Opera Software has released Opera 10.63 a few minutes ago. The new web browser release is a recommended upgrade offering security and stability enhancements. This falls in line with the classification of the two development strains.

Opera 10.60 users are asked to update to the latest version of the web browser as soon as possible to fix the security and stability issues.

The easiest way to update is to click on Menu > Help > Check for Updates and follow the onscreen instructions from there.

opera 10.63 update notification

Interested Opera users can take a closer look at the fixes introduced in Opera 10.63 at the official changelog page.

Crash when removing custom settings folders
Start Bar being blanked out after opening a background tab
Opera Unite Messenger application not loading
Crash when saving a file while the page redirects
Crash after leaving a page containing Flash with wmode=”transparent”
Using Opera Link, bookmarks dragged out of the Opera Mini folder are recreated when sent as added in the Opera Mini folder again
Opera Link freezing on startup
Fallback to a second address being very slow
Reloading pages give multiple unclosable download dialogs
Menus being as high as the screen and nearly empty
Crash when viewing the bookmark menu

Handling of Content-Disposition extended parameters
Memory corruption when using SVG in an element
Several JavaScript-related issues, including one with Yahoo! Mail Classic
A mouse focus problem related to plug-ins
Incorrect compilation to native code leads to wrong arithmetic results
Crash when assigning data or src attribute on a focused and highlighted <input> element with dirty layout
JavaScript alerts opening shortly after a page loads close instantly

Added search suggestions from Baidu
100% CPU usage occurring when starting Opera
Crash when opening a file with Content-Disposition: attachment directly in Opera

Fixed an issue that allowed cross-domain checks to be bypassed, allowing limited data theft using CSS, as reported by Isaac Dawson; see our advisory.
Fixed an issue where manipulating the window could be used to spoof the page address; see our advisory.
Fixed an issue with reloads and redirects that could allow spoofing and cross-site scripting; see our advisory.
Fixed an issue that allowed private video streams to be intercepted, as reported by Nirankush Panchbhai of Microsoft Vulnerability Research; see our advisory.
Fixed an issue that caused JavaScript to run in the wrong security context after manual interaction; see our advisory.

Opera 10.63 is also available as a direct download directly at the Opera.com website.

Opera 10.62 is a security and stability update, and therefor recommended for all users of the 10.6x branch. This release fixes for instance the recently discovered dll hijack vulnerability in Windows. The majority of enhancements improves the stability of the browser. The team has fixed several issues where Opera would unexpectedly close, for instance when searching on websites or while viewing bodyless documents in accessibility mode.

The team has also fixed the missing images bug in free previews and added fastmail and hotmail UK to the email auto configuration in Opera Mail.

Interested users can take a closer look at the changelogs, which are linked from the announcement post over at the desktop team blog.

Opera 10.62 is as usual available for all supported operating systems. Downloads are provided at the Opera website. Users who are already running a version of Opera 10.6x can also update the browser by clicking on Help > Check for Updates.

The release notes of the new Opera version list several changes since Opera 10.60, among them three security fixes that prevent the execution of arbitrary code, programs and the automatic subscription to news feeds in the preview feed view.

opera 10.61

Several additional fixes have been introduced to the display and scripting functionality of the browser. This includes Google Calendar compatibility, something that many Opera users have been waiting for. Other fixes in this category include fixing disk cache not working properly in turbo mode, proper handling of binary files (which have been handled as plain text files), widget changes so that they will all run and have network access after restarts, and blocking Opera Unite from listening on UDP port 1900 if UPnP service discovery has been set to off.

Finally, changes have been introduced to the Opera user interface as well, most notably a fix to prevent high CPU usage when loading animated png images in the browser, preventing Opera Windows from overwriting saved search preferences during installation and changing the default cookie behavior to accept all cookies.

