Opera hírek

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Opera Launcher is a launcher for Opera with additional options. It can

• disable crash startup dialog.
• delete quick find search histories automatically.
• empty Temporary Download Directory automatically (not Cache Directory).
• create daily backup of bookmarks, notes & sessions with date stamp. Bookmarks & notes backups will be created in profile\backups directory.

Download (size: 204 KB), unzip, place OperaLauncher.exe inside Opera installation directory (C:\Program Files\Opera\) and run it to launch Opera. You will see the following settings dialog when you run Opera Launcher first time.

Opera Launcher settings dialog

To restore previous version of bookmarks/notes, close Opera, move a version of opera6*.adr/notes*.adr from profile\backups directory to profile directory and rename it to opera6.adr/notes.adr.

Opera Software and Polish portal Webhosting.pl invited tech-savvy folks to test Opera 9.6 and write a review of it. 117 people from Poland sent their thorough feedback on Opera 9.6. After thorough assessment of all reviews, the winner, Michał Beyer, was announced.

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"We arranged this competition because Opera browser is very popular in Poland and we do have a lot of high skilled Web developers," says Dariusz Nawojczyk, editor-in-chief of Webhosting.pl portal. "Although the task was challenging, we received more than hundred reviews. Most of them showed that our readers are very aware when it comes to browsers and they have the ability to focus on specific features and technologies. Finally, there were three excellent reviews and we decided to give prizes to them all. I belive getting direct user feedback is beneficial for both parts of the market - the browser vendors as well as the users."

Meet the author

I'm Michał (aka m1chu), a Web developer from Poland. I've been working with (X)HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, JS (with frameworks) for over 3 years. I'm always happy to provide programming and developing help. This is why I wrote the review about Opera 9.6x browser which I have been using over 4 years. I hope that this notice helps you to get know Opera better. You can get more information about me on my devblog (Polish only).

Opera 9.6 review

Its developers were the first to introduce a tab system and built-in pop-up blocking. It was also at the forefront of the introduction of mouse gestures, integral BitTorrent support, and a toolbar-accessible search engine. With its innovative design, the Opera browser, which is under consideration here, has undoubtedly marked a development path for others. However, has the wave of innovations maintained its strength with the recent launch of version 9.6?

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Don't be afraid of a change, it might be for the better

For some time now, a widely discussed problem in the Web-browser market has been the domination of Internet Explorer (hereafter referred to as MSIE or IE), the browser which gave the word "alternative" a specific meaning in the industry. The problem is to determine the specific reason why Web users continue to use "the one true browser". Is it habit, or perhaps simply lack of familiarity with the alternatives?

Opera is one of the solutions on the "bright side of the force". It is safe, fast, comprehensive, intuitive to a large degree, and focused on standards compliance. Considering its characteristics and original features, it has frequent innovations.

After making changes to the graphical user interface, adding options like synchronization, and modifying the browser engine in the 9.5 version, developers focused mainly on improving and developing the existing functionalities in the latest Opera release.

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Customized preview of RSS and Atom feeds

A flaw in pre-9.6 versions was the lack of a customized preview for RSS or Atom content. Links to these were by default for subscription purposes, with the result of a feed generator possibly displaying only in the background. With this release, you can view message headers by default, and subscribe to a feed if you accept the content.

Introducing the above-mentioned enhancement has an additional advantage. It is now possible to modify the appearance of the built-in RSS/Atom reader. This way, you can directly add your feed to other Web-based external readers, such as Bloglines or My Yahoo, or carry out a feed item search. How do I do it?

1. Download this file

2. Replace the webfeeds.html file in C:\Program Files\Opera\Styles\ or put it in any other location (preferably the directory of the used profile: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Opera\Opera\profile\)

3. Type opera:config#Webfeeds HTML Template File in the browser address bar

4. Enter a new path to the webfeeds.html file

If you look closely at the content of the key file for this modification, you will see that by using XHTML, JavaScript, and style sheets, you can further improve your feed viewer in a quick and simple manner.

