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.

Re:A browser with native BitTorrent

[aussie_a]

I predict that Firefox's numbers will soar even further once it's made illegal for us to download Opera in Australia.

Re:A browser with native BitTorrent

[Quaoar]

Except that it doesn't seem to work :)

Re:A browser with native BitTorrent

[saskboy]

I agree, I've thought for over a year that the first browser to incorporate native BT downloading into itself, so that someone could just click a link and start downloading a torrent without having to download the client/server program first, would make it big on the web very soon.
Now if only websites had a way to offer a BT version of their download files, so that they'll never get Slashdotted again...

RSS viewing too tedious

[chowsapal]

The Opera preview is very nice, and they've done very nice work packaging it up. You can download it just about any way you'd want it.. deb's, rpm's, etc. I like the preview of the tab when you hold your pointer over it. I like the built-in mouse gestures. They've implemented Ctrl-Enter to complete www.***.com's (though Ctrl-Shift-Enter and Shift-Enter don't do .org or .net), Ctrl-T now makes a new tab just like Ctrl-N. My only complaints at this point are the fonts/default interface and the format for

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.

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. :)

Re:A browser with native BitTorrent

[Jozer99]

Supposedly true, although I tried to set up several plugins that did not work correctly. This includes Quicktime, Flash, and ActiveX.

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:A browser with native BitTorrent

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

My own disgust at IE led me to Mozilla years ago. I was reluctant to try Firefox at first, but that switch was pleasant. I never really tried Opera though, until recently.

You see, I'm working on a website that will never be usable in IE. IE is too primitive, and broken. It can't handle xml mime types, and won't even in IE7. It can't do SVG natively, and I don't feel like wrapping all my many SVG widgets in object tags and writing code for a bad Adobe plugin. And besides, people should just plain be discouraged from ever using IE.

SVG though is important to the website, I suppose I could use something gay like flash or java, but I really wanted this to be a pure site. I thought that it would mean that it was Firefox only. Some friends chided me into trying to make it work with Opera and Konq though...

And I was shocked. Opera 8 gets alot of the non-interactive SVG right. Better yet, the Opera 9 beta gets alot of it right, period. And the places where it's screwed up? Bad syntax on my part, that Firefox ignores but that Opera is (rightfully) bitchy about. I won't start using Opera 9, but there's no reason why others shouldn't. It kicks ass.

(And as for Konq, things are looking good. It did the non-interactive SVG really well, and Konqueror 4 looks like it will do just as well as the other two. Still waiting on Safari, but I think it will soon be pretty good itself)

But for IE, we might never need browser specific hackery at all.

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 h

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,

Re:A browser with native BitTorrent

[Snaller]

Why would you ever use that? Surely a standalone client offers more flexiblity? Its just more bloat in a browser.

(And personally I wouldn't want to use Bittorrent given a choice, because its so slow - but thats a different story)

Re:A browser with native BitTorrent

[David Horn]

If I get on a well seeded torrent and set the upstream bandwidth to a reasonable level (30KBps), within ten minutes I'll be downloading at the full capacity of my 10mbit cable connection. Not sure how you can call it slow, unless you're after movies or something.

Hmmm...maybe I'll try it.

[Mrs. Grundy]

Well, I've got to admit, my knee-jerk reaction to this was so what. The main browsers are already so intrenched in my habits, from the way I author html to my day-to-day use of the browser that it is unlikely I will care about another application unless it captures a significant share of the market thus forcing me to care about any quirks it may have in behavior and compliance to standards. But after reading the list of features, I find myself thinking I might be interested in some of them. Site-specific prefs are an interesting idea; A torrent client would be handy; the ability to change the default search engine is nice too. It looks like I'll try it out.

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

[piper-noiter]

For the most part if your code is up to standards it looks fine in opera. 90% of the time it renders like Mozilla. Opera is not making the designers job harder. It's closer than most to passing the Acid 2 test.

I'm already trying it out. Full of more great stuff, as one expects. They smoothed out a lot of the features they added in Preview 1 and added so much more.

I heard reports of problems with upgrading so I did a clean install and spent the afternoon adding my custom buttons and changing my search options. (I no longer have to use 3rd party tools to change them)

Between custom buttons, panels, and widgets I think Opera can now easily do anything a Firefox extension can do.

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

[aussie_a]

How is it Opera's fault that websites don't conform to standards and instead use workarounds to be viewable under the popular browsers? If Opera's problems are because it renders the standards closer to the actual standard then anyone else, I think Opera should be commended.

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

[piper-noiter]

Yeah I'm not afraid of the .ini files, but Opera Search.ini Editor (Op6sed) [opera-info.xorg.pl] made it a heck of a lot easier to get the correct search link, and set up short cuts.

