New Opera Alpha is Amazing

[ButteBlues]

Normally, I'm not the type to create these threads, but seriously, Opera 9.5a1 is rocking my world at the moment.

Downloads are here: http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/9.50-Alpha-1

Read more about enhancements/changes here: http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/


:)

[Engnome]

Opera is simply the best browser on the planet. IMNSHO ;)

[LaRoza]

Opera is simply the best browser on the planet.
I wouldn't say that ;), but since I am using it now, I can't say that is false.

[karellen]

yes, indeed opera is good

[Darkhack]

One of these days I might try Opera. I have a hard time building up the courage to do it though. Last time I tried Opera was many years ago when it was spyware/adware. I have a hard time letting that go despite all the changes that have happened over the years.

[tcpip4lyfe]

One of these days I might try Opera. I have a hard time building up the courage to do it though. Last time I tried Opera was many years ago when it was spyware/adware. I have a hard time letting that go despite all the changes that have happened over the years.

I'm trying it for the first time right now. Very impressive so far. Very fast and lots of cool features.

[allix]

I'm extremely disappointed. 9.5 was supposed to have a native qt4-skin, which this build doesn't. Hopefully the next build will be better.


Last time I tried Opera was many years ago when it was spyware/adware.

Opera was adware yes, but never spyware.

[mrgnash]

Just installed it... And I am afraid to say that I do not see what makes this version so much more impressive than its predecessors. Integration with the Gnome desktop is still poor, and that is why I do not use Opera, and use Epiphany instead ;)

[Old Pink]

They've got a great browser there, but it's certainly no firefox. :)

[Kingsley]

I used Opera for over a year since 2005 because it was faster on my old 599 Mhz computer. Since I got a new computer and discovered Linux, I switched back to Firefox. I can't say I miss Opera much. There's still no great way to block adverts and the widgets can't match Firefox's extensions.

I just downloaded a useless ruler widget for Opera. What the hell do I look like using a ruler on the internet?

[Andrewie]

This is only the first alpha so I'm really just happy it compiled, one of the reasons I was looking forward to this was qt 4.

[FuturePilot]

Make the Mplayer plugin actually work with Opera and I might give it a try.:(
I don't get why I can never get that thing to work with Opera. Does anyone else get a white box where the Mplayer plugin should be?

[Colonel Kilkenny]

I'm extremely disappointed. 9.5 was supposed to have a native qt4-skin, which this build doesn't. Hopefully the next build will be better.

I'm not sure about this but everyone has been talking about that there is no shared qt4-version. The static one could be using qt4... Just a guess though.


Just installed it... And I am afraid to say that I do not see what makes this version so much more impressive than its predecessors. Integration with the Gnome desktop is still poor, and that is why I do not use Opera, and use Epiphany instead ;)

Well, it is fast for starters. First time qt4, first time 64-bit, etc.
And if one has any knowledge of webdesign etc. things like these might be impressive:
- new ecmascript engine (very fast) and lots of fixes to javascript/dom support
- http://www.css3.info/selectors-test/
- http://www.css3.info/preview/text-shadow.html
- partial SVG Tiny 1.2 support
- support for using SVGs in img elements and the CSS background-image and list-style-image properties

Etc. etc.


There's still no great way to block adverts and the widgets can't match Firefox's extensions.

I just downloaded a useless ruler widget for Opera. What the hell do I look like using a ruler on the internet?
Content blocker is IMHO very great way to block ads. If user happens to have some sort of phobia about ads then it's obviously quite sad situation. Although cronjob does exist.

Widgets aren't there to replace extensions. They are widgets and can be used in Opera Desktop, Opera Mobile etc.. I don't personally use widgets much but that ruler might be some sort of designer tool. So it's useless to you but not for everyone. Believe it or not, somebody made it because it was needed...


edit. And Mplayerplugin is working I guess. Though it's useless because it's old and the same guy who developed mplayerplugin is behind gecko media player which works perfectly in all browsers..

[plb]

They've got a great browser there, but it's certainly no firefox. :)

Only thing good about FF is the extensions...other than that it's well a slow, bloated, memory hogging piece of rubbish.

[jrusso2]

I hope they fix it so you can use plugins.

[Npl]

Its quite a bit faster than the current version (9.23), both in Linux and Windows. It still doesnt feels as snappy as in Windows with multiple pages open, but its a very notable improvement \\:D/

[LaRoza]

Only thing good about FF is the extensions...other than that it's well a slow, bloated, memory hogging piece of rubbish.

