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First Beta of Opera 10 Released 278

Miladinoski writes "Opera Software ASA today released the first beta of their tenth version of the Opera browser. In addition to the browser's known features, like mouse gestures, keyboard shortcuts, voice navigation, mail and RSS support, speed dial and so forth, it now includes a Turbo mode which unclogs your connection to get faster browsing, a new interface, a tabbed browsing update and customizable speed dial. Opera 10 continues to follow the web standards by getting 100/100 and pixel-perfect scores on the Acid3 test. The beta is currently available for every modern OS platform."
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First Beta of Opera 10 Released

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  • by eldavojohn ( 898314 ) * <eldavojohn@noSpAM.gmail.com> on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @11:48AM (#28196631) Journal

    Opera 10 continues to follow the web standards by getting 100/100 and pixel-perfect scores on the Acid3 test.

    Yeah, I think anything running the latest versions of Presto (Opera) & Webkit (Safari, Chrome) [wikipedia.org] are getting 100s. Two nights ago I put the latest and greatest Chrome in WinXP SP3 on my eeePC and got a 100/100 even though it said Linktest failed.

    Odd thing is that the more popular a browser or layout engine is, the worse it seems to do on the Acid tests!

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by BasharTeg ( 71923 )

      Okay...

      "Opera 10 continues to follow the web standards by getting 100/100 and pixel-perfect scores on the Acid3 test."

      Once again Opera pushes the misconception that Acid3 is the test of web standards compliance.

      "it now includes a Turbo mode which unclogs your connection to get faster browsing"

      Marketing people can DIAF.

      • by amicusNYCL ( 1538833 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @02:26PM (#28199011)

        Once again Opera pushes the misconception that Acid3 is the test of web standards compliance.

        I don't think they're doing that, and I think that if this was your Browser of Choice you would not be disparaging the fact that it passes ACID. Why the Opera hate? The ACID test is a good barometer of how "standardy" a browser is, that's all. No one is trying to claim that scoring 100 on ACID 3 means that the browser is 100% compliant with all web standards that anyone has ever made. Again, why the Opera hate? Should browser vendors not strive to reach 100 on ACID 3?

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        "it now includes a Turbo mode which unclogs your connection to get faster browsing"

        i miss the turbo button on my PC. reading this made me realize it. i blame you and the topic author and the Opera group for my unhappiness.

        [/joke]

  • Unclogs? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Fantom42 ( 174630 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @11:49AM (#28196659)

    Unclogs your connection?

    So the internet is... like a series of tubes?

    • by qoncept ( 599709 )

      ... and customizable speed dial

      Now you can get The Internet with just a regular phone line!

    • Re: Unclogs? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SlashDotDotDot ( 1356809 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @11:59AM (#28196833) Journal

      Unclogs your connection?

      If I understand correctly, Opera Turbo only works in conjunction with specialized servers.

      http://www.opera.com/business/solutions/turbo/ [opera.com]

      You use a proxy server while you surf. The proxy compresses the pages (partly by reducing image quality and blocking plugin content until you click on it) and delivers the compressed version to your browser.

      I have lots of questions about this. Are there free servers available to the average consumer? Is this an open standard? Do the servers themselves represent a problematic bottleneck? Anyone understand this better?

      • Re: Unclogs? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by twidarkling ( 1537077 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @12:06PM (#28196933)

        Well, it's mostly meant for people on mobile devices, and people on dial-up could find it useful.

        It's free already for average consumers (since I played with it a bit this morning already). I doubt it's an "open" standard, since it's Opera's servers doing it, but I'm not 100% sure. No one's reported bottleneck issues, but that might change with more users on-board now.

      • Re: Unclogs? (Score:5, Informative)

        by sznupi ( 719324 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @12:08PM (#28196959) Homepage

        Those are servers of Opera (the company). And they've been doing this for quite some time with their Opera Mini (for Java mobile phones).

    • Nope (Score:5, Funny)

      by sakdoctor ( 1087155 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @12:10PM (#28196979) Homepage

      The internet is more like a plumbing trap.

