Opera today has announced that improvements are also coming to Opera 12.00, the next version of the browser that is currently under development. The old system, according to Daniel Aleksandersen, matched the terms the user entered against the page url, title or page content and ordered them by last visit.

Opera’s new system assigns a score to each suggestion that is based on additional factors like the position of the term in the url, the number of matches or the position or if the match is a bookmark.

The feature is still in development, as Opera is still working on integrating the browser’s Speed Dial feature and improving the scoring algorithm further.

Suggestions seem to favor search heavily in the current build, which has been one of the points of criticism. Another that it is now more difficulty to distinguish between sources, that site identification has become more difficulty as favicons have been removed, and that it sometimes is not clear why a page has been added to the suggestions.

In my own tests, I was unable to get suggestions if the entered phase did not start at the beginning of the url. The term hack for instance did not list lifehacker or ghacks in the suggestions.

It is my opinion a step in the wrong direction. Keep in mind though that this is not final and may see improvements in future builds. You can download the latest Opera Next version from the Opera Desktop Team blog.

The browser should pick up the new version information from the server and display an update window right away. A click on Download and Install updates the browser to the latest version.

Opera 11.61 is a stability and security upgrade, which makes it a recommended update for all Opera users. Two security issues are fixed in the new version, one that allowed manipulation of framed content to allow cross-site scripting, and another were script events “could be used to reveal the presence of local files”.

The change log lists about 50 additional changes and fixes that went into the new version of the browser. This includes several crash related fixes, including the following ones:

• Crash when clicking “Use master password to protect saved passwords” checkbox
• Occasional crash when clicking a link or opening a new tab
• Opera crashes when closing a tab that has the Star Menu opened
• Opera crashes on updating mail from version 9.27
• Crash in host resolver when closing browser after loading large number of tabs simultaneously

Interested users can access all change logs on this page. Opera 11.61 has been released for all supported operating systems. New users and those who do not want to use the internal updater can download the latest version of the browser from the official Opera download page. It is suggested to update as soon as possible to fix the security vulnerabilities in the browser.

You have probably heard about out-of-process plugins before. Chrome and Firefox are using the technology to split the core browser process from installed plugins. This is done to improve the stability and security of the browser. The reasoning behind the move is that plugins can be the cause for browser crashes. Without out-of-process plugins, the whole browser would crash and need to be restarted. With out-of-process plugins, only the plugin crashes and the browser remains open.

This is also important from a security perspective as exploits use crashes sometimes to execute code that they would otherwise not be able to run.

The new opera_plugin_wrapper process is started whenever a plugin needs to be loaded to display web contents. The process is closed automatically when the plugin is no longer needed.

Opera won’t crash if a plugin crashes, and the plugin page will be reloaded to fix the issue.

Opera Linux users have benefited from the browser’s out-of-process architecture for some time now. Windows and Mac users will see out-of-process plugins integrated for their versions of Opera in the future.

The second big change are 64-bit for Windows and Mac systems. According to the announcement, the 64-bit versions of Opera offer “performance improvements in some specific areas and allow Opera to have more freedom in allocating memory”.

Keep in mind that the versions that have been released at Opera’s Dev site are experimental, and not necessarily suitable for work environments. They can be installed next to existing installations of the browser.

How can you find out if you are running a 32-bit or 64-bit editions of the Opera browser? Easy. Just enter about:opera in the address bar and hit enter. The platform value indicates if you are running a 32-bit or 64-bit edition of Opera.

Downloads are offered at the Dev Labs page linked above. (thanks to Howard for the tip)

The new version of Opera 11.60 is already available on the official Opera website. Existing Opera users can consult the release notes for their operating system to find out what’s new in the release.

When you look at the changes you will notice that Opera has packed a lot of them in the release. Opera Mail users will find that the mail client has received a redesigned interface. New features include automatic mail grouping by date, pinning of messages which corresponds to Imap’s flagged feature and Gmail’s starred message feature, a new settings dialog and two lined message lists.