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.

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: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.

Re:Already there

[pherthyl]

And unless they do some serious size optimizations, Qt accounts for a fairly large chunk of that 6MB. In my experience, about 2 to 3 megs.

Re:Already there

[Justin205]

My Gentoo ebuild (non-static linked) says 3400 KB, compared to 5600KB for the static. I'd say you're right on. :)

Re:Already there

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Opera includes all the functionality you want by default.

Even convoluted cookie management.

Ok, so that was kind of trollish, but honestly... I can't stand Opera's cookie management.

Re:Already there

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Nice having a choice again, isn't it? We have at least* two browsers that are worthy, and now we can be picky about little details like that.

*Probably more like 4. By most of the standards that I use, Safari and Konqueror are both pretty close to Opera and Firefox.

Re:Already there

[a.d.trick]

Mabye all the functionality you want, but not all the functionality that Iwant. That said, it is a pretty nice browser and one that I'd definitly recommend.

Re:FlashBlock

[hkmwbz]

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

Re:Already there

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

It's probably because Opera's UI isn't driven by XML and JavaScript.

Re:Already there

[Breakfast Pants]

Which also explains why Opera doesn't have an "extensions" user base anywhere near approaching Firefox's.

Re:Already there

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I agree. Didn't a few QNX developers go missing about the time Opera came into being?

Re:Little benefit to Firefox these days.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Most of us are concerned with IE losing marketshare, not so much who picks up the pieces.

If Opera is someday 90%, and Firefox still with only 8%... this is good for Firefox. Opera encourages website developers to write correct xhtml and javascript, which Firefox handles just fine.

Your skepticism is understandable.

[CyricZ]

I understand where you're coming from. Indeed, it often is difficult to change one's browser on a whim. But this time it's actually worth it, and this is only a beta-quality release!

Do you remember that feeling you got when you first used Firefox? Indeed, it often gave people that rush of "I'm trying something new, and by jove, I love it!" Well, you'll likely get the same feeling if you give this release of Opera a try.

Re:Your skepticism is understandable.

[aussie_a]

The reason I moved to Firefox wasn't for a "new browser" feeling, but was for privacy (the rest of the family used IE), and tabs as well as the extensions. If I went to Opera, I'd be doing it for... tab preview. Not enough to get me to move.

As I said, great for IE users to move to Opera. Not so great for your typical Firefox user (now your typical slashdot user, sure).

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: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 espe

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:Your skepticism is understandable.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I almost gave up on Firefox, to return to Mozilla. I liked the "Modern theme", hate the XPish theme Firefox had. Til I stumbled upon a clone. That gave it a week or so worth of reprieve.

Then, I found Download Statusbar [mozdev.org]. Why the thing isn't the default download manager for 2.0, I don't really know. Honestly, it kicks ass.

And Adblock was nice. Session Saver was better. I learned little tricks like getting rid of a bookmark's name on the bookmark toolbar, just using the favicon. I can fit 40 or so in without e

Re:Little benefit to Firefox these days.

[prichardson]

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

Re:Little benefit to Firefox these days.

[aussie_a]

Exactly. But with IE not getting updated for quite some time (although Longhorn will bring an end to that), the other browsers have been able to draw people away with features lacking in IE.

Now if IE starts getting updated more regularly, people will stick with it. And why not? If it has all the features you want (want enough to move anyway), why change?

Re:Little benefit to Firefox these days.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Why not?

Because it's alot like trusting that spouse when they tell you that they won't cheat on you ever again. Even though it's the 19th time you've caught them in bed with someone else. Everyone that believes Microsoft's lies about security keeps getting burned.

And while most people are too ignorant to know, IE is primitive and will remain so. Their javascript doesn't comply with standards. Their browser won't do correct mime types (hey NoMoreNicksLeft, why does it want me to download index.php when I go

Re:Little benefit to Firefox these days.

[aussie_a]

To be honest, most people don't care about any of that though. Or at least, not enough to find out about IE and it's many problems.

Re:Little benefit to Firefox these days.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

They will to a point. At 10% marketshare, everyone knows someone that uses Firefox. The right combination of a cool site that doesn't work on IE because it's shit, and word-of-mouth might just see Firefox (and all the others combined, too) jump up 2-5% in a matter of weeks.

I'm doing stuff that I thought was only ever possible in flash or maybe java. And it's crap now, wait til you see some of the stuff I've got ideas for but not quite the skill yet to implement...

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.

Re:Its CSS, CSS2 and CSS3 support is superb.