      People pour masses of crap down it, but occasionally you need to reach in and search for a valuable item, and you come out covered in shit.
      What were we talking about again?

    • So the internet is... like a series of tubes?

      No, no... it's the punters who are like a series of tubes.

    • by D Ninja ( 825055 )

      So the internet is... like a series of tubes?

      And Opera is the Drain-o.

    • So the internet is... like a series of tubes?

      Yes, it is. A series of tubes is a perfectly fine metaphor. A fat pipe has long been a common metaphor for a fast connection. Notice the similarity between pipes and tubes. If you have a problems with the rest of Senator Stevens's argument, please actually address those points, rather than just bringing up this tired old quote.

      • I agree that series of tubes is a decent metaphor for Internet as a whole; however, it does not work well for the problem he was describing:

        I just the other day got...an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.

        His argument was that it took several days to send an "Internet" (wtf? I'm gonna guess he meant "email") because of other web services like Youtube clogging up the tubes. AFAIK, Internet backbone traffic has been fine, it is the last mile from ISPs that are bitching that they can't supply enough bandwidth. So, even assuming his staff is doing something retarded like usi

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @11:50AM (#28196677)

    Opera follows standards, and Slashdot (even the homepage) looks like shit in Opera.

    Really, Slashdot looks like shit in most browsers with blatantly obvious bugs everywhere, like the infamous white on white comment titles.

    I guess that means that for all the talk and the bullshit, Slashdot totally hypocritical when it comes to standards.

    Fix your fucking code or get off your high horse.

  • by NevarMore ( 248971 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @11:53AM (#28196733) Homepage Journal

    http://www.opera.com/docs/changelogs/mac/1000b1/ [opera.com]

    "This new Opera feature increases your internet bandwidth speed on slow connections using data and image compression technologies. Opera Turbo uses Opera proxy servers to compress the traffic before it reaches the Opera browser on the clientâ(TM)s computer; see this Opera reference. Opera Turbo can easily be configured to suit your browsing needs:"

    So it basically does what their mobile browser already does for your desktop. Cue tinfoil hatters in 3,2,1...

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Seems quite fast, even compared to regular Opera. Entire pages just appear, rather than slowly loading/displaying...

    Kudos to the team!

  • by Fantom42 ( 174630 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @11:56AM (#28196775)

    The link to the "Turbo Mode" was kinda weak and just went to a Changelog, so I found this article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/03/opera_10_beta_debut/ [theregister.co.uk]

    Dubbed Opera Turbo, the server-side technology reduces the amount of data that must be downloaded to render a given web page. It works by scaling back the size of some images and stripping out certain content types, said Opera spokesman Thomas Ford. Some content based on Adobe Flash, for example, isn't loaded unless a user clicks a button. In essence, Turbo works by establishing a proxy server through which compressed website content is funneled to the browser. It will not work with content that's encrypted using the Secure Sockets Layer protocol and delivers a benefit only when used on connections with limited bandwidth.

    A fairly interesting concept. I wonder if Firefox is working on something like this. Seems it would be a useful idea to explore at least for embedded devices or when you are tethered through a cell phone or whatnot.

    • by Jay L ( 74152 ) *

      It works by scaling back the size of some images and stripping out certain content types

      Hmm... I seem to remember AOL trying something very much like this. It made browsing significantly faster, but people hated the lower-quality recompressed images. It also turned up oodles of caching-related bugs at web sites. And, in the end, it didn't scale well unless you kept a copy of the entire Internet on your cache server.

      It'll be interesting to see how much that's changed now that RAM is cheaper, and even "slow"

  • by Zedrick ( 764028 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @11:58AM (#28196795)
    "The beta is currently available for every modern OS platform."

    Really? Says who? I can't find any such statement on Operas site, and if it's true - where's the build for AmigaOS 4.1?
  • by InlawBiker ( 1124825 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @11:58AM (#28196799)

    I installed it and used it on my Windows & Ubuntu machines and really liked Opera. It's clean and fast, and I love the sync option. For some reason I have trouble committing to it. I also liked the speed of Chrome and, God help me, IE8. I know they're great browsers but I guess I'm just happy with Firefox.