User interface

Changed

* “Fraud Protection” renamed to “Fraud and Malware Protection”

Fixed

* Relative paths not working in the Filename setting for Speed Dial background
* Premature shutdown when using vBulletin’s WYSIWYG editor
* Loading an animated png causes high CPU usage with no response from the browser
* yahoo.cn mailproviders SMTP entry not using a submission port
* Changing the default cookie preference to “Accept all cookies”
* Installing Opera 10.60 windows overwrites saved search preferences

Display and Scripting

Fixed

* Google Calendar compatibility
* Unite listening on UDP 1900 even if UPnP service discovery is off
* Several cases where widgets will not run
* Premature shutdown when loading qq.com
* Setting the onload property of XMLHttpRequest blocks document memory from being garbage collected
* Opera treating binary files as plain text (opening it in the browser instead of showing a download dialog)
* Premature shutdown when loading the Canvas demo
* Printing from print preview results in either a freeze or corrupted page
* Widgets not having access to a network after restart
* “Accept cookies” and “only from the site I visit” settings being incorrect in Preferences dialog
* Premature shutdown occurring on startup of Opera under Windows 98
* Disk cache not working correctly in turbo mode

Security

Fixes

* Fixed an issue where heap buffer overflow in HTML5 canvas could be used to execute arbitrary code, as reported by Kuzzcc; see our advisory.
* Fixed an issue where unexpected changes in tab focus could be used to run programs from the Internet, as reported by Jakob Balle and Sven Krewitt of Secunia; see our advisory.
* Fixed an issue where news feed preview could subscribe to feeds without interaction, as reported by Alexios Fakos; see our advisory.

Opera 10.61 is already available for download at the Opera website. Opera 10.60 users can click on Menu > Help > Check for Updates to download and install the new version from within the web browser. Both downloads throw an error message currently. It is likely that this is only a temporary situation.

The issue became even more confusing as build numbers did not add up on first glance. Some build numbers of Opera 10.61 releases were higher than those of Opera 10.70 releases.

Confusing to say the least. A recent blog post over at the Opera blog sheds some light on the issue.

Opera is apparently developing two different versions of the browser at the same time. Opera 10.61, the next upcoming release will be a security and bugfix release. It won’t contain new features and a release is imminent.

Opera 10.70 is the major development branch that will introduce new features on top of the security and stability fixes that will be released with Opera 10.61.

This means that we are testing the 10.61 release, and 10.70 in parallel, which may cause some confusion if you look at build numbers. The most recent 10.61 build may have a higher build number than the latest 10.70 build, but that is simply the number assigned to them by the build system. Opera “10.70″ is still the main development branch, while 10.61 is only intended to be a smaller security/bug fix release.

Early adopters can download the second release candidate of Opera 10.61 from the Opera Desktop Team blog. Opera 10.70 is also available for download, and introduces several new features:

This one contains mostly Presto (Core) changes, and there are even a few new features:

HTML5 HashChangeEvent
CSS3 image-fit and image-position
Selection.selectAllChildren

There are also a few optimizations for SVG, improvements to the JavaScript debugger, and we have added the option opera:config#VisitedLink|VisitedLinksState to control :visited (0 – disable :visited, 1 – match same domain only, 2 – enable :visited normally).

There you got it. Opera 10.61 will be released soon, Opera 10.70 in the near future.

Opera users can expect improvements in all areas but most noticeably in browser performance and web standard support.

The final version of Opera 10.60 continues to shine in web browser benchmarks like Peacekeeper often surpassing other fast web browsers like Google Chrome.

opera1060 speed

Opera 10.60 is one of the fastest web browsers available. This is confirmed by benchmarks but also by the subjective impression of page loading times in the browser.

opera1060

The browser scores 100 of 100 in the Acid 3 test and has added several HTML5 features and elements to its arsenal.

Opera 10.60 now supports for instance HTML5 video (WebM), offline web applications, geolocation and web workers. Take a look at Opera 10.60 Beta Released, Fastest Browser Gets Even Faster for an in depth review of Opera 10.60.

opera html5 video

It is now possible to join the Youtube HTML5 beta to view videos on the popular video hosting site without Adobe Flash installed.

Interface elements have been improved slightly, the menu button has been changed to make its functionality clearer to the user. Several icons have been changed or added as well but the design of the browser is overall pretty similar to that of the Opera 10.50 branch.

Search suggestions have been added for selected providers, improving the search experience of Opera users. Google Search is still the default search provider in Opera but Bing has been added to the list of available providers to offer users additional choices.