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Changes in mail support

A nice addition (consider it a small bonus) is the ability to follow or ignore threads and contacts. This works by marking a specific message or address with one of two options, so that any following or previous correspondence related to an e-mail will be added in the Mail panel in separate tabs (Followed Threads and Followed Contacts), or will be "disabled" (grayed-out or a contact will be crossed out) after being downloaded to a local computer. Such modes may be very useful if you are confronted with a jumble of messages that you want to divide into important and unwanted categories.

You can also mark messages by opening a context menu (right-click the message), choosing Follow or Ignore, and then selecting an appropriate action from a drop-down list. Through the Go To option in the same menu, you can quickly jump to your thread list. Everything is done in Opera Mail (previously called M2).

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Adapting when a connection is slow

In my opinion, a new feature that is more useful is the low-bandwidth mode. Despite the increasing number of users with fast broadband connections, this may be useful when you nevertheless have to save bandwidth currently in use or when you receive a large quantity of unwanted mail to a specific account. This setting works by downloading only a specified amount of data when retrieving messages. For IMAP, only the messages are downloaded, while any attachments are downloaded only after the user makes a request. For POP3, the mail client downloads only the first 100 lines of the message, until you request the entire e-mail to be displayed.

To enable this setting, select Tools > Mail and Chat Accounts, select an appropriate e-mail account, and in the Properties dialog go to the Incoming tab.

Unfortunately, the thing that is still missing is the Polish server list in the browser "database". The Chinese have managed to implement this, while we still haven't. We are, however, approaching this capability.

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Designed to meet the need for synchronization: Opera Link

When working on several profiles or workstations, it may be necessary to operate on a single source of various data types. In Opera 9.5, a synchronization option called Opera Link was introduced. It allows bookmarks, Speed Dial, notes, and your personal bar to be shared. In Opera 9.6, developers went a step further, adding typed history and custom searches to its support.

How does this feature work? First of all, you must sign up for a new Opera Link account. You can do this in one of two ways:

1. Sign up on the Opera Link flagship Web site

2. Sign up from a browser: choose File > Synchronize Opera... from the menu, select Sign Up, enter in the new user information, and wait for the account creation to be accepted.

Upon account creation, go to File > Synchronize Opera... from the menu again, and log on in a newly-opened window. On the first logon, you will be taken to an English-language information page. Now you can easily manage your synchronized browser areas by logging on to your Opera Link page.

Let's first explain how this property works. The idea is that after the synchronization is activated, any browser changes to be tracked are sent to Opera Link servers and assigned to your account. For example, when adding a new bookmark it will also be added to a list in the plug-in Web profile. Of course, such settings can be modified from the profile itself in the Web site. These will then be updated if synchronization is enabled in your other Opera browsers for the user account where the changes are being made.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to remove changes made through synchronization when Opera Link is no longer used (File > Stop Synchronizing Opera). Of course, you can revert to default settings or those existing before this feature was used, but only by entering them manually in a separate instance of Opera, or through scripting. I think that an option to reset would definitely be a good idea here. Maybe one day such a feature will be introduced.

It is also recommended to upgrade to Opera 9.61 or later, as the bookmark duplicate generation error is now fixed for the mode described in this section.

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The icing on the cake: the Opera Scroll Marker!

Another innovation is the Opera Scroll Marker—a feature that makes it easier to read visible borders on the page being scrolled. In the case of Web pages that require scrolling, a special line is displayed that indicates the end of the previous part, or the beginning of the next part of the currently displayed page. Simply speaking—the line is displayed where the scrolling started and in most cases becomes visible only when there is a large amount of text. To enable this feature, select Tools > Preferences... > Advanced > Browsing, and then check the box marked "Show scroll marker".

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A high level of security, speed, and standards compliance: truth or myth?

