Opera Archive

Last week, the European Commission announced that Microsoft is willing to implement a browser ballot screen in Windows so that users can select a browser to install when installing Windows or when setting up their OEM computer. While this makes Opera very happy, Opera would like to see Ubuntu and Apple offer such a ballot screen too.

A few days ago Opera launched a placeholder website which said they were going to "reinvent" the web, on June 16. Well, it's June 16, and Opera has announced Opera Unite, a technology which allows individual Opera users to connect to one another, turning every machine running Opera Unite into a web server.

Opera have announced the general availability of Opera 10 beta. Opera 10 includes an improved rendering engine Presto v2.2. The beta adds a new default skin and a couple of new features, notably "Turbo", a proxy compressor for dial-up users, and tab previews. The result? Complete fail. Read More for why and a quick screenshot tour. addendum: As an apology to the community for the reckless and inadequate review I will be doing it again, properly, taking into consideration your fine comments.

Opera has announced a new JavaScript engine. "Over the past few months, a small team of developers and testers have been working on implementing a new ECMAScript/JavaScript engine for Opera. When Opera's current ECMAScript engine, called Futhark, was first released in a public version, it was the fastest engine on the market. That engine was developed to minimize code footprint and memory usage, rather than to achieve maximum execution speed. This has traditionally been a correct trade-off on many of the platforms Opera runs on. The Web is a changing environment however, and tomorrow's advanced web applications will require faster ECMAScript execution, so we have now taken on the challenge to once again develop the fastest ECMAScript engine on the market."

Opera 10 has been released as an alpha preview. It showcases a new rendering engine, Presto 2.2, which the company states will improve browsing performance over the previous version by 30 percent, and notably passes Acid3 standards compatibility with a 100 out of 100 score. This article runs it through some benchmarks, checks memory usage, and general browsing experience.

Last week we had some contradicting reports regarding Opera Software and its Opera Mini web browser. The New York Times' Bits weblog and Daring Fireball's John Gruber contradicted one another concerning a possible iPhone version of Opera Mini - or more specifically, about whether or not Opera had actually submitted Opera Mini to Apple. The Bits weblog has now settled the issue.

An interesting NYT Bits blog entry covers Opera's mobile browser. Buried in the middle of the article is this quote: "Opera's engineers have developed a version of Opera Mini that can run on an Apple iPhone, but Apple won't let the company release it because it competes with Apple's own Safari browser." It also talks about Opera on the Wii and browsers in cars. A good read. My Take: But back to the iPhone. As tempted as I am to just shrug it off, since Apple is free to run its App Store any way it pleases, as an enthusiastic iPhone user, I think Apple is shooting itself in the foot here, as it is with all the "competitive" apps being rejected. Apple does stand to lose some Google revenue by letting people use other browsers, but they have much more to gain by unleashing the creativity of the developer community and giving them the freedom to improve or replace core iPhone functionality. Hopefully competition from Android forces them to wake up.

Opera 9.5 has been released, beating Firefox 3.0 to the punch which is supposed to be released soon as well. The marketing speak: "Opera's cross-device expertise, support for open Web standards and commitment to speed and performance culminate to create the most powerful Opera browser yet. Making its desktop debut in Opera 9.5, Opera Link blurs the boundaries between computers and mobile phones by enabling a seamless Web experience from device to device." Get it from Opera.com.

"Since the test was officially announced recently, our core developers have been hard at work fixing bugs and adding the missing standards support. Today we reached a 100% pass rate for the first time! There are some remaining issues yet to be fixed, but we hope to have those sorted out shortly."

Opera Software's CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner explains why they will not release the Opera browser as open source, arguing that open standards are more important than open source. Von Tetzchner also talks about the company's antitrust complaint to the European Commission in which it accuses Microsoft of abusing its dominant position by tying Internet Explorer to Windows.

Opera Mini 4 has been released. "Opera, today released Opera Mini 4, the newest version of Opera's worldwide mobile browsing sensation. Opera Mini 4 inspires the senses with its stunning desktop overview mode, so users see the page exactly as it appears on their computers. People can then use the intuitive Opera Zoom to fly into the page and access the content you want. Or they can select Opera's Small Screen Rendering to eliminate horizontal scrolling."

The first Beta of Opera 9.5 has been released. "Opera 9.5 adds Full Text History Search allowing you to access find pages you forgot to bookmark by simply typing just a few words into your toolbar! Opera also gives you the ability to Create Search shortcuts from any search field on the Web; and to Synchronize your Bookmarks, Speed Dial with any other Mac or PC computer, your cell phone, or the Opera-powered Nintendo Wii Internet Channel through My Opera."

Opera has released an alpha build of their upcoming 9.5 release. "Following the release of Opera 9 last year, we re-wrote Opera's rendering engine for the coming Opera 9.5 release. As a result, Opera 9.5 contains more than a year's worth of speed, standards and performance improvements."

Christen Krogh is responsible for all software development at Opera. Krogh received his bachelor's degree in computer science from Glasgow University and his Ph.D from the University of Oslo. On market share: "We have between 10 and 15 million users of the desktop browser, more than 10 million cumulative Opera Mini users, come pre-installed on more than 40 million mobile phones and are available to anyone using Nintendo Wii or Nintendo DS."