New HTML5 and CSS technologies have been implemented in the browser. This includes the HTML5 parsing algorithm, HTML5 audio and video attributes such as preload or muted, HTML5 microdata support, HTML5 custom scheme and content handler support, ECMA Script 5.1 support, XMLHttpRequest Level 2 support, full support for radial-gradient and repeated-radial-gradiant as well as support for applying image-rendering properties to HTML contents.

Dozens of bugs and issues have been fixed in Opera 11.60. This includes problems opening the Google Mail inbox, a mouse gestures crash, a 100% cpu usage on subpages of the Cisco domain or an inline find crash.

The security section lists five security related issues that have been fixed in the new version of the web browser.

It is recommended to upgrade Opera stable versions to the latest version as soon as possible.

You can read the announcement over at the Opera Desktop Team blog.

NotScripts is available for Opera 11.10 or newer. the installation process is a bit on the complicated side. Here are the instructions on how to install NotScripts correctly.

• Install the extension. You can install the latest NotScripts version right from the Opera Extensions repository.
• Close the Opera window and re-open Opera.
• Click the NotScripts button in the Opera toolbar.
  It would show you a message saying you to set User JS Storage Quota to 5000. Click the message and it will take you to the ‘User JS Storage Quota’ setting.
• Change the value of the setting from 0 to 5000.
• Click the Save button. You might need to scroll down to find the Save button.
• You may need to restart the Opera browser before the changes take effect.

Opera’s Notscript, unlike NoScript comes with three different script blocking mode. The default mode is whitelist which blocks all scripts except those that are run from whitelisted domains. Blacklist, the other option allows all scripts by default and blocks only scripts on a user maintained blacklist (much like the Firefox add-on YesScript). The last mode Whitelist + Same Origin uses the whitelist approach to block all scripts but allows scripts running on the same domain the user is on automatically.

So more choice in this regard which is really nice. When you visit a site you need to click on the NotScript icon to display the list of blocked scripts. There is no indicator that scripts where blocked which is probably the biggest usability issue. A click on the icon displays the scripts which options to allow, block or temporarily allow them individually.

If you run the blacklist mode (allow all scripts except selected ones) then you see a script listing similar to that on the screenshot above. The blue action is the current one for that script on that particular site. Just like with NoScript you can allow all scripts, globally allow all temporarily until revoked or temporarily allow the shown scripts.

NotScript seems to work considerably well. I have two big gripes with it. First the missing notification as it is a guess game if a script has been blocked or not and second that the developer has not updated the script in a while (the last update dates back to April 2011).

The extension itself works and that’s the most important aspect obviously. It is not a 100% port of NoScript but a port that brings the most important feature of the Firefox security extension to Opera. For that, it is highly recommended to be installed.

An alternative to that is the Opera NoScript Alternative BlockIt which I have reviewed in the linked article.

Mail improvements and changes have been implemented into the latest snapshot build of Opera 11.60. Snapshot builds are Opera versions released for testing and bug finding. While they usually work fine they are not suitable for productive environments.

Please note that the released snapshot build will upgrade existing Opera stable builds by default. Users who want to install the snapshot for testing purposes should click on Options and select a different home directory to avoid this. (One option would be to select the Stand-aline installation in the advanced options).

Probably the biggest change in this release apart from the cleaned up look is the new two-lined message list.

The new layout displays three mail columns when Opera Mail is opened. First the Opera Mail message, feeds and attachment listing on the left, then the actual messages from the selected mail folder and after that the selected message.

Users who do not like the change can switch back to list only or list and message below views easily.

Mails are now also automatically grouped by date. This can be switched as well to status, label, size or subject sorting, and grouping by read status, flag or date.

Another interesting new feature is the ability to pin important messages in Opera Mail. That’s handy if you need to reply to an important message but cannot do so right away, or if you need to access contents of a mail regularly. The pin message button appears in the message’s header and as a small dot next to the message listing.

