Opera posts

Up until today I've been using a dark Firefox theme. It looked quite pretty, but eventually I got tired of not being able to read the black text on some of the dialogs (yes, I've tried tweaking userchrome.css -- multiple times).

So I've set out in search of a lighter theme which would still be nice and minimalistic. Operetta Advance seems to fit the bill perfectly. It's called "Advance" because the same developer also put out a version called just "Operetta," but I couldn't find what makes them different. Naturally, I went for Advance. That's marketing for you.

It's quite elegant, and manages to make even my cluttered Firefox seem a bit more unified. My only gripe with it so far is that the gripper right under the tab bar does nothing. Firefox doesn't have those cool expanding thumbnail-tabs Opera has, so I think it just shouldn't be there.

Operetta Advance is currently experimental, but I warmly recommend it.

Feel free to post your favorite themes below, especially if they're light and minimalistic.

Recently, Internet Explorer has taken a lot of heat. This time, however, it hasn't been coming from disgruntled web devs or tech-savvy folks like our readers. No, this round of 'ditch IE' requests came from the governments of Germany, France, and Australia.

The result: their citizens ditching IE en masse.

As you can see in the chart, nearly 300,000 Germans have downloaded Firefox in the last four days. Opera has seen a significant jump as well, reporting that downloads in Germany have doubled. In France, the uptick seems to have primarily benefited Mozilla, with Opera reporting only a slight increase. Mozilla won't have stats ready for a few days, but they've said the change was noticeable.

Opera also reported that downloads in Australia jumped 37%.

There's every reason to think Google Chrome is getting in on the action as well - but Google's not keen to make with the numbers. They suggest we sit tight and check third-party reports at the end of the month.

ed: if you're not up to speed about why this happened, check out Sebastian's post regarding the critical patch issued by Microsoft today!

[via The Register]

I've been waiting to try it out since I heard the first rumblings about Carakan, and it's here at long last. Opera's new Javascript engine has finally appeared in the developer build just posted on their website.

The bottom line: it's fast. Carakan should serve as proof to the world that Opera is serious about building a competitive browser.

Putting Opera 10.5 through the paces with my everyday web apps, it's obvious that the new engine is a huge leap forward. GMail, Google Reader, and Seesmic Web are much more responsive than they are in 10.10, as are other Javascript-heavy web apps. Google's Chrome Experiments? If Opera was able to load a particular one (like Crystal Galaxy), Carakan ran it nicely.

On Google's V8 benchmark, 10.5 posts a very respectable 2263 overall. That's a far cry from the 182 put up by version 10.10 on my laptop. As you can see, Carakan actually managed to best Google Chrome's V8 on the RegExp test.

If you want to try out Opera 10.5 and the new Carakan Engine yourself, head on over to Opera's web site. Installers for Windows and OsX are available at the bottom of this page and you can also read more about Carakan.

As for me, I'm going to spend a week with the alpha and reserve judgment until then. It's certainly made a good impression so far.

While version 10.5 has not been released yet by Opera officially, there's a pre-alpha build that has been turned loose by someone. It seems legit enough: help -> about reports that the browser is version 10.5 internal, build 20192.

It's important to remember that 1) this is a pre-alpha and 2) this could well be a build Opera never intended to see the light of day. In benchmarks like V8 and Peacekeeper, 10.5 performed about as well as the recently-released 10.2 alpha. Neither of those scored as well as Opera 10.1, however, which seems to indicate that Carakan hasn't been bolted on as of yet.

Regardless of the benchmarks, general browsing with 10.5 feels reasonably fast. In non-scientific speed testing (read: stopwatch page load timing) it's competitive with Firefox and Chrome. Javascript-heavy pages are another story, but again that should change once Carakan arrives.

Opera have released version 10 of their browser, now with Opera Unite and Opera Turbo included.