    • by sznupi ( 719324 )

      Possibly weird feel of UI? I remember it was really an issue at the beginning - Opera uses its own UI toolkit, with a bit different feel (I don't mean look!) than most UIs; not slower btw, quite the contrary.

      But you can get used to it quite fast.

      • by nxtw ( 866177 )

        Possibly weird feel of UI? I remember it was really an issue at the beginning - Opera uses its own UI toolkit, with a bit different feel (I don't mean look!) than most UIs; not slower btw, quite the contrary.

        Opera uses Qt on Linux. On Windows, it uses Win32 widgets and on OS X, it uses Carbon. In my opinion, Opera on Windows fits in visually better than Firefox.

        On one Ubuntu 9.04 system, Opera 9 is considerably more responsive for me than the included version of Firefox - when using FreeNX, a remote deskto

        • by sznupi ( 719324 )

          Their UI is not in Qt, they are using only some elements from given 3rd party toolkits/platforms (like file selector), but the the UI of Opera itself is developed in-house.

          BTW, there are Gnome/Ubuntu skins too.

      • I know this is part of it for me. It's not going to be a popular opinion here on Slashdot, but a truly native feel to an application is more important to me than a couple milliseconds of speed.

        I don't want to run an application that feels like it was built for another desktop environment. I don't like it when applications use their own widgets and break conventions set by the OS. I want my web browser to look like it was designed by the same UI designer that made my office suit, my file browser, my ftp

    • by at_slashdot ( 674436 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @12:12PM (#28197017)

      For me the choice is simple, neither Chrome or IE8 work on Linux, and Firefox is kind of piggish on Linux, on Windows is works pretty decently. I do find Firefox a bit more compatible with some sites but Opera feels more polished and I don't have to install any extension to get it work as I want, on a clean Firefox install I have to install at least 15 extensions to make it work like Opera.

  • Maybe they should have put a big red R in the word turbo for racing, so that people will believe their browser goes faster. Or they should give all their users a Type-R sticker to print out.

    as in: "Ma! It loaded the page in .05 milliseconds instead of .1 milliseconds! I can see the difference! It's definitely faster." /etc etc

    • Joke if you want, but I just upgraded my work machine from 9.64 to 10, and there's a noticeable difference in most pages. The turbo function, however, isn't for normal use, it's for dial-up or mobile users. Anyone on broadband won't see a difference between turbo and non-turbo, just the difference between the old and new versions.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @11:59AM (#28196817)

    Just FYI: in addition to the beta being available for all modern OSes, I see there is also a version for Windows.

    • Oh Windows is Modern. Modern is new.

      They didn't say "quality" OS's. : )

      • 1) It was just a joke

        2) If you released, say, an 8-bit Mario clone today, it would certainly be new, but I don't think it would be considered "modern". It is possible for "new" things to be outdated. Modern implies more than just the release date.

  • Which makes me sad. I'm willing to be patient for a while, and this is a beta, but there's been almost no real discussion on the Opera Desktop Team blog about it. I may well eventually cave and reinstall the QT3 dependencies, but I do hope that I won't have to.
  • I'd probably use it more frequenty if it had some Ad blocking capabilities. Speed Dial is a pretty nifty feature. I can't remember how long I've used Opera (since about '99 I think) and it was only ever my primary browser way back then. Used Mozilla for years before the pre 1.0 Firefox browser came about and haven't turned back from Firefox since. I doubt Opera could change that but it could see a larger timeshare with the ability for Extensions to check my mail and block ads. If those exist please correct
    • by A Friendly Troll ( 1017492 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @12:29PM (#28197277)

      I'd probably use it more frequenty if it had some Ad blocking capabilities.

      It does. Right-click on the page, "Block Content...".

      By the way... http://www.opera.com/docs/history/ [opera.com]

      Integrated content blocking appeared in Opera 9.0, officially released on June 20th, 2006. Almost three years now.

      And a little bit of history: http://www.schrode.net/opera/url_filtering/ [schrode.net]

      Rudimentary ad blocking through urlfilter.ini appeared in Opera 6.02, released on May 15th, 2002. So, Opera has effectively had a form of ad-blocking capabilities for over seven years.