Interested computer users can download the latest Opera 11.60 snapshot with improved mail module from the announcement over at the Opera Desktop team blog. Downloads are provided for all supported operating systems (which means Windows, Mac and Linux).

The core difference between two mobile browser versions is how Opera Turbo is handled in the browser. Opera Turbo is Opera’s compression service that reduces the size of web pages by sending the data through an Opera server where they are compressed before they are send to the user’s mobile device.

Smaller data packages means faster page loading times and a reduced bandwidth bill for users who pay by the Megabyte.

Opera Mini 6.5 is now available for new devices (The Android version has been out for a few weeks) including Apple iOS, Symbian, Blackberry and J2ME devices. The big new feature in Opera Mini 6.5 and Opera Mobile 11.5 is a new data counter that allows mobile users to keep tabs on their bandwidth usage. While that may not be exciting for users with flatrates, it may very well make a big difference for consumers who pay by the Megabyte (or capped data plans).

Other improvements include stability and performance fixes, better text selection and auto-correct and spell-check support for iOS devices. Interested users can read up on all the changes at the official Opera Mini blog post.

A blog post over at the Opera Mobile blog informs users about the changes in the release (please note that Opera Mobile 11.5 has been available for some time for Android based devices on the Android Market)

Opera Mobile 11.5 introduces the data usage view on Symbian devices. The new version benefits from an Opera Presto rendering engine upgrade as well.

Opera Mobile users on Symbian devices can access the changelog here. Symbian users can point their browsers to m.opera.com to download the latest version of the Opera Mobile or Opera Mini browser. Browsers may also be available in the Apple App Store and on Android Market.

Opera Reader is an experimental Opera version that does away with all the scrolling on the Internet. It’s premise is to display all contents of a website directly on the screen. It basically breaks down a website into pages that are displayed just like the pages of a book. The developers have used a scroll and book comparison to highlight the differences. Scrolls are like standard websites that go on and on until the content ends, while books use pages that offer several advantages over scrolls.

Opera Reader turns scrolls (aka scrolling web pages) into books (aka paged web pages). Whenever you open a compatible web page in Opera Reader, you will notice that all of its contents are displayed on the screen without horizontal or vertical scrollbars. Here is how a compatible page looks in the standard Opera browser and in Opera Reader.

The core difference is the missing scrollbar. Opera Reader users can use the mouse to flip pages. Alternatives including using the keyboard (left and right) or gestures on touch enabled devices.

Separating a website into pages does not reduce the browser’s functionality at all. It is still possible to search, print or work with the whole web page like it would be in a standard version of Opera.

The Opera team has published a few examples on the Opera Reader website. This includes a basic newspaper, the novels Oliver Twist and Alice in Wonderland and a sample Wikipedia page.

The biggest issue with Opera Reader in its current form is that websites need to add specific CSS3 code to support the feature. Opera needs to come up with a way to automate the processing of web pages in Opera Reader. If the company manages to do that, it could change the way we read contents on the web forever.

Opera Reader is currently available as a preview version for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android devices. Interested users can download the preview release from the official project website over at Opera. (via)

The second o-day security issue has received a critical severance rating as it can be used to crash the web browser and execute arbitrary code on the system.

Users running the latest stable version of the Opera web browser, which is 11.51 at the time of writing, should receive automatic updates right away.

It is alternatively possible to check for updates manually by clicking on Opera > Help > Check for Updates. The new version is also available for download at the official Opera website.

The new Opera version comes with stability enhancements as well. Opera 11.52 fixes a issue on YouTube where adjusting the volume on playing HTML5 videos could freeze the web browser. It furthermore fixes a issue where BitTorrent downloads would lead to a crash of the web browser.

It is likely that Opera 11.52 is the last 11.xx version of the browser. The development team has recently released Opera 12 alpha which showed improvements all over the board. The new version introduces new technology support. This includes support for WebGL and full hardware acceleration.