Opera Unite gives your web browser the ability to deliver content as well as consume it. The standard download includes a number of Unite applications, with more available for download from the application directory. The bundled applications include a file sharing server that allows you to make files available to the world (as well as allowing the world to upload content to your machine), a virtual fridge door for you to share notes with friends and family (pictured), a media player that allows you to play content from your Unite equipped machine remotely, an instant messaging server, a photo sharing application and a web server for serving your own web content.

The inclusion of Opera Turbo in the new browser marks the migration to the desktop of a technology that has long been a key feature of Opera's Mini product. Opera Turbo speeds up your browsing session by compressing content at Opera proxy servers before delivering it to your machine - particularly useful for those on low bandwidth connections.

Opera 10.10 is available free from www.opera.com for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

We're intrigued to hear what you, our lovely readers, think about Opera's advancements. They have an excellent, solid browser base and some truly unique additional features... are you tempted to make the switch?

Over the past few years, Opera Mobile has become the browser of choice for the majority of Windows Mobile users. Shipped as the default browser on many devices and available as download for others, Opera Mobile addresses the many failings of the preinstalled IE browser with better performance, variable zoom and text reflowing as well as a polished and intuitive UI.

Pushing the mobile browser closer to a desktop grade experience is the promise of Opera's latest release, Opera 10 Beta for Windows Mobile.

The Opera Mobile 10 Beta overhauls the look and feel of it's predecessors and is similar in design to the Opera 10 desktop browser as well as the Java based Opera Mini 5 beta. The UI overhaul brings Opera's offering across all of it's platforms in line, as well as providing a great range of features from the desktop platform including Speed Dial, tabbed browsing, a password manager and Opera's server side compression technology, 'Opera Turbo'.

I've had a try of the new browser and it does indeed feel more consistent in style with Opera's Java based offering, no bad thing as Opera Mini has always made excellent use of the available screen real estate. Performance seems great and the UI seems intuitive. Some features found in previous releases don't seem to have made it into version 10 yet - we spotted a lack of device rotate support and no support for multitouch zoom on the HTC HD2, but Opera does look set to maintain it's class leading position on the Windows Mobile platform.

The Opera Mobile 10 Beta is available for free download now from the Opera website.

When Opera 10 launched without one of its most-hyped features, Opera Unite, browser geeks had to install a separate build to test it out. Opera developers have now merged the two, integrating Unite into the main browser in Opera 10.10 Beta.

As we've reported before, Unite is a "web server within a web browser" that allows you to download and run various web applications. What does this mean for the average user? You can access your files from anywhere, and easily share them with friends.

The first Unite apps are all about sharing. There's a media player to share music, a general file storage app, a web server app to host sites, and even a "fridge" app where you can leave notes for your friends. Media Player will probably get a lot of the early hype, as it lets you stream music from your machine to another computer with iTunes, WInamp, or your other player of choice (as long as it supports streaming playlists). Unite is still in the early stages, but no other browser has even attempted to do what Opera is doing in this space.

Following on from their teaser at the weekend, Opera have now released a Beta of version 5 of their Opera Mini Java based web browser.

Touted as the 'best and easiest way to get connected on your mobile phone', the new release adds tabbed browsing, speed dial, an enhanced user interface for both touch and keypad based devices and an integrated password manager, as well as a considerable speed boost.

Opera Mini 5 can be downloaded for free by pointing your phone at http://m.opera.com/next.

[Via MoDaCo]

Just about everyone has a usb flash drive by now. Apart from all that data you're packing (which you no doubt have encrypted in case your drive gets lost -- but that's a post for another day), why not pack up your favorite web browser and take it along for the ride.

There are a lot more options than you think - here are 13 different options for users of Windows PCs. Don't see your choice on the list? Share it with us in the comments!

Mozilla

Portable Firefox (current) [download] and Portable Minefield [download]
John T. Haller's Portable Apps project is always right on top of the latest Firefox updates, so it's the place to go if you need the Fox in your pocket. The most recent unstable branch is provided as well, in case you want to test it without installing.

PocketFlock v2 [download]
The kicked-up Firefox remix for social networking types is also available in a portable version, thanks to enthusiast Dave Ferrite.

