Opera 9.6 has been released just a day ago and the Opera team did a fine job of integrating some interesting new features in the new version of the web browser. The release is a security and stability update that did introduce several new features. Since it is a security update it is a recommended update for all Opera users.
Many of the new features have been introduced to Opera Mail which now features a low bandwidth mode for Pop3 and IMAP which is great when using Opera on the road. Another new addition is the feed preview mode that displays RSS news feeds in magazine style preview mode which is extremely convenient for widescreen monitors.
The screenshot below outlines the mode using the Ghacks feed. The mode places feed in magazine style next to each other. The feed preview is unfortunately not available after subscribing to the news feed which is something that the Opera team should think about delivering.
Another interesting addition are scroll markers. Scroll markers show the user where the last page ended after scrolling down to give a better indicator where to continue reading. That option is turned off by default and needs to activated.
The best option to enable the feature is to open the Opera config pasting opera:config#UserPrefs|EnableScrollMarker into the Opera address bar. The parameters are 0 for off, 1 for showing the scroll marker when reaching the bottom or top of the page and 2 for always showing the scroll marker when scrolling.
The release notes contain a list of all changes made since the release of Opera 9.52. Will probably only a matter of time until the other browsers will add the features as well.
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Another wonderful tweak I like is called “scroll is pan” which is available here -
Scroll Is Pan
Type opera:config and search for “Scroll is Pan”
This enables scrolling by dragging across the page!
I have been wanting scroll markers for years. I think that Opera finally did it, I’m moving back! (I was a regular Opera user before Phoenix came out)