Tech enthusiasts interested in this development version of the browser can download it directly from the Opera desktop team blog.

I ran Opera 12 Alpha through a series of tests and boy did the new version manage to impress. Opera 12 Alpha scored 336 points and 9 bonus points in the HTML5 test, that’s more than Firefox’s 314+9 and a lot more than Microsoft Internet Explorer 9′s 141+5. Only Google Chrome Dev managed to beat Opera by 8 standard points and 6 bonus points.

Opera still trails behind in the Peacekeeper benchmark when compared to the most recent Chrome Dev version, at least on a fairly standard Intel Core i7 system running Windows 7 Professional (Ghacks reader Matthew mailed me on the other hand stating that Opera beat Chromes run by nearly a factor of 2. Then again, he failed to mention the Chrome version tested).

This version of Opera has full hardware acceleration support. The browser is set to auto detect hardware acceleration capabilities of the graphics card. Opera notes that support works best if graphics card drivers are the most recent and that users may experience bugs in the alpha release.

Users who want to disable – or force – full hardware acceleration support in the browser need to open opera:config in the browser and filter for EnableHardwareAcceleration to disable (0), auto-detect (1) or force (2) hardware acceleration in the browser. Similar settings are available for the WebGL. Users need to filter for EnableWebGL to turn it off (0), auto-detect (1) or force on (2) the technology.

You can check if hardware acceleration is enabled in your version of Opera by loading the opera:gpu page in the web browser. If you see Vega backend: Software it is not enabled. Hardware acceleration uses a OpenGL backend currently. Opera has announced that support for DirectX will be implemented at a later time in the browser.

The developers have added new personalization features to the browser. Skins have been renamed as themes, and you can download and install a few on the official Opera themes page.

Interested users can download Opera 12 Alpha for all supported operating systems from the Opera Desktop Team blog.

News about the next Opera browser version and Opera Software in general have almost come to an halt in that time. Users interested in the browser may have picked up some news over at the Desktop team blog which is more or less the official place to go for Opera development information.

Opera 11.51 has been out for some time and the next version of Opera that the developers are currently working on will be Opera 12.00, codenamed Wahoo. Here is a screenshot of the latest snapshot of the upcoming web browser.

One of the first things that users will notice is the new skin that Opera is currently working on. The Featherweight skin modernizes the browser interface in several aspects including updated and polished icons, blending of panels and better colorization.

The real changes however are under the hood. Opera 12 ships with an updated core rendering engine and the HTMl5 parsing algorithm Ragnarök (which is more or less the Norse mythology version of the Apocalypse with the difference that the world will be reborn after this).

The developers have furthermore added full EXMAScript (JavaScript) 5.1 support. You will notice that the current Opera 12 snapshot fails some of the tests of the test run at the ECMAscript homepage. All other web browsers tested, including Firefox 9, Chrome 16 and Internet Explorer 9 fail tests as well.

If you look at all the changelogs posted you will notice that the developers are working hard on fixing bugs and other issues in the browser. It is not clear when Opera decides to release the next version of Opera to the public. The development team usually posts a few release candidate builds before they release the final version.

With the planned design, rendering speed and compatibility changes Opera 12 will seamlessly follow in the footsteps of previous Opera releases. You can download the latest snapshot release over at the Opera desktop team blog.

That’s usually the end of the story. Once you switch the default browser you are all set up to work with that Internet browser on the system. There may be situations on the other hand where you need to switch the default browser multiple times.

This can be in a development environment where you have installed multiple browsers. To make the testing easier, you switch default browsers. But it can also have technical reasons. Say you do not get the prompt to make your favorite browser the default browser on the system. While you could edit the Windows Registry manually for this or try to uninstall and re-install your favorite browser, you might also use a program like Change Default Browser for the job.

The program supports the four web browsers Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Opera. It detects the installed browsers automatically and displays them in the interface. You can use the browse button to select a different browser, for instance if you have multiple versions of a browser installed on the system. You can even select other programs or executable in case you want to make a different browse the default on the system.