Opera 10.60 is already available for download at the official Opera website. It is available for Windows, Linux and Macintosh systems. The internal update checker has not picked up the new version yet.

Opera performs very well in popular web browser benchmarks, how well usually depends on the benchmark. It is fair to say that Opera 10.60 will rank fairly high in all of them except those that benefit from hardware acceleration.

The developers have released a series of snapshot releases and a beta release before the release candidate was released.

opera 10.60

These snapshot releases included lots of stability and performance improvements but also added support for several HTML5 web technologies like HTML5 Video, Geolocation, Offline Web Applications, Cross-Document Messaging or Web Workers.

The release candidate actually continued the stability work by fixing several crash issues. Opera 10.60 RC1 has been released for Microsoft Windows, Macintosh and Linux systems.

The developers are still looking for major new issues that they have overlooked so far. It is likely that these major issues would then be fixed in upcoming release candidates.

Check out the blog posting over at the Opera Desktop Team blog for additional information and download links.

The announcement at the Opera Desktop Team blog does not go into detail, stating that Opera 10.54 is a “recommended security update” for Mac and Windows systems.

The change log for Windows lists the fixed security vulnerabilities, among them an extremely severe issue.

• Prevented Opera from being used as a vector for a font issue in the underlying operating system, as reported by Microsoft’s security team
• Fixed an extremely severe issue; details will be disclosed at a later date.
• Fixed a highly severe issue; details will be disclosed at a later date.
• Fixed a moderately severe issue; details will be disclosed at a later date.
• Fixed a less severe issue; details will be disclosed at a later date.

No details were disclosed at this time, most likely to give Opera users enough time to update their web browser to prevent exploitation of the issues.

Opera 10.x users can update the web browser by clicking on Menu > Help > Check for Updates in the web browser. Downloads are also available directly at the Opera website.

The release of the highly acclaimed Opera 10.50 did not seem to have slowed down the developers who have now made available the first beta of the upcoming Opera 10.60.

Opera 10.60 snapshot users can update the browser to the beta release by clicking on the menu button at the top, then Help and Check for Updates.

opera10 60

Everyone else can download the beta of Opera 10.60 at Opera Next.

The new release increases the HTML5 capabilities of the Opera browser. Opera 10.60 beta gains 30 points and 3 bonus points in the beta HTML5 test that we conducted 10 days ago. Opera closes in on Google Chrome which scored 212 points and surpasses the Firefox 3.6.4 browser by 20 points making it the second most HTML5 compatible browser available.

Four new HTML5 features have been added to the beta version of Opera 10.60, they are:

• WebM support for HTML5 video (demo)
• HTML5 offline web applications (demo)
• Gelocation (demo, only partially implemented on Linux at this time)
• Web Workers (demo)

In addition to those four HTML5 features a fifth, Cross-Document Messaging, received a major update in this Opera release.

The developers have improved further on the speed and compatibility of the browser. Opera 10.60 beta beats the latest dev version of Google Chrome by more than 700 points on our test system (Google Chrome 6, 9003 points, Opera 10.60 Beta, 9743 points) in the Peacekeeper browser benchmark.

It is safe to say that Opera 10.60 is currently the fastest browser with a reasonable market share on the planet. The developers have promised to increase the HTML5 capabilities of the browser in future releases. We keep you posted on these as well. You might want to check out the Ghacks web browser forum where the latest cutting edge snapshots of Opera are posted.

Javascript performance is faster according to tests in the SunSpider Benchmark. It took roughly 60ms less to complete the test compared to Opera 10.50. Page load times feel incredibly fast in the new Opera 10.60 alpha 1.

But speed is only one aspect that has been changed or improved by the developers.

The user interface was revamped including the top menu bar which now says Menu to make identification easier.

But that’s only one of the many changes. There have also been changes to Speed dial, tab previews and the Windows 7 taskbar feature which has been turned off by default.

In addition to the visual tweaks you have seen already, such as the Speed Dial facelift, we have also been making further UI enhancements. You will notice that the O menu button now says “Menu” for easy discovery, and instead of hard to read thumbnails for internal tabs, we have replaced them with icons. The tab hover previews have also received a facelift.

On Windows, we have disabled the Windows 7 taskbar previews by default, as they were causing frustration for people with a lot of open tabs. You can enable them from the Tabs sections of the Preferences dialog.