[MikeFM]

In Opera 9? If so I'll be glad to see it out. Opera 8 was disappointing.

I'd love to see Opera and Safari support things like XUL so that we could create really rich cross-browser apps. I know Mozilla has submitted most of those specs for standardization so maybe it could happen. That kind of rich app could let those three seriously kill IE if developers would embrace such rich interfaces.

Re:Its CSS, CSS2 and CSS3 support is superb.

[NutscrapeSucks]

People can't seem to write a XUL application that doesn't break when there's a new Mozilla release, so it's doesn't seem like much of a standard.

Except for things specifically designed to be brower extentions, it would seem like XUL is a near total failure as a development toolkit. No wonder because "rich cross-browser apps" have been possible in both Java and Flash for some time.

Re:Its CSS, CSS2 and CSS3 support is superb.

[MikeFM]

Funny that I haven't had any trouble with it. I do a lot of my intranet code in XUL.

Java and Flash are much more heavy approaches. Practically you're just downloading a program and running it on the user's machine. I could do the same thing by writing an app in just about any language. I've written Java and Flash programs and they do have their uses but they are not a real standard for lightweight applications. The benefit to web-based apps is in not having to download a heavy program and learn a new interf

Re:Its CSS, CSS2 and CSS3 support is superb.

[NutscrapeSucks]

OK then, how do you explain XUL's lack of popularity? If there's a non-browser, non-mozilla XUL app out there, I haven't heard of it.

The only rational explaination that I've heard was from a XUL developer on a Mozilla list who said basically "You broke my app again, and this time I'm not going to fix it." You want others to adopt XUL, but I'm not sure that mozilla wants others to adopt XUL either.

Java and Flash might not be ideal, but they sure are established, and provide well-known targets for your applic

Re:Its CSS, CSS2 and CSS3 support is superb.

[MikeFM]

I will agree that Java and Flash are better established just from being around longer. XUL is newer and therefore more likely to suffer changes. I think it is probably not yet used much outside of Mozilla because they've yet to make much of a push of it and that most of it's uses are probably, like mine, for Intranets where you can be sure all the browsers are Firefox. Since IE doesn't support it you can't really do a public website in it.

Re:Its CSS, CSS2 and CSS3 support is superb.

[aussie_a]

People can't seem to write a XUL application that doesn't break when there's a new Mozilla release, so it's doesn't seem like much of a standard.

I believe this is a "feature" (as in, something spefically designed into the browser) so that extensions have to be tested by their creator (or whoever's distributing it) every time there's a firefox update. Instead of having the default be all extensions work with the new update. The default is that all extensions break under a new update.

Me, I'd prefer backwards

Re:Its CSS, CSS2 and CSS3 support is superb.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Um, and why wouldn't you write it up as a xhtml/javascript/xmlhttprequest webapp anyway? XUL offers nothing new really. Sure, if you want to design local apps based on it (chatzilla) it's pretty snazzy, but those will run using the firefox engine anyway...

Re:Its CSS, CSS2 and CSS3 support is superb.

[MikeFM]

XUL offers much nicer widgets than normal HTML. To create the same widgets in HTML would be a lot more work or impossible.

Re:Little benefit to Firefox these days.

[ubernostrum]

If Opera 9 has decent CSS support I might agree. Opera 8's CSS support was pretty crappy. Not compatible with Firefox and Safari or IE which just sort of left it as a thorn in my side that wasn't really worth the effort of fixing.

Care to give specific examples?

Never have figured out if there is a hack around Opera responds to for selecting an Opera only stylesheet. Anyone know?

Not that I'm aware of. There are hacks for older versions of Opera, but I've not seen any for 8.0, 8.5 or the 9.0 prev

Re:Little benefit to Firefox these days.

[MikeFM]

Mostly bugs in alignment of elements it seems. The site I'm working on now is having a lot of issues with it and I've had similar issues on other sites I've done.

To be fair I just downloaded and tried the site I'm working on in Opera 9 and am happy to say it renders very well. Looks almost identical to how it looks in Safari. In both Opera and Safari the page is rendered on the left hand side of the window rather than down the middle. Not sure if that is a bug in Opera and Safari or in Firefox but it's not

Re:Little benefit to Firefox these days.

[ubernostrum]

Mostly bugs in alignment of elements it seems. The site I'm working on now is having a lot of issues with it and I've had similar issues on other sites I've done.

Have you looked around here [quirksmode.org] and here [positioniseverything.net] to find out whether the issues you're seeing have explanations or workarounds?

Re:Little benefit to Firefox these days.

