Opera 10.0 Released, With Integrated Web Server Functionality 437
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.
Alpha! (Score:4, Informative)
Somewhere in the summary you REALLY should mention this is an ALPHA release, not a final release.
Thanks.
10.0 still beta and Unite is alpha (Score:4, Informative)
Re:using it now. Very, very impressed. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:using it now. Very, very impressed. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Acid 3 test (Score:3, Informative)
The more compliant your web browser is, the less likely your web browser will break.
I love webstandards, and wish greatly that all browsers supported them well. But I just don't think that quote is factually true. If your browser adheres to webstandards that IE doesn't then it's quite possible/plausible that your browser will fail to deliver websites that look and function like you and the designer expected it to.
People "should" code to standards, but I just don't think that it's (yet) true that they DO.
However Opera is known to also be subject to many IE bugs at will. Ever since the latest browser wars began with firefox 1.3 and early webkit Opera was best out there since it both adhered to standards and didn't break badly made websites. I don't know how they manage doing this, but they do.
Re:OMG!!!! Give The Fanboy Hype A Rest!!!! (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Auto-updates? (Score:3, Informative)
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 [opera.com]
Re:Excellent! (Score:4, Informative)
eh, how wrong is the summary. Opera 10 != Opera Unite. Its just a feature in it. Surprisingly, TechCrunch has a good summary http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/16/that-reinvention-of-the-web-thing-opera-was-talking-about-its-called-opera-unite/ [techcrunch.com]
Re:Excellent! (Score:5, Informative)
âoeCurrently, most of us contribute content to the Web (for example by putting our personal information on social networking sites, uploading photos to Flickr, or maybe publishing blog posts), but we donâ(TM)t contribute to its fabric â" the underlying infrastructure that defines the online landscape that we inhabit.
Our computers are only dumb terminals connected to other computers (meaning servers) owned by other people â" such as large corporations â" who we depend upon to host our words, thoughts, and images. We depend on them to do it well and with our best interests at heart. We place our trust in these third parties, and we hope for the best, but as long as our own computers are not first class citizens on the Web, we are merely tenants, and hosting companies are the landlords of the Internet.â
This is more of a way for people to communicate, share and do stuff together rather than using websites. You know, P2P. It has developer API so new stuff can be added, opera's own stuff currently include webserver, chat room, note board, streaming and file sharing.
Its quite nice system actually, and you dont need to share your stuff to all of the internet or upload your photos to facebook or similar.
Re:OMG! That bug is coming back! (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, no, Opera is not one of the fastest browsers out there as This, on Mac OS [kent.ac.uk], and this on windows [kent.ac.uk] 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.
Re:bloat (Score:3, Informative)
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?
Re:Excellent! (Score:2, Informative)
Dial down the drama. It is all funneled through Opera's servers, because if the users knew how to forward a port from their router to their computer, then they could have had their own server for ages. With Opera's help, they can now enjoy their new freedom in Opera's walled garden.
Re:OMG! That bug is coming back! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Excellent! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Excellent! (Score:4, Informative)
You do actually make a direct connection if its possible. If not, then opera will proxy it so that it works for users behind nat aswell.
Re:Excellent! (Score:2, Informative)
Slahdot uses charset=iso-8859-1. The page he copied from (probably this one [opera.com] using charset=utf-8) uses smartquotes, emdashes and so on which are mangled when you copy/paste them from a UTF-8 page.
Re:Sweet Zombie Exploit Jesus (Score:3, Informative)
Try reading the article.
The 'weird' urls are of the form "unite://computername.username.operaunite.com", and routed through Opera's own servers.
Re:That's all well and good... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)
Firefox 3.0.11
Konqueror 3.5.9
Very annoying
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
On every aspect the title and summary is just so wrong.
To begin with, Opera 10 has not been released. Its in Beta.
Opera Unite is not Opera 10, its a feature in Opera 10.
Opera Unite is not a webserver, its a system where functionality is provided by widgets and other users can access those aswell (kinda like Google Wave)
Opera provided some widgets to begin with, like File Sharing, Web Server, Media Player, Photo Sharing, The Lounge (chat), Fridge (post-a-note wall)
All of these can be separately enabled or disabled.
