi refox-myths/ [accettura.com]

Question: why are you suprised?

[Some Random Username]

All the features firefox has were in opera before they were in firefox. Why would this be any different?

Re:My biggest complaint with Opera

[mazzarin]

For your information, you can simply use the + - keys on the numpad (or on the main keyboard section) and it will scale text. Also, next to the zoom dropdown (where you can select the zoom with your mouse), there is a button called fit to window width - give it a shot.