      It's not as flexible as what you get through specialized Firefox extensions, but it's there, there are pre-made filters available for download, and like I said, it's been a part of the browser for seven years.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Many ads depend on JavaScript and Flash to be served now. From my own experience, turning JavaScript and Flash off globally except for some domains (I'm using Opera 9.64 with sites preferences) will remove 99% of the annoying ads out there. That works across all browsers, that's why I don't need AdBlock Plus when I already have NoScript on Firefox.

    • AdSweep [adsweep.org] works really well in Opera, though it can be a bit overzealous at times. However, the builds are weekly and refined more and more as time goes on.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by lhoguin ( 1422973 )

      I use this: http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/opera/ [fanboy.co.nz]

      It took one minute to copy the file, and I didn't see any ad since then.

  • Opera Firefox (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Petersko ( 564140 )
    I have dismal luck with Firefox no matter which platform I run it on. It's slow to start, grows massive in memory, and aborts more often than any other piece of software I use.

    Opera, on the other hand, works just fine for me. I don't ever remember it aborting, at least in the last two years. I love the implementation of the "Transfers" window.

    I've given up on Firefox completely, but Opera has a home on my system.

    Of course my opinion can be discarded by all of the cognoscenti here because for day-to
  • Hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)

    by C_Kode ( 102755 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @12:20PM (#28197135) Journal

    I've been a big fan of Opera for a long time, but I'm growing more and more disappointed in it. First off, I have 9.64 and I get an 85 on the ACID3 test, but that isn't my biggest issue. My biggest issues usually evolves CSS and JavaScript. AJAX sites not working or menuing on some of the Net's largest sites not working. (forget using MLB.com) Not to mention I've seen Opera's footprint being over 700M and still growing before. Granted I had more than a few tabs, but that is ridiculous! It's currently 215M while FF3 is 250M which I find acceptable, but that isn't always the case. (I use both browsers at the sametime)

    • by Ant P. ( 974313 )

      Tell me about it.

      There's usually three stages of development for webapps in my job: getting it to work with well-behaved browsers, adding the bare minimum of mandatory IE hacks, and then placing bets on how fucked up it'll be in Opera. Last time we got three minutes added to the load time of each page in it.

  • by bcrowell ( 177657 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @12:21PM (#28197147) Homepage

    Opera passes an even tougher css test than acid3 -- unlike firefox and safari, it renders the titles of slashdot comments correctly.

    Yes, that's a joke. To see what I'm talking about, use firefox or safari to navigate to the slashdot homepage, and then click on the "Read More..." link for a story in the news, science, or technology sections. (This Opera article is in the tech section, but if you have your default threshold for comments set high, like I do, you won't get any titles of comments displayed right now, simply because there aren't any highly up-moderated comments yet, so you won't get any comments displayed.) What you'll see is that the titles of stories are displayed in white on a white background.

    This comment [slashdot.org] explains that it's due to a CSS bug in the stylesheets in certain sections. Here [sourceforge.net] is a bug report that I did today in sourceforge. I couldn't find any earlier reports of this problem by searching on sourceforge's bug tracker, but they might exist -- this problem has been around for quite some time now. As a work-around, you can click on the story's title in the threshold form.

    It would be interested to hear whether this is universally reproducible with firefox and safari, but please be very careful to follow the exact instructions above. It depends on which section the article is in, and it depends on whether or not you're getting a cached version of the story.

    The fact that the slashdot crew hasn't noticed this bug on their own after such a long period of time makes me wonder how much attention they really pay to the site. (This is assuming that the bug really does occur for all firefox users.) We've had dupes and grammatical mistakes in summaries forever, but now that the firehose is handling submissions, it looks like the whole site is just on autopilot.

    • I am using Firefox 3.0.10 right now, and I see no problem at all on Slashdot. Not the front page, not the comments, not in the sections which you describe. It seems to work whether or not I'm logged in, so it has nothing to do with my display settings.

      I'm sure it's broken for some people. But I think this display bug is much more uncommon than you believe.