Many bugs have been fixed in Opera Core, user interface and speed dial. Interested users can visit the announcement post over at Opera for all information and download links.

The alpha version seems pretty stable with no problems experienced after upgrading Opera 10.53 to the new version. It still has to be noted that this is an alpha release that should not be tested in a work environment. Early adopters, developers and system administrators on the other hand will experience a faster, stable and better looking Opera browser.

Opera 10.53 fixes three issues in total of which one is the reported security vulnerability. The two remaining fix a freeze of the web browser on Google Maps and and change the way the dialog.ini file is located and loaded in Opera.

Opera 10.53 is currently not available on the main Opera website nor by using the web browser’s update checker. The only way to grab it right away is to head over to the Opera ftp and download it from there.

An announcement of the update is expected to hit the Opera website within the next hours. This will also be the time when the update check in the web browser will pick up the new version so that it can be downloaded and installed directly. (via Caschy)

Users who are not running the Opera 10.5x branch yet can download the browser directly from the Opera homepage for their operating system.

Opera 10.52 is a recommended stability upgrade according to the changelog posted on the Opera website.

The changelog is dominated by dozens of fixes to various issues in previous builds of Opera 10.5. This includes fixing the freezing problem when importing a large bookmark file and various scrolling and synchronization issues.

There have also been fixes to the Carakan JavaScript engine, networking, Opera Unite and Opera Widgets for Desktop.

The changelog for Windows lists over 100 changes that have been made in Opera 10.52 making it a recommended update for Opera users.

Opera 10.50 increased the performance of the web browser by a lot. The Opera browser is now one of the fastest web browsers available on the Internet and the developers promise that Opera 10.51 increases the speed further by up to 27% in the Peacekeeper benchmark compared to Opera 10.50.

The developers have published a post that details more speed and JavaScript improvements in Opera 10.51, for instance the fact that Opera 10.51 passes the Sputnik test of Google Labs better than any other web browser.

Opera 10.51 additionally fixes two security issues making it a recommended update for any Opera user.

Changes since Opera 10.50 (with Opera Widgets for Desktop)
User Interface
Fixed

* Drag and Drop not working in some instances
* Deleting a bookmark closing/collapsing all folders
* Focus being lost when deleting bookmarks
* Integrated search performing searches in Google and not in the page
* The Opera O menu button reappearing when the Menu bar is enabled
* The Opera icon remaining in the system tray after closing Opera
* Minimized tabs not displaying after a restart
* Favicon not being added to Bookmarks due to a question mark in the filename
* Individual characters in Chinese text being rotated anti-clockwise

Mail, News, Chat
Fixed

* A problem occurring when right-clicking entries under “All messages” and selecting Compose
* Chat notification appearing if a chat tab is active
* Ghost e-mails appearing in the Trash folder after emptying it and restarting Opera
* Message not loading when it is deselected and selected again
* Mail being blank when using fit to width
* Attached files not being sent if mail is sent immediately after attaching them
* Opera Mail welcome e-mail message not being localized
* The text part of HTML e-mails missing the reply character ” > ” for block quotes

Display and scripting
Improved

* Numerous improvements to the Carakan JavaScript engine

Fixed

* Icons missing from menus in 16-bit color mode
* Slow scrolling performance
* Incorrect font used for a UTF-8 encoded page without the language (CJK) being specified

Security
Fixed

* Fixed an issue where the HTTP Content-Length header could be used to execute arbitrary code; see our advisory (http://www.opera.com/support/search/view/948/).
* Fixed an issue where XSLT could be used to retrieve random contents of unrelated documents, as discovered by crazypops; see our advisory (http://www.opera.com/support/search/view/949/).

Network
Fixed

* Cookies:
o Cookies received over NPAPI being incorrectly parsed
o Reverted the blocking of third party cookies by default
o Opera sometimes storing a cookie for the domain it came from, rather than the set domain

The new Opera 10.51 can be downloaded directly from the Opera website.

Opera 10.50 brings a lot of new features to the table, most noticeable the speed improvements which leaves Firefox behind in the dust, at least for now.

