gHacks technology news » opera 9.5 http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:09:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 Opera 9.5 Mobile Beta 2 http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/21/opera-95-mobile-beta-2/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/21/opera-95-mobile-beta-2/#comments Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:04:00 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=7763 The Opera development team seems to be doing their thing opposed to other browser developers who are more focused on the competition. The team released the second beta of the upcoming Opera 9.5 mobile browser yesterday which can be currently downloaded and tested but is supposed to be a commercial product once it is released in its final version. The current version Opera 8.65 is available for €19 at the Opera online store and this is probably the same price range that users can expect of Opera 9.6 mobile unless the Opera sales team would decide that they had to reduce the price because of the competition of the new Firefox mobile browser.

The new Opera 9.5 beta 2 is currently available for Windows Mobile and Symbian UIQ. A release for Symbian S60 phones is planned for 2009. The biggest new feature in this version is the mobile widgets support. Users should not confuse mobile widgets with widgets in desktop versions of Opera because they work and act different which is mainly caused by the limited screen space of mobile phones.

Widgets for Opera mobile are basically one click services that either open a function or website directly. Only a few widgets are currently available including a clock, Twitter or weather information.

Other additions are a new Zoom slider and some user interface and usability improvements in addition to many under-the-hood fixes in the browser core. It is a good time now to test the new Opera mobile browser if you have a mobile device running Windows Mobile or Symbian UIQ.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/21/opera-95-mobile-beta-2/feed/ 2 Opera 9.5 final released http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/12/opera-95-final-released/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/12/opera-95-final-released/#comments Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:21:28 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=4957 Opera fans rejoice. After a seemingly endless series of Beta versions and one release candidate the Opera developer team has finally uploaded Opera 9.5 final to the ftp site. The release is available in English and for International users and cannot be downloaded from anywhere else currently. The homepage still states coming soon which will probably change later this day.

Here are the download links for Windows, Linux and Macintosh.

The build number of the Windows release is 10063. It comes a bit as a surprise after the recent release of the first release candidate of Opera 9.5. There cannot be a lot of changes between this version and the release candidate earlier this week. As always there is no information yet on the changes, think we just have to wait a bit longer for the official release announcement.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/12/opera-95-final-released/feed/ 14 Move the Opera Address Bar to the Top http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/11/move-the-opera-address-bar-to-the-top/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/11/move-the-opera-address-bar-to-the-top/#comments Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:26:25 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=4942 The default way of displaying the toolbars in Opera might be confusing to users who are used to working with Firefox or Internet Explorer. The bookmarks toolbar and tab bar are located above the address bar. As you might know Firefox and Internet Explorer are displaying the address bar on top and the tab bar and bookmarks toolbar below it.

That’s an rather unusual layout at first and many users will be devastated once they realize that they cannot change the order of the toolbars in Opera. It is still possible to arrange the elements of the toolbars but not the toolbars themselves. That’s the whole trick. To do that right-click a toolbar and select customize from the menu.

The Appearance menu opens showing the active and inactive toolbars among other things.

opera appearance

The first step is to make sure that the Main Bar, Personal Bar, Tab Bar and Address Bar are checked in the Appearance menu. This adds another menu called Main Bar on top of all other toolbars. The layout should now look like this: From Top to Bottom Main Bar, Personal Bar, Tab Bar and Address Bar.

opera toolbars

I selected the customize option again and dragged the address form to the main bar (on top) and removed any other element on that bar afterwards by right-clicking the element and selecting Remove From Toolbar from the menu.

After that I dragged the Back, Forward, Reload button and Search Form to the Main Bar as well and disabled the Address Bar in the Appearance Menu. I now had all the functions of the Address Bar on top and the Bookmarks Bar and Tabs below it.

opera toolbars modified

If you have any questions about the procedure let me know please. If anyone knows how to reduce the size of the bookmarks toolbar let me know.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/11/move-the-opera-address-bar-to-the-top/feed/ 6 Opera 9.5 Release Candidate http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/11/opera-95-release-candidate/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/11/opera-95-release-candidate/#comments Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:54:22 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=4940 Finally. That was my first thought when I read the announcement over at the Opera Desktop Team blog that they released a release candidate of Opera 9.5 which can be downloaded for all supported operating systems including Windows, Linux and Macintosh. Windows users should take note that this release candidate will replace the default installation of Opera.

Opera has a very dedicated userbase for a very long time and I personally think that the browser deserves a larger market share so that it would at least be on pair with Internet Explorer and Firefox. If you have not updated Opera for a while you will notice that it comes with a shiny new skin.

opera 95

The following changes have been made in this version of Opera:

Copied the latest Dragonfly to the live servers – Check out their blog for the latest info
Various stability fixes
Opera no longer wants to update a nonexistent mail store when upgrading from 9.2 to 9.5
‘Download message bodies’ is now enabled on all POP accounts
Fixed a loss of filter rules on upgrade from 9.2
Fixed an issue with a missing Panel button
Fixed an issue where the ‘New tab’ toolbar was hidden behind the panel toggle button when no tabs were open
Added sharper panel selector icons
Fixed dragging of multiple items in the bookmark manager
Fixed Russian and German dictionary search
Improvements in backwards compatibility with skins
Fixed login with cookie on the 31st of all months bug

Mac specific changes

The disk image should work on Mac OS X 10.2 again
Some improvements to the Mac Native skin

Definitely worth a look and the announcement (coming soon) of the final version is already visible on the main Opera website.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/11/opera-95-release-candidate/feed/ 5 Access Gmail 2 with Opera 9.5 http://www.ghacks.net/2008/05/30/access-gmail-2-with-opera-95/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/05/30/access-gmail-2-with-opera-95/#comments Fri, 30 May 2008 07:29:43 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=4487 A new version of Gmail was introduced a while ago by Google which added several new features, like color labels, to Gmail. So called Gmail 2 is accessible through a link in the upper right corner of the Gmail interface. A click on Newer Version loads the new interface. Apparently though this link is not available for Opera 9.5 users. I’m not sure if it is available for Opera 9.27 users, if anyone could let me know it would be nice.

