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."

A browser with native BitTorrent

[Brother Dysk]

Finally! A browser with native support for BitTorrent downloading. This is certainly a positive thing, especially given the superb functioning of Opera's download system, at least compared to other browsers. Good move, Opera.

Little benefit to Firefox these days.

[CyricZ]

Now that Opera has removed the ads from their browser, and added these other features, it has become a real competitor to Firefox.

The Firefox developers will really have to step up to the plate with the upcoming Firefox 2.0 release if they want to retain the marketshare they currently have. Firefox will have to show some pretty serious speed improvements, and far better memory management. It can't leak memory at the rate which the current 1.5 releases do.

Of course

[Ctrl+Alt+De1337]

"However, some clear indications that this is still an alpha release is..."

Nightmarish grammar aside, the biggest clear indication that this is not final is the "Opera 9 Technology Preview 2" title on the linked page. Also, there is the fact that it is Opera labs, not the main site. Contrary to what the title would lead you to believe, this is just an open beta.

The big splash is the widgets. I am of the opinion though that the widget concept is being overdone completely. Now, you can have start.com widgets running in your Opera browser with widgets on your OS with widgets (either OS X Tiger's dashboard/Windows Vista Beta Sidebar or via third-party stuff a la Konfabulator/Superkaramba/Object Desktop). Enough alreay. How many different ways do I need to get my local weather forecast?

Already there

[Nichotin]

Opera has been a worthy competitor for a long time, but what keeps amusing me is that they pack 10032894208492 features, and a pony, into the browser, and it still does not feel bloated (not compared to some apps, that have two features and a eye candy interface which makes your eyes fall out).
Don't like using one program for browsing, mail, and bittorrent? Then don't. Just use the browsing capabilities, and the rest of the features will be sufficiently hid away.

Re:Little benefit to Firefox these days.

[aussie_a]

To be honest, none of these features are enough to get me to try it out. I've got Firefox installed on my computer, inertia will keep me using it, until another browser has some amazing feature. Bittorrent is probably a big draw for plenty of slashdotters (I personally don't use it enough), with the only features I don't have being tab preview and content blocking (although I'm pretty sure any content blocking features Opera has natively, I can find as an extension if I wanted them). While the tab preview is interesting, it isn't enough to get me to download and install a new program.

Now for those migrating from IE (which is where either company SHOULD be focused on drawing users from) this would definitely be a good enough reason to try Opera first over Firefox. But I doubt it will draw many Firefox users away (discounting the rabid, zealous Firefox users who will use Firefox until judgement day comes).

Not needed yet...

[Afecks]

This really won't matter until all BT clients support web-seeding, that is, seeding peers via HTTP without the need for a dedicated client doing the seeding. Then every website, even those hosted on shared servers, will be able to easily provide torrents to their vistors and in turn their vistors will already support BT without extra software to install. AFAIK only BitTornado supports it and I really dislike that client. This is a crucial step for BT to really prove itself to be useful for more legitimate purposes.

Re:Already there

[CyricZ]

Indeed. The download for FreeBSD was 6 MB, with a statically-linked version of Qt. It's quite fantastic how much they manage to pack into such a small package.

We often hear how Firefox's greatest strength is its extensions. Well, to be honest, when you're using Opera you don't need to delve into extensions. Opera includes all the functionality you want by default.

A darn good job.

[bogaboga]

I thank Opera for a darn good job. I find the [Opera] browser very very good. In fact, better than any browser out there. But wonder why it is still not that popular.

As a programmer, I also wonder how they designed the engine to be soooo fast, that even makers of other browsers cannot figure out how to replicate what makes Opera fast, into their browsers. Can anyone enlighten me?

P2P v2.0

[DonZorro]

This could change the perception and add a new twist to the RIAA lawsuits against P2P users...simply because P2P would now be given credit for helping all kinds of content providers overcome their bandwidth problems.

Think...seeding/leeching CNN homepage

Re:Little benefit to Firefox these days.

[prichardson]

Your argument of pragmatism is exactly what keeps millions and millions using Internet Exploder.

opera kicks firefox's ass

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been usuing firefox for a while but i just got fed up. Ever since i switched to my new athlon64 system, firefox on linux has been dead slow. Opening up tabs takes forever, it hogs more memory than kde pracitcally. So, i switched to opera and i am loving it. It is wicked fast, and has some very slick features. I don't know if i will ever go back to firefox.

Re:Your skepticism is understandable.

[pherthyl]

If I went to Opera, I'd be doing it for... tab preview.

And performance.. That's a biggie. But then you lose the warm fuzzies of using an open source program, as well as the guarantee that the program is absolutely not installing any spyware or compromising your privacy. It's always a tradeoff.