I would also like to explore how much truth there is in the claim that Opera is absolutely secure, fast, and compliant with established standards. I performed all tests on Windows XP SP3, Intel C2D 1.86Ghz processor and with 2GB RAM onboard.

I put Opera and its two biggest rivals to the test: Opera (both versions 9.52 and 9.62 in order to compare changes between them), Firefox 3.0.4 with a dozen or so plug-ins loaded, and the leading browser, IE 7. Except for MSIE, all pretenders to the title passed the Acid2 test without any problems. However, things change when it comes to the latest test of standards compliance, Acid3.

Without considering a few unofficial builds of the two competing browsers, all official versions that I know of are still in the game for the title of a 100% test-compliant browser. Opera shows progress in its latest version, although it is only very little progress. So this is only a small plus for it, as I think the developers could do better.

In speed tests, it is a lot better. In a style sheet content processing test, the latest Opera version is almost twice as quick as the previously tested version, which had a CSS processing speed comparable to that of Firefox, thus making the latest Opera version twice as fast as the "fox". The tests have been performed using this benchmark.

I performed similar performance tests for JavaScript processing. I used a WebKit benchmark for this, where results came in the same order as those of the previous test. The only difference is that even Opera 9.52 outclassed the two other browsers, while an optimization improvement when moving to a higher release is not as spectacular as for the CSS measurements.

In order to confirm the above results, I made an alternative measurement. Results for differences and classifications are similar to a large degree.

Each of the aforementioned tests was performed at least twice, and an average was calculated of all the results in order to obtain the most accurate result possible. Of course, I did not have any "sterile" or "vacuum" conditions to use, so these results are more to show differences than to show accurately how optimal the browsers are. I am also aware that there are many other substitutes in this area, sometimes even faster that the browsers mentioned above. Unfortunately, they are usually much less functional.

And one last issue is security. Apart from problems resulting from irresponsible use by users, Opera is known as a secure browser that promptly implements security patches. The fact that no unpatched bugs exist at this time, according to Secunia, is proof of that. Any errors found are immediately patched with the next update. The same was also true when version 9.62 was launched, where the possibility to run arbitrary code through a history search was fixed and the XSS Code Injection vulnerability in the link panel was removed.

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And the winner is...

Since I started to gain experience in Web script programming, I have always tried to use a range of Web browsers. Today, this experience gives me the ability to make a quite objective assessment of which ones to recommend and which ones to avoid. I can definitely, and with a clear conscience, recommend using the latest Opera release. Why?

Even though there is still no Acid3-compliant public build, standards compliance is being improved little by little (e.g. document object support has been removed from the iframe element).

Developers are also focusing their efforts towards compatibility with other browsers, which often makes work easier for Web solution providers (e.g. support for the non-standard caller property known from Mozilla browsers has been added).

Although this review is based on Windows releases of Opera, patches specifically designed for Mac or Unix users are not left out when preparing updates, as a single update includes many minor but equally important changes (see the list for 9.6).

If you don't try it, you'll never know what you're missing!

Are you tempted yet? Feel free to download! Have any problems? Look for a solution in the tutorials, and if you can't find it there, don't be afraid to ask in comments or in the forums.

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Yesterday the Opera Campus Crew at Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia hosted a very successful Opera Mini Party! It is one of the first major events of the Campus Crew since it started two and a half months ago. Gadjah Mada University is our biggest Campus Crew branch, with 35 members so far!

The Opera Mini Party was attended by 59 students, plus the Campus Crew team. The Opera Mini Party included presentations and demos of Opera Mini and Opera desktop, a photo session, installation of Opera Mini on participants’ phones, and Opera messenger bags as prizes!

Congratulations to the Crew at Gadjah Mada University for a successful event! Read all the details about the event on the Opera Campus Crew blog, and also their preparations for it.

The Campus Crew is part of the Opera Education program. Learn more and register to join the Campus Crew, to help spread the word about Opera on your campus!