Atleast in the Opera 10 Beta, Unite and all the widgets were disabled by default.
It makes direct connections when possible, and if user is behind NAT Opera proxy servers will route it (afaik)
Its a great thing for an user who doesn't care or know how to install webservers, dont want to upload their private photos to imageshack or the like or chat via servers. The thing here is that instead of using websites, you can connect to your friends directly. Widgets provide the functionality then (theres API developers can use to make them)
Hopefully that clarifies some about that incredibly bad summary.
Re:What? (Score:3, Informative)
Would the file sharing widget essentially set up a p2p network? One user would be connecting directly to the other user, correct, possibly going through one of Opera's proxies?
Yes, though you have to explicitly decide who you're connecting to, so it's not P2P in the way it came to be understood for file sharing. Now if someone writes an indexing service...
Re:Excellent! (Score:3, Informative)
What are the big features of Opera you actually find useful?
(Genuinely asking, not being sarcastic)
Happy to oblidge. Before I go into it, though, I'd like to mention that I use three different computers on any given day. Workstation, laptop, desktop. For that reason, I value sync'age and NOT having to reinstall stuff. That's why FireFox is unnatractive to me as a primary browser. I don't like extension hunting and I especially don't like the constant nagging to update them. I can be on a brand new computer, go to Opera.com, and download the browser with everything ready to go.
Okay, so here's a few things I like about Opera:
- The UI is really good about letting you drag stuff around and organize it in a meaningful way. Instead of going to the bookmarks pulldown or whatever, I just drag the shortcuts up into the top bar. They're easily rearranged and so on. Plus, you can put folders up there that turn into pulldowns. (Note: FireFox has this now. I don't remember it always having it. I can't put my finger on it but whenever I use FF I feel like it goes more smoothly in Opera. Hardly an objective opinion, though.)
Opera's nice about letting you turn tabs into windows and vice/versa. In fact, that's one of the reasons FireFox feels clunky to me. I also dig the trash can icon that lets me reopen tabs I've closed. (In the same order they were originally in, to boot!)
- Bookmark Sync- Opera allows you to create a username and password to store your bookmarks on Opera's server. If I make a bookmark at work, both my desktop and laptop at home will get it. I use this quite a bit when I find stuff on the weekend I really need to examine when I get in on Monday.
- Speed Dial- When you open a New Tab , but before you've navigated to a page, 9 thumbnails will appear for your favorite bookmarks. Nice and quick for getting to pages you frequent. (And you don't need to hog existing UI space for it!) There are extensions for FF that mimic this functionality. This is syncable, too.
- Notes- If you highlight some text, right click, and say "Add to Note", then the text you selected will be copied and stored in 'Notes'. When you click that Note, it takes you to the page where it was found. I've found two important uses for this feature. One: Example code. I can see the sample code right there in the Notes. Two: I like to bookmark 'Funny' comments on Slashdot. This way I can just highlight the quote, click, and blam it's noted. (That'd be far more tedious to do in an organized way with Bookmarks.) This is syncable too, so if I find a 'note' at work, I have it at home, too.
- Transfers Window- I'll skip the Bittorrent bit because, though it works, I prefer an actual BT client. I do like having the Xfers window that shows me what files are there, gives me good info about what's going on with them, and the right-click context menu that matches what Windows does in Explorer.
- Sessions- You can tell Opera "these are the windows I like to have open". Or you can say "I happen to like these particular windows I have open", and open them later. (I think this is syncable, too. I don't remember, actually.) I use this a lot when I'm digging around for reference photos and a bunch of different sites are helpful.
- Fast Forward- If there are a bunch of links on a page, like a bunch of images you want to cycle through, just use the Fast Forward button.
- Popup Blocking- I've never looked into Adblock. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that what Opera has is the same. I don't know, really. Opera blocks pop-ups rather nicely. Let me put it another way: Opera blocks pop-ups that FireFox does not. For this reason, I've never been interested in NoScript or AdBlock or any of that. It is possible to block Flash, though. Sadly I cannot tell you how. I downloaded a portable version of Opera and it had a neat little button that disables all Flash. Well, I'm not