To make a browser the default, simply select it in the program interface and click on the Set Default Browser to make it the default system browser.

If there is something to complain about it is the need to install the application before you can change the default browser on the system. Other than that it is a solid program with no downsides.

You can download the program that is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows from the official program homepage. Please note that you need to run the program with elevated rights as it needs to make modifications to the Windows system registry.

Still, Mac users that run the Mac Os 10.7 Lion operating system get support for the new full screen application mode introduced in the OS by Apple.

The changelog lists several crash and stability related fixes. This includes a fix that drops the cpu utilization of Opera’s extension manager and several Speed Dial related crashes on some user systems.

The new version furthermore fixes several usability issues, like toolbar buttons that were no longer showing up in Opera’s user interface.

Opera 11.51 fixes two security issues. First an issue “that could allow unsecured web content to appear secure” and second an undisclosed low severity issue.

The new version of the Opera web browser is already available via the browser’s internal updating mechanism. Users can check for new updates via Opera > Help > Check for Updates. The browser should however pick up the new version automatically by the time of writing.

New users and users who do not want to update the browser via its updating tool can download the latest version from the official Opera website.

The next release as it stands now will be Opera 12.00, a new version that is likely to ship with new features and improvements. This includes speed improvements and better network latency. Opera confirmed that users might see page loading in half the time as before, especially on poor network connections or when connecting to web servers hosted on a different continent.

Opera Software regardless of that is about to release an update for the latest stable version of the Internet browser. You may recall that Opera is currently working on two different versions of the browser: First on Opera 12 the next big release and then on the maintenance release Opera 11.51 which all stable users can update to.

Opera 11.51 will be a maintenance release that improves the browser’s stability on all supported platforms. Opera’s plan is to release Opera 11.51 before the next big version Opera 12.00.

The developers right now have released the release candidate of Opera 11.51 on the official Opera Desktop Team blog. This indicates that a release of the final version of Opera 11.51 is imminent.

The change log lists several crash fixes, for instance a crash on Macs when opening Opera Dragonfly, or a crash on all systems when marking e-mail messages as “not spam”.

Opera users should not expect new features from the release, as it is only being pushed out to resolve issues that users have under Opera 11.50.

It needs to be noted that Opera 11.51 will upgrade Opera 11.50 on the system when installed. The release won’t touch a Opera Next version that is installed on the system.

Most users should probably wait for the final release before they update their web browser. That is, unless they work with Opera and experience one of the issues that version 11.51 fixes.

Opera 11.50 users can download Opera 11.51 Release Candidate from the Opera website.

They praise Internet Explorer’s SmartScreen filter for protecting users against significantly more social malware than any other current browser, and by the looks of the chart below this is by some significant margin.

In their report the firm describe socially-engineered malware as…

Socially-engineered malware attacks pose a significant risk to individuals and organizations by threatening to compromise, damage, or acquire sensitive personal and corporate information; statistics from 2008 – 2010 show that this trend is increasing at a rapid rate. According to a recent study by AVG, users are four times more likely to be tricked into downloading malware than be compromised by an exploit; criminals continue to increase their use of malware as a cybercrime attack vector. Anti-virus researchers report detecting between 15,000 and 50,000 new malicious programs per day, Kaspersky Lab has even reported detecting up to “millions per month.”

They go on to describe IE’s SmartScreen filter as…

The SmartScreen Filter protection offered by Windows Internet Explorer 9 has two components: URL Reputation, which is included in IE8 and Application Reputation, which is new to IE9. IE9 caught an exceptional 92% of the live threats with SmartScreen URL reputation, and an additional 8% with Application Reputation. IE9 with SmartScreen offers the best protection of any browser against socially engineered malware. Protection against malware targeting European users matched our broader findings from the Q3 2010 global test.