Google is using some kind of browser check to determine if the link to the new version is shown. It does not even help to mask or identify as another browser in Opera, the link will still not be shown.

Ryan from Cybernet News found a way in and I really have to thank him for finding the following url: mail.google.com/gmail?nocheckbrowser If you load Gmail using the parameter nocheckbrowser Gmail will not try and identify the browser and display all the contents in Opera as well.

That’s a pretty handy trick if you want to access the new Gmail interface with Opera. The best practice would be to add the url to your bookmarks in Opera if you use Gmail regularly.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/05/30/access-gmail-2-with-opera-95/feed/ 12 Speed Test: Firefox 3 vs. IE 8 vs Opera 9.5 http://www.ghacks.net/2008/03/12/speed-test-firefox-3-vs-ie-8-vs-opera-95/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/03/12/speed-test-firefox-3-vs-ie-8-vs-opera-95/#comments Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:18:41 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2008/03/12/speed-test-firefox-3-vs-ie-8-vs-opera-95/ I have not done any tests lately that would reveal the speed of each of the new upcoming browsers. The latest official builds have been tested, they are at the time of the test: Opera 9.5 build 9815/1834, Firefox 3 Gran Paradiso beta 4 and Internet Explorer 8 beta 1. I have been using the Webwait application for this test which monitors page loading times of pages that you select.

All browsers were already in memory and the following pages were each loaded once to avoid cache issues: Digg, CNN, Ghacks and Facebook. The results were pretty astonishing and I’m still thinking that some of the slow loading times might have been caused by a server hickup or a short prob with my Internet connection although I did not see any signs for that on my part. Another possible cause could be add-ons that have are already working in Firefox.

The most astonishing values are two page loading times of Firefox 3. It tool 13.17 seconds to load Digg while Opera needed 5.59 seconds and Internet Explorer 8 only 5.28 seconds. The second huge difference was encountered on Facebook where Opera 9.5 was the fastest browser with a loading time of 1.95 seconds.

Internet Explorer 8 followed with 2.83 seconds and Firefox 3 needed 22.60 seconds to load the page. Firefox on the other hand was the fastest browser when loading my site with 1.9 seconds followed by Opera with 2.38 and Internet Explorer with 4.83 seconds.

The same can be said for the loading time of CNN where Firefox needed 2.94 seocnds, Opera 3.38 seconds and Internet Explorer 8 4.58 seconds.

The only two values that stick out are the Firefox loading times of Facebook and Digg. Anyone here who would like to test the speeds on their connection and post the results in this thread ?

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/03/12/speed-test-firefox-3-vs-ie-8-vs-opera-95/feed/ 31 Opera 9.5 beta is out http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/25/opera-95-beta-is-out/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/25/opera-95-beta-is-out/#comments Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:51:00 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/25/opera-95-beta-is-out/ Opera fans rejoice. The very first beta of Opera 9.5 codename Kestrel has been released to the public. The biggest change is a new feature called Opera Link which offers a way to access all of your bookmarks and Speed Dial picks from one place. It does not matter if you access the Internet with Opera 9.5, with Opera mini or another browser, the bookmarks are always available.

If you do use Opera Link with Opera you can synchronize all bookmarks with Opera while other browsers obviously only have access to the web version. The changelog lists a lot of changes since Opera 9.5 Alpha including heaps of changes to the Rendering Engine and JavaScript / DOM.

Opera 9.5 beta seems to render websites faster than Firefox and Internet Explorer. I could make another performance test to see if the tests show that my subjective feelings are right.

Read More:

Opera 9.5 beta
Opera Link

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/25/opera-95-beta-is-out/feed/ 4 Opera 9.5 Alpha released http://www.ghacks.net/2007/09/04/opera-95-alpha-released/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/09/04/opera-95-alpha-released/#comments Tue, 04 Sep 2007 13:03:20 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/09/04/opera-95-alpha-released/ The Opera team released version 9.5 alpha of their acclaimed Internet browser today after working for more than one year on it. The changelog lists hundreds of changes, fixes and improvements, some of the most notable ones are: Performance improvements, site compatibility, new mail and news storage and indexing formats.

I conducted some speed tests with various browsers, including Firefox 3, Firefox 2, Opera 9.22 and Internet Explorer 7 and decided to test Opera 9.5 to be able to compare results. All browsers were tested against the following three websites: Digg.com, Cnn.com and Google.com.

It turned out that Opera 9.5 is faster than every other tested browser when opening google.com but slower in opening digg.com and cnn.com than both Firefox browsers were back then. I know that digg.com and cnn.com have dynamic homepages and digg had a interface change since then as well.

I therefor decided to test both sites with Firefox 2.0.0.6 and Firefox 3 as well to get better results. The average loading time of digg.com for Firefox 2.0.0.6 was 3.38 seconds which still 0.40 seconds faster than Opera’s loading time. Opera 9.5 turned out to load the website 1.4 seconds faster than Firefox 2.

It’s not possible to really claim that Opera 9.5 is faster than Firefox or vice versa but it can definitely be said that Opera 9.5 is faster than the latest Opera browser which means the Opera team is one a good way. Can’t wait to use the final version of it.

Read More:

Opera 9.5 download
Opera 9.5 Changelog
Browser Speed Comparision

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