[MikeFM]

Workarounds don't mean the problem isn't a bug. I usually do bother to fix sites for Opera users but it probably isn't actually worth my time for the small percentage of users that actually use Opera. I'm glad Opera 9 seems to fix most of the problems. I love when every browser can see my sites properly but don't want to waste a lot of time making sure they do. With Opera, Firefox, and Safari trying to be standards compliant it makes IE the only one I have to waste a lot of effort on.

So let me be the first

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?

I give it an A+.

[CyricZ]

I've been using the FreeBSD release today, and my gosh, does it ever fly! It doesn't feel as responsive as Konqueror, but it still is a fantastic browser.

The email client is vastly improved, and it feels much quicker than in previous releases. It was quite quick at listing my 1800 MB mailbox, and it's now possible to scroll through the entries at a rapid pace without delay.

The opera:config feature is quite nice, and presented very well. It's far nicer to view than the comparable about:config capabilities of Firefox, yet just as easy to locate and modify preferences.

Overall, this release is an improvement over the last, while still retaining the small size and high responsiveness that Opera is known for. I give it an A+.

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.

What next? CEO to swim Atlantic again?

[deunan_k]

Heh..

In reference to the previous ver 8, the CEO promises to swim from Norway to USA, with a brief stopover for mom's hot coffee in Iceland. That is, if the download reaches 1,000,000 in 4 days..

Apparently it did! I remembered downloading a copy, in a bid to see such sport, but alas..

Press Release [opera.com]

Previously, it was reported that the attempt failed due to various reasons, including physical condition. Let's hope he's is fitter this time around.

Yeah, no malfunctioning support raft.

Swim Attempt Report [opera.com]


Sincere regards to Opera Team..

-PS Crazy stunts like these are really fun!

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?

It's a matter of marketing and hype.

[CyricZ]

Firefox has a huge amount of marketing and hype behind it. That's why it's more popular that Opera. Now, these days many people are beginning to run into problems with Firefox, namely due to its poor memory management. People are beginning to question the validity of the hype, and many are switching to alternative browsers like Opera, Konqueror, Safari and OmniWeb. As long as these alternative browsers keep innovating at the pace they have been lately, Firefox may not be able to keep up.

As for others replic

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

Re:A darn good job.

[MikeFM]

I keep the newest version around and test against it - Opera 8 has crappy CSS support. Maybe Opera 9 is better. I'll have to check.

I've had no problems with Firefox 1.5 itself although a couple of the extensions I like did develop minor bugs. I often open up fifty tabs at a time and don't have any major memory problems although I'm sure some exist.

Only Safari gets close to matching Firefox's standards support. It's great to see this competition to be the best at standards support though. Firefox, Safari, an

Re:A darn good job.

[skiflyer]

I've had no problems with Firefox 1.5 itself although a couple of the extensions I like did develop minor bugs. I often open up fifty tabs at a time and don't have any major memory problems although I'm sure some exist.

Firefox extensions make Firefox something great... buggy Firefox extensions cause 99% of the memory leaks discussed (it especially seems like people neglect the fact that Web Developer has some significant leaks).

Oh well, what're you going to do, you support buggy extensions and you'll g

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:A darn good job.

[hkmwbz]

"Opera 8 has crappy CSS support."

What a joke. Opera 8 has better CSS support than Firefox, and that's a simple fact.

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.

Re:A darn good job.

[cruachan]

Nope. I use Opera all the time since swapping from Firefox about 6 months ago and I have no practical page rendering issues whatsoever.

The plain truth is that Firefox is a pile of shite. Half of the Geek community doesn't want to admit it because of it's Open Source credentials, but the memory leak bugs in Firefox are an Archillies heel that goes right up to the neck. The leaks were there in version 0.9 and they're still they're in version 1.51, which just shows what a crap development model Open Source

Re:A darn good job.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

What OS are you using? Firefox can get a little sluggish on my machine that only has a half gig of ram. But it sure as hell isn't persistent through an application restart. That's an OS problem.

Firefox has its problems. I don't deny it. But hell, this is the only issue I ever hear people complain about that sounds like a real problem at all... they'll fix it eventually. And at this rate, long before IE7 is out. In the meantime, use whatever you want, use anything at all... as long as it's not IE.

Re:A darn good job.

[MikeFM]

I use Firefox in Linux, Windows, and OS X without memory problems. And certainly the systems I'm using aren't, as a whole, very powerful machines with a lot of RAM. I'd suspect people are having problems with buggy plugins and extensions. It'd be great if Firefox would keep these from causing problems though.

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

Bittorrent and Firefox

[citizenc]

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?