Other changes include a new user interface, the integration of private browsing, desktop widgets which make it possible to run widgets with Opera closed, visual tabs and many additional changes under the hood.

Opera 10.50 is currently only offered for the Windows operating system with the likelihood that versions for other operating systems follow suite later this month.

The Opera servers are experiencing a heavy load at the moment, it took several tries to download the release which is already being advertised on the Opera homepage. The latest release candidate still had some bugs, mostly interface and accessibility related. It is unclear if all of those bugs have been fixed in the final release of Opera 10.50.

Opera 10.5 Beta 2 for Windows (Opera for Linux and Mac are in different development stages right now) adds many new features and improvements over the first beta that has been released a while ago. The highlights of the new beta release include many crash, menu and widget fixes, improved overlay authentication dialogs, improved opera:config page and styling changes.

The full changelog of this new Opera release is available at the desktop team blog post about the release. It lists more than a hundred bug fixes and improvements.

This release is mostly fixing bugs and issues that have been detected in previous releases of Opera 10.5. It therefor matches the performance of those web browser releases making it one of the fastest browsers around for now.

Opera 10.5 Beta 2 for Windows can be downloaded from the official Opera website.

Opera 10.5 comes with many new features and improvements over previous Opera releases including

• Better integration with the Windows operating system (Aero Glass, Aero Peek, Jumplists)
• Opera Carakan JavaScript engine for reduced memory usage and superior performance
• Opera Presto 2.5 rendering engine that supports new CCS2.1, CSS3, HTML5 elements
• Opera Vega graphics library
• Opera Widgets for Desktop which allows widgets to be run even if the web browser is closed.
• Private browsing
• Web Storage
• Web SQL Database

The Opera 10.5 Windows changelog lists all the improvements and changes in detail.

Opera 10.5 passes the Acid 3 test with a score of 100/100 just like the latest version of the Google Chrome 5 browser. It also beats the latest Google Chrome 5 development release in the JavaScript Sunspider benchmark by 353ms to 369ms on our test system.

The new geolocation feature is not enabled in this beta release of Opera 10.5 as the developer’s need to “iron out the last details” before it will be integrated.

Opera 10.5 Beta for Windows can be downloaded from the official Opera website.

Opera Backup is a specific tool as it can be used to backup the Opera 10 web browser.  The program interface is in English but the help file and developer website is not which makes it a bit complicated to configure. From what we could gather the backup process is driven by a file called backup.ini which defines what will be backed up and what will be excluded from the backup.

Besides the option to edit the backup.ini directly the different elements can also be selected by clicking in the Items button.

Both the backup and restore backup option are available in the same interface with backup being selected by default. A click on Restore backup will open a file browser to restore a previously created Opera backup.

All installed Opera versions can be selected in the second step. The installed widgets can also be selected for backup. Users with portable Opera browsers can use the define folders option to pick and backup these browsers as well.

Backups are compressed by default as ob, zip or 7z files. The compression ratio can be changed in the file menu at the top of the backup software.

Opera Backup can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It is compatible with Opera 10 only and can be installed on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 computer systems.

An alternative to Opera Backup is the multi-browser backup software FavBackup which can also be used to backup Opera as well as other browsers.

One reason why the developers might have decided to release the third snapshot that close after the last one could have been the crashes that user’s experienced.

This new release fixes lots of the crashes that have been experienced by the users. It makes use of a new version of the Presto engine which the devs call a major update with over a hundred bug fixes and improvements.

Apart from stability updates in Opera’s rendering engine, a number of frequently reported bugs in the user interface have been fixed. In particular the autocompletion dropdown of the addressfield has gotten some attention. The visual styling of it has been improved and enhanced, and several quirks in it have been fixed.

General
Lots of crash fixes
improved address bar with dropdown button
Fixed: regression: redraw issues while scrolling textareas and dropdowns
Fixed: Clicking a link in an external app doesn’t open a new tab anymore

Core
Improved support for webfonts
CORE-15970 New protocol layer for scope
HTTPS fixes
Memory leak fixes
Google Reader now works
Text in transformed content displayed properly (windows)

One of the most irritating crashes has not been fixed in this release. The web browser will crash if the user tries to copy a link. The developer’s promise that this issue will be fixed shorty. It should also be noted that Opera Dragonfly is not working yet due to a new protocol.