The results are quite something, and other browser makers, Apple, Mozilla and Google will no doubt fight back rigorously with strong statements that their browsers are every bit as safe and secure as Internet Explorer, if not more so.

In the tests though, Internet Explorer 8, the previous generation of Microsoft’s browser, caught 90% of all live threats with IE9 catching 92% and reaching 100% of all threats when the known reputation of applications was factored in.

This is compared to the other browsers.  Apple’s Safari caught just 13% of live threats, Mozilla FIrefox 4 also caught 13% which had dropped from the 19% the browser caught in the same tests last year.  Opera 11 caught only 5% of all threats and Google’s Chrome browser caught, again, just 13% of all live threats.

StartScreen is not a widely talked about feature of Microsoft’s browser.  The company describes it as…

a feature in Internet Explorer that helps detect phishing websites. SmartScreen Filter can also help protect you from downloading or installing malware (malicious software).

They say that is “analyses web pages” as you visit them to “determine iof they have any characteristics that might be suspicious”, “checks the sites you visit against a dynamic list of reported phishing sites and malicious software sites” and “checks files you download from the web against a list of reported malicious software sites and programs known to be unsafe.”

This feature though is only as good as the people who keep the information up to date, which means that a 92% success rate today might not mean you’ll get that tomorrow.

Every week, new social malware is being discovered that is trying to trick users into installing it and surrendering personal information such as their credit card details with ever increasing believability.  The recent attacks on Apple Mac users by Mac Defender is an example of just how convincing this software can be.

The weak link with malware and viruses will always be the user, as it will always be this person who has to click or select something in order for malware to infect their PC.  It’s commonly said that the only safe PC is one that’s still in the box and has never been switched on.

The developers, always good for a surprise, managed to build a first Opera 12 snapshot about a week after the last Opera stable release.

Interested users and web developers can download the latest snapshot right from the Opera website. Oleg notes that Opera considers this a pre-alpha release which means that you should not upgrade just yet. It is thankfully though very easy to install a second Opera version on the computer system.

Just click on Options on the first installation page and select a different install path to install Opera 12 into a different directory on your system.

You can switch to a stand-alone installation after you have changed the install path.

The release includes “important2 bug fixes and some polishing.

You wont find any new features in this early release, but Opera seems to be already working on new features which will be included in future snapshots of the new browser.

Interested users can take a look at the detailed changelog at the Opera Desktop Team blog. Fixes include some crash issues and freezes, as well as other bugs and unintended behavior.

Downloads are offered directly on the blog as well, as usual for all supported operating systems.

It is good to see that Opera has stepped up their game significantly over the past years. It feels as if the company is non-stop working on new browser versions. Especially communication with the public is excellent, something that both Mozilla and Chrome lack dearly, especially when it comes to snapshot releases (yes Mozilla publishes information but I never quite understood where and when news were posted, and when not).

They can be used to display information in real time on that age, from news to stock market information and weather reports.

There are currently 47 different speed dial extensions available on the Opera Addons page. This includes only English addons, additional addons are available for other languages.

I looked through all available extensions and have compiled a list of extensions that I consider to be the most useful. Obviously, you may have different requirements and expectations. I suggest you look at the extension listing after reading this article to see if there are other extensions that you might want to install.

• Stocktwits: Display trending stocks based on social chatter.
• Speed dial countdown: Add a timer to Opera which you can use as a reminder for instance.
• Analog Clock: Displays a basic analog clock on the speed dial page.
• The Weather: Displays a weather report for a location of your choosing.

• Photo Tagger: Tag photos on the Internet. Those appear then on the speed dial page. You can open the images at anytime once they are tagged.
• Live News Feed: Display the latest news of your favorite website on the speed dial page.
• Webcam Viewer: Display a web cam feed on the new tab page.
• Calendar: Display a calendar on the speed dial page.

• Currency Dial: Display currency conversion rates on the speed dial page. You can select two currencies in the preferences.
• Stay Secure: Select programs and software that you want to be informed about security vulnerabilities.
• Flickr Photostream: Display photos of a Flickr user on the new tab page.
• IcoLog: Display favicons of visited websites.