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 exte

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:Bittorrent and Firefox

[arose]

Myth: Internet Explorer 6.x has much lower minimum System Requirements than Firefox 1.x.
Reality: Firefox gives describes recomended hardware, Microsoft gives the bare minimum it will run on.

Myth: Opera (now 100% free) is the fastest Graphical Web Browser in Windows.
Reality: Dillo or Links 2 would probably be faster if someone cared to compile them on Windows.

Myth: Internet Explorer 6.x is clearly faster than Firefox 1.x overall and is significantly faster from a cold start.
Reality: The rendering speed difer

Hello World! - Acid 2 Test

[ayden]

I just tried it and the results look very good next to the reference image.

http://www.webstandards.org/act/acid2/test.html [webstandards.org]

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.

back/forward

[newr00tic]

I can't even imagine how Firefox users can stand the inferior back/forward navigation buttons, and how much delay they present.

With Opera, (pre 9.x, even,) you just click back, and the previous page jumps right up; fully rendered and ready. --With Firefox, you have to wait, and get to listen to the processor throttling up, as if this was Java 1.2 on Win95..

Firef*cks be gone..

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.

MathML?

[Quadraginta]

Sigh. If only Opera would render MathML native, I'd use it. What's a mathematically-inclined geek who wants both pretty math (MathML) and graphs and stuff (SVG) to do?

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?

Cookie control?

[nfarrell]

After quickly looking through v9 I can't see how you can set the default lifetime for cookies to the current session. Sure, there's a nice interface for viewing current cookies, but for me this is a showstopper. Too many sites use cookies to operate, and I'm happy to have them track me for a few minutes, but not between sessions.

Still, competition is good, and this is certainly good competition.

Re:Cookie control?

[wheany]

In Opera 9 TP 2, it's:

Tools - Preferences - Advanced - Sites - Default settings - Cookies - Delete cookies on exit.

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: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.

Was released yesterday.

[Elitist_Phoenix]

This was released yesterday, you could have gotten it from snapshot.opera.com This is also when I submitted the story using the new browser wth links to the change log. Though it seems you only get stories posted by Scuttlemonkey if you have a paypal account.

2006-02-07 13:35:26 New Opera Preview Out (Index,Software) (rejected)

My biggest complaint with Opera - page zooming...

[QRDeNameland]

I downloaded the stable Opera 8.5 a few days ago, and I have to say (as a current Firefox on Windows user) that Opera has an awful lot going for it. It's fast and seems a lot less bloated and quirky than Firefox, plus I've been finding a few features I really like.

But the one issue that kind of blows it for me is the page zooming. I happen to be one of the many people who due to eyesight issues often increase the browser's text size. One thing I love about Firefox over IE is that it has an easy hot key t

Tab movement

[Snaller]

I wonder if they have added the relativly simple config option, that when you close tab N, it moves focus to tab N-1 - apparently there have been some sort of political movenment against adding this open - the mind boggles.

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 :)

The content blocker

[Jugalator]

Something that's not mentioned is the new UI for the "content blocker". Click somewhere on a page and select "Content blocker..." from the context menu, then all HTML elements on the page is faded besides those that are blockable and you can click on to block/unblock (it's a toggle). If you want more flexibility, you can, while in that "blocker" mode, click on the "Details" button on the toolbar to customize the wildcard matching as you wish. When you're done, just click OK and the matching elements will be

Unbelievable

[ceeam]

Check it out dudes - amongst widgets they include bash.org reader (by Opera!). Can you imagine this in MSIE or even FF? What's next? - out-of-the-box porn grabber? Those guys are cool, I guess... (And they know how to program effectively).

Re:Impressive

[Khuffie]

Just hover over the tab in your tab bar.

Also, just to note that this is still really buggy. I installed it earlier, and it kept crashing at a certain site. Yes, I know its still in alpha, just a note for those trying Opera for the first time. Opera 8.51 is stable, so don't take the frequent crashes into consideration for Opera 9 just yet :)

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:*sigh*

[John Nowak]

It works for OS X! To be honest, I would be very frustrated without in-line spell checking in every app that all made use of the same dictionary. This is one of my problems with using email clients like mutt... I have to worry about an additional set of tools and dictionaries just to spell check my email.

Re:Using it right now

[wheany]

Right-click on the page, select "Block content..."

Re:Bittorrent

[hkmwbz]

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

Bingo. It doesn't.

Re:not for linux-amd64

[zoloto]

For those still in the lower 1% of operating systems (for once not Apple!) please hold. Your call^H^H^H^H service is very important to us a Verizon^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Opera representative will be with you shortly..

*cue elevator music*

Re:Underrrated

[hkmwbz]

"I find the newer version to be buggier"

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