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

[starwed]

Opera and Firefox make good faith efforts to follow the standards. The problem is that implementing the complete CSS2.1 spec is hard. It's hard enough to even understand what the specs say should happen in some cases, let alone code a browser that renders it properly. The Acid2 test is about weird corner cases, with several rules interacting. The bugs it represents aren't ones which cause big headaches for web developers... they should be fixed, but there's no urgency.

Re:A darn good job.

[MikeFM]

They need to do some work on making sure popular extensions are well supported and bug free and easier to find. Things like adblock and forcastfox should never be an issue.

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

[:jax:]

I've never understood web standards. If most browswers don't follow them, (as aparent that IE, Firefox, and Opera each failed to render the acid2 face test properly) then whose standards are they? Wouldn't the 'standards' be the most popular useage of code?

The point of an acid test is that is should be hard, something to strive for. The idea is that if you have passed this test you likely have a good implementation of CSS. It is possible to fail the acid test and be good in other aspects of the standard, or pass it and still be deficient, but it should give a good indicator. It is worth noting that every modern browser passes the first acid test [w3.org], but it was considered a challenge at the day. IE didn't pass it before version 6.

The focus of the CSS Working Group in the W3C has the last five years changed focus from more features (CSS3) to more universally consistent presentation (CSS2.1). I believe this is a good move, and the Acid2 test should be viewed in that light. Opera intends to support CSS 2.1 and I presume that is the case with Firefox and Konqueror too, and we all change our implementations in tune with how CSS2.1 develops. IE is definitely far behind, but should be commended for moving in the right direction.

At some point Opera, FF, and Konqueror/Safari should render CSS2.1 more similar to each other than they would do to their own older versions, and hopefully not differ in any meaningful way. Whether IE one day is going to turn this gang of three into a gang of four remains to be seen, it won't happen with IE7, but hopefully the development won't stop there.

Jonny Axelsson, Opera Software

Re:A browser with native BitTorrent

[baadger]

But you can't make tabs behave like in Ff/Camino/Safari. Or can you?

Yep you can. Checkout these custom buttons [nontroppo.org], specifically "Close current page & switch to previous one".

Drag it to a toolbar or click it to have it installed into your toolbar customisation pallete under "My Buttons". If you disable "Show close button on each tab" in General (Tools -> Preferences) then you'll end up with behaviour identical to Firefox.

Opera 8/9 has *much* *much* fewer settings compared to Firefox.

This isn't true, they're just harder to find. Opera has quite a tradition of INI editing and subtlety when it comes to options and functionality.

Try about:config in Firefox for once. That what I call "complete customization".

I've tried using FF's about:config (or any XUL app) on a Pentium II and got very frustrated. I think Opera's current webpage implementation is just more elegant, but I guess that is a matter of personal preference.

Re:Underrrated

[hkmwbz]

"I find the newer version to be buggier"

Well duh :) You are using a preview (alpha) version, after all.

Re:Your skepticism is understandable.

[CyricZ]

I have a difficult time calling Firefox a truly open source project. Sure, the source code is available, and you can redistribute and modify it, and all that. But when you truly look at it, it's a mess. Somebody could easily sneak malicious code in there, and to be honest, most programmers wouldn't be able to tell if it was malicious, or if it was part of the software.

While it's less likely that an open source program includes malicious code, it isn't something we should rule out completely. That holds especially true for overly complex codebases like Mozilla, where it'd take years for one person to completely audit the source code. The source code is available, but it's not truly accessible.

Re:Your skepticism is understandable.

[Nasarius]

the guarantee that the program is absolutely not installing any spyware or compromising your privacy.

Have you scrutinized every single line of Firefox source? No? Then you really don't have that guarantee. Don't get me wrong, I love open source -- I was a Gentoo dev until I got sick of the politics, and now I contribute to various projects. But it's a bad idea to claim that "open source = no malware", because you can't make that promise unless the code has truly been audited.

Re:Bittorrent and Firefox

[Idarubicin]

Question: why has Opera managed to incorporate Bittorrent support into their browser, yet the only torrent plugins for Firefox are in a horrendous state of pre-development? WTF is going on here?

Is it possible that someone at Opera--a company with money, resources, time, and managerial direction--simply stated, "we'd like to have Bittorrent support in our next release. I don't care of getting it to work properly is boring and not nearly as sexy as designing clever widgets, or that there already exist external Bittorrent clients that 133t uberhaxors like you can use. We're paying you guys to implement the features that our clients asked for. Get this done on time, and we'll give everyone a bonus."

Sometimes good things can come out of the cathedral...just sayin', is all.

Re:Bittorrent and Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent poster makes a strong point; as usual, the slashdot hive mentality deems it a troll for doing so.