Those have been twelve interesting speed dial addons for the Opera 11.50 web browser. With the final release of the browser, it is likely that the count will go up considerably. Have you tried Opera 11.50 yet? If so, what is your impression of the new version?

Opera 11.50 has been in development for quite some time. It has been available for almost the same time as Opera Next, a snapshot build that highlighted the features for developers and first movers.

You will immediately notice that the developers have changed the looks of the browser significantly in this release. We talked about this in detail a few days ago.

Users are greeted by new toolbar icon sets, rounded corners, lighter softer colors and an overall more pleasant, integrated look.

But this release is not only about the interface or cosmetic changes. Opera 11.50 introduces a dynamic new tab page. Opera users can now install Speed Dial extensions, for instance to display a weather report, RSS feed, news or stock market information right on that page. They find all available Speed Dial extensions here.

Opera Software has improved the rendering engine of Opera 11.50. According to them, it is now up to 20% faster when rendering CSS and SVG. It also supports the new HTML5 tag time and password synchronization.

Opera notes on the official changelog that Opera 11.50 “is a recommended upgrade offering new and improved features, plus security and stability enhancements”. Opera users who run Opera 11.11 currently can check for updates with a click on Opera > Help > Check for Updates.

New users can download the latest version of Opera from the official homepage. It is available for all supported operating systems and languages.

So, the http prefix is gone in the latest Firefox 7 nightly builds. As is the trailing slash at the end of the web address. This is how the Ghacks homepage looks like when opened in the latest Firefox nightly.

The highlighting of the domain name has been in previous builds before. The only protocol that is currently removed from the display is the http protocol. Other protocols like the previously mentioned https and ftp protocols are still displays in the address bar.

A https website is now displayed in the following way in the address bar. The https part of the url is displayed in light grey now which means it is mostly visualized by the colored certificate verification area in front of the address now.

This is slightly different from Google’s approach on https websites. Users who open secure sites in Google Chrome see a colored lock and the https procotol in the address bar. Google unlike Firefox and Opera does not change the color of the subdomain (like www.). Only the directories are shown in a light grey color.

The Opera web browser handles it differently as well. The browser hides all protocols by default, but displays them when the user left-clicks on the address bar. Opera users can furthermore right-click on the icon in front of the url to show the full web address all the time.

A secure site in Opera looks like this:

Internet Explorer 9 finally uses yet another color and display scheme for web addresses. It is the only browser that displays all protocols all the time. The standard http protocol, the subdomains and the directories are shown in a light grey color to emphasize the domain name.

Four browsers, four different ways to display website addresses. Which is your favorite and why?

Project Featherweight consists of several phases of which the first has been first has been made available in the new development build.

The general idea behind Featherweight is to make “Opera as light, bright and user-friendly as possible” without losing the browser’s flexibility interface wise.

Users who install the new build will instantly see some of the differences compared to previous Opera versions. I have created two screenshots, the first showing the old Opera interface, the second the new interface of the latest Opera Next build.

The Opera Next button, and other elements of the interface resemble that of the Firefox browser now. The toolbar icon set has been completely revamped, and users will notice the softer background and border colors immediately.

Users may also notice the new status bar design, which now integrates the Opera Link, Opera Unite and Opera Turbo buttons in a less obtrusive manner.

Button borders have been removed from the Opera address bar, and the home and fast forward buttons have been made optional, meaning that users who want them back need to add them through customizations.

A right-click and the selection of customize > Appearance opens the configuration menu where toolbars and buttons can be added to the Opera interface. New buttons are simply added via drag and drop. They become visible and accessible immediately afterwards in the interface.

The new interface has been made available for all Windows, OS X and Unix versions of the browser. Interested users can download the latest snapshot build from the Opera Desktop Team blog. Opera Next can be installed next to an existing version of Opera.