      I wonder if it has anything to do with Add-ons? I have none, zero, as I'm not allowed to install them here at work.

    • No problem here. Firefox 3.0.10 under OSX 10.4.11.
      Also fine with Firefox 3.0.10 under Windows XP SP3.

      I suspect one of your addons is what's giving you the problem.
  • from TFS:

    In addition to the browser's known features, like mouse gestures, keyboard shortcuts, voice navigation, mail and RSS support, speed dial and so forth[...]

    Yes, keyboards are becoming ubiquitous. Who'd have thunk?

  • OS X version (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @12:27PM (#28197255)

    A quick look shows the OS X version passes Acid3, is about 10% slower on javascript benchmarks compared to the last version, and still has no support for system services so it can't use the same spelling checker as all the other OS X programs or the grammar checker or other tools. Basically, I don't see anything that is here to motivate me to switch. Opera may be a really nice browser for Windows, but it is still subpar for OS X.

    • I don't think they bother much with the OS X version. Last time I played with it, the address bar still had different click behaviour to every single other text field in OS X. That is the kind of thing that doesn't get past ten minutes of usability testing.
    • Unlike Google, when Opera says something is a beta, they mean it. I'd check it out when it comes out of beta.

  • Javascript database support isn't mentioned. That's a bummer for those of us creating offline apps.

  • by MrMista_B ( 891430 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @12:45PM (#28197521)

    So, does Opera have any functionality at least as good as AdBlockPlus and NoScript?

    They are the /only/ reason I use Firefox. Really, for webbrowsers, AdBlock Plus is the killer app - if Opera can block ads at least that well, I'll be done with Firefox for good. If not, I have no reason to use it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by raynet ( 51803 )

      There is couple guys who publish a blocklist you can install to Opera that works by either blocking ads or hiding them in the page, unfortunately it does lack automagic updates or any GUI.

      I myself take their blocklist and couple others and combine them with Squid, that way I have identical adblocking for any browser I happen to use on any machine I have.

      Maybe someday Opera finally creates a powerful API to extend their browser so AdBlockPlus could be ported to it, or similar app be written. It seems that ge

  • Opera and Adblock (Score:4, Interesting)

    by yoshi_mon ( 172895 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @01:12PM (#28197963)

    It has already come up in this thread but I think it warrants another post on the subject. And just some quick background: I used Opera as my main browser since right around IE3. Looking it up now I see that IE3 came out in Aug 96' and Opera was released to the public in 96 as well. One of the main reasons I liked it was how they supported the nix platforms, albeit just with binaries, as well as Win32.

    Anyway suffice to say I used Opera for a long time, recommended it to friends who I thought were advanced enough to use it (Bit of a backhanded statement I know but oh well.), and even was sad when I moved away from it late last year. And the reason I finally did move away from it was that Firefox + Ablock + Noscript simply is a better overall experience.

    And yes I know Opera has/has had it's own content blocking for ages now, that is not the point. It is not nearly the same thing as plugging in Adblock, picking your list, and then you just go. I also say this having already used, and continue to use, my hosts file as a filter as well.

    As good as Opera is, and I still think it does a lot of things better/faster than anything else, the again overall experience with Firefox when you have it's addon support makes it better. And Firefox is also a much better replacement when moving an end user away from IE.

    Opera, unless they do some really bad things, will always have a home on my PCs but right now Firefox is better for day to day usage.

  • on there Wii browser.

  • $ grep kill ~/.bash_history | grep opera | tail -5

    killall -9 opera

    killall -USR2 opera

    killall -9 opera

    killall -9 -9 -9 opera

    killall -9 opera

    $ grep kill ~/.bash_history | grep opera | wc -l

    175

    I've used Opera for years since the 5.x days and have always loved it, but the past year it's generally becoming less stable and more annoying. It always seems to eat 100% cpu after some time, or crash at other times. Some builds are really terrible, stability- and performance-wise. Meanwhile Fir

  • by locopuyo ( 1433631 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @04:23PM (#28200517) Homepage
    just type /. in the address bar :)

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