The Nintendo Wii has had an optional web browser almost as long as the gaming console has existed. But for some baffling reason, you had to pay $5 (or rather, 500 Wii Points) to use the browser, which was built by the fine folks at Opera. In order to use a web browser. You had to pay.

Anyway, it looks like those dark days are behind us. Nintendo has set the web browser free, so anyone can download it without using up any Wii points. You'll need to have space either on your Wii or an SD card to install the browser. And of course, your game console will have to be hooked up to an internet connection.

If you already shelled out the 500 Wii Points for the browser, your $5 wasn't spent in vain. Electric Pig reports that Nintendo will roll out a virtual coupon that lets users who paid for the browser download a Virtual Console title worth up to 500 points starting in October.

[via Gizmodo]

I admit it: Download Squad has been talking up Opera 10 all summer. We told you about its wicked-fast new JavaScript engine and the much-hyped Opera Unite, and then Lee told you why he hopes this latest version of Opera will get your attention. Now the day of reckoning has arrived: Opera 10 is here, for Windows, Mac and Linux. How does it stack up to our expectations? Well, there's some good news and some bad news. Good: the Turbo feature for faster browsing on slower Internet connections is in full effect. Bad: two of the most-wanted features - Opera Unite and the Carakan JavaScript engine - didn't make it into this release.

Is Opera 10 still worth going for? Well, it's definitely fast. I gave it a spin on some resource-intensive sites, and without any formal testing, I can say that page load times on my Mac felt at least as fast as those in Safari and Chrome. It also passes the Acid 3 Test with flying colors. Combine that with the slick-looking (and quite space-efficient) new UI and the Turbo feature, and you've got a legitimate candidate for your new favorite browser. And, when Unite finally arrives as a separate download, it should only get better.

Have you tried Opera 10? Will you be switching? Leave us your impressions in the comments.

While Lee has been lamenting the lack of attention to the latest desktop version of Opera, the browser's mobile version is far from obscure. In fact, Opera Mini is burning up the mobile market: not only is it the most-downloaded mobile browser, it's the most-downloaded mobile application, period. This is according to open apps repository GetJar, which has recorded 25 million downloads of Opera Mini. The number is so high partially because Opera Mini is so versatile, with versions available for Java, Android, BlackBerry and WIndows Mobile.

The 25 million figure might not be quite right, though, as GetJar's download page for Opera Mini only shows a little over 18 million downloads. According to a GetJar press release, Opera was only the 3rd most-downloaded app on the site in July. Perhaps the higher figures are a combination of Opera Mini and Opera Mobile, or there's some other reason why they don't mesh with the number I see on GetJar, so I'll give Opera the benefit of the doubt. Even 3rd place and 18 million downloads is a stronger showing than most people imagine when they hear "Opera."

On the other hand, it's interesting to see Opera claiming Most Popular Mobile Application status when there's still some debate as to whether it has more users than the mobile version of Apple's Safari. Of course, Safari wouldn't be included on GetJar, so this popularity contest is already rigged in Opera's favor. Opera recently retook the #1 spot in the mobile browsing market from the iPhone browser, but that's not including Safari users on Apple's other mobile device, the iPod Touch. All in all, Opera Mini is definitely popular, but to call it the most popular might be misleading.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Microsoft plans to launch stripped down, web-based versions of its Office applications including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint soon. When the company first unveiled the upcoming web apps, Microsoft announced that they would work with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. Now, in an official blog posting, Microsoft has stated that those three browsers will be the only ones officially supported by the Office Web Apps.

In other words, if you use Google Chrome, Opera, or another web browser, you may be out of luck. It's worth pointing out that Microsoft hasn't said that other browsers won't work. It's just that the company isn't going to take the time to support additional browsers.

According to the blog post, the Office Web apps will be designed to work without any plugins installed, but Microsoft recommends installing Silverlight, which will help the web apps load faster and perform better. The text will also be easier to read, and PowerPoint animations will be smoother with Silverlight installed.

[via InfoWorld]