The announcement post over at the Opera desktop team blog promises new releases in the coming weeks that will fix most of the regressions in Opera 10.5 which hopefully means fixing the copy link crash.

Users who want to try the latest snapshot of Opera 10.5 can download a version for their operating system at the blog post.

The Unix version of Opera 10.50 has undergone some changes as well, most notable the removed dependency on the QT libraries which caused a problem for users who wanted to install the browser but did not have the libraries installed.

This and following versions of Opera do not require the libraries but will make use of them if they are installed on the computer system.

This means that you can run Opera without any graphical toolkit installed if you want to (plain X11), but if you do have toolkits installed, Opera will try to load and use them to integrate into the environment. Currently we are focusing on getting support for Gnome/GTK+ and KDE4/Qt4 into 10.5. The work on KDE4 integration is not at a stage yet where we think it can be used, so this pre-alpha release only has support for GTK

The desktop team recommends to install the Opera 10.50 pre-alpha release in a separate directory to avoid compatibility issues and to have a fallback version if Opera 10.50 does not run stable on the computer system.

A pre-alpha of Opera 10.50 leaked a short time ago and is now available publicly. It was linked in various comments and forum threads over at the Opera website like this one.

Everyone thinking about downloading this pre-alpha version of Opera 10.50 should note that this is a pre-alpha version. It is not intended for public release and installation in a productive environment. Users who want to install that version anyway should install it into a separate directory and not in their default Opera directory (if the web browser is installed on the system).

The pre-alpha version does not ship with Caracan. It does however offer other improvements including the layout engine Presto 2.5.18 (Opera 10.10 shipped with Presto 2.2.15). But that’s not the only change in this new version.

Opera has added Windows 7 support to the pre-alpha version which now supports thumbnail previews, Aero effects and jumplists (which display the speed dial pages).

Opera 10.50 introduces several layout changes as well. The menu is now a small icon in the upper left corner of the screen, the file menu header seems to be a thing of the past. This reduces Opera’s header area leaving additional room for the websites that are displayed in the web browser. It is still possible to display the menu bar which is an option in the new menu.

Another new features is the option to open tabs in privacy mode which Opera calls private tabs. Those tabs will open in the same browser window. They are displayed in a light green color to visually distinguish them from the other tabs.

Opera will automatically forget everything that the user did when the tab is closed. This is a tad more comfortable than the solutions provided by Google Chrome and Firefox which open the private browsing mode in a new browser window.

Opera plans to release a pre-alpha of Opera 10.50 on December 22. It is not clear if this will be the same version or a newer build. Many Opera users are still hoping to see the new JavaScript engine in action but it is unlikely that the developers will have added it to that release.

Opera users who would like to test the leaked pre-alpha release might want to consider waiting the two additional days to download the official pre-alpha instead.

The new version does introduce several other exciting new features like the excellent private browsing implementation, Windows 7 support or the new layout engine. (via Download Squad)

The main feature of this release will be the new widget behavior. Here is a short explanation if you are not familiar with Opera Widgets. Widgets to Opera are what add-ons are to Firefox. The main difference so far was the fact that widgets had to run in their own web browser window while add-ons did not. The other prerequisite was that Opera had to be open at all times for the widgets to show up.

This behavior changes with this new release of Opera. It is now possible to run widgets without Opera being open, pretty much the same way that widgets are used in Windows Vista and Windows 7. Opera calls this Opera widgets for desktop.

Concentration on this new feature becomes apparent on the first start of Opera 10.20 alpha. The welcome page displays a Twitter and Google Translate gadget which will redirect the user to the Opera widget repository. Launching a widget will now install it on the computer system. An icon will be placed in the start menu of the computer and it is now possible to run the widget without Opera running.

Opera needs to be installed on the computer system but it is theoretically possible to install and use the widgets without running Opera afterwards at all. This is however just a first implementation of the widget for desktop feature. Widgets can be installed to every location of the computer system. The announcement over at the Opera desktop team blog contains all the changes and known issues of this Opera 10.20 alpha release. The comments are worth reading as well. The blog post does contain download links for all supported operating systems as well.