Hopefully, FF 3 will fix that. In Alpha, it is quite nice (I use it), and faster.

[abhitux]

My mail store update seems to be stuck. I tried downloading Kestrel and installing over and above the existing 9.23 (any ideas as to how to install it in a different path?) If I pause or cancel the process of formatting my mail from the previous mail version, Opera tends to crash and be a kill joy. Is this the behaviour observed by others or mine is an isolated case?

I am using Ubuntu Feisty. By the way, the brief period of time it worked, Kestrel is blazingly fast and is an absolute joy to use. I am soo soo desperate to make this work.

which build of Opera to dowload? The Static or the shared version?:(

[Npl]

My mail store update seems to be stuck. I tried downloading Kestrel and installing over and above the existing 9.23 (any ideas as to how to install it in a different path?) If I pause or cancel the process of formatting my mail from the previous mail version, Opera tends to crash and be a kill joy. Is this the behaviour observed by others or mine is an isolated case?

I am using Ubuntu Feisty. By the way, the brief period of time it worked, Kestrel is blazingly fast and is an absolute joy to use. I am soo soo desperate to make this work.

which build of Opera to dowload? The Static or the shared version?:(
I hope you backed up your .opera directory - just in case. Its an early alpha-Version so it will miss some features and have bugs.

shared .deb version should be the prefered one, but if you install it it will overwrite the old version. I havent done it, but you could try extracting the .deb file with file-roller and then copying the files manually to avoid overwriting old ones. you`d also need to edit some .ini files for unique paths

[abhitux]

Hmm. But then why should the process of formatting my emails should get stuck up? Your idea sounds practical but then how to go about it? Any step by step guide possiblle? Thanks in advance.

[blithen]

I loved opera. But one major complaint was for some reason the font was tiny, and very sharp, and hard to read. I asked around, and they told me to do a few things, and nothing fixed it. So here I am back at firefox.

[Mazza558]

I loved opera. But one major complaint was for some reason the font was tiny, and very sharp, and hard to read. I asked around, and they told me to do a few things, and nothing fixed it. So here I am back at firefox.

You can change all the fonts in the application in Preferences > Advanced. I have it set to Bitstream Vera Sans (IIRC).

[tyler.ness]

Which file do I download? I'm running Ubuntu 7.04. I'm not sure if I get the static or shared qt.. and what the different numbers mean.

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/8627/screenshot1yt0.th.png (http://img524.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot1yt0.png)

[mips]

Which file do I download? I'm running Ubuntu 7.04. I'm not sure if I get the static or shared qt.. and what the different numbers mean.

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/8627/screenshot1yt0.th.png (http://img524.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot1yt0.png)

I installed the last one on that list.

[mips]

I must say it is very fast. The only issue I have it that the font & page rendering does not look to hot.

[KCPokes]

I'll have to try the upgrade. Love Opera for speed, but from a developer standpoint Opera can be a little tiresome with their javascript implementation. Pretty bad when Opera is the only browser that doesn't seem to handle Ajax calls correctly (hint, it doesn't like null values in variables). When you are serializing forms it can be a problem as the potential for null values are going to exist.

[FuturePilot]

Just tried it and I'm still getting a white box where the Mplayer plugin should be. Doesn't anyone else have this problem?

[Rupertronco]

Some of the plugins are a bit sketchy at the moment, which is to be expected, I think it was released 2 days ago. It's significantly faster than anything I've worked with, but it's still incapable of opening home pages in multiple tabs, and the old work around no longer works, shame.

The speed dial function is pretty cool, if you haven't seen it just hit a new tab button and it gives you 9 thumbnails of pages of your choice, its neat, and a great improvement from the last version, but not close enough to perfect to become my browser of choice.

[Dynaflow]

I loved opera. But one major complaint was for some reason the font was tiny, and very sharp, and hard to read. I asked around, and they told me to do a few things, and nothing fixed it. So here I am back at firefox.

I had a font-rendering problem too, but I found a solution on the Opera forums that worked for 9.23. See: How to make Opera font rendering not suck (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=474960).

[mthei]

There's still no great way to block adverts...

http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/opera/urlfilter.ini

copy and paste that into the urlfilter.ini file in the Opera folder in your home directory. You'll never see an ad again, just like with adblock plus.

Oh, and I haven't tried the new one yet. I've always downloaded their weekly builds, but the fact that this is still in alpha makes me nervous. I'll wait until there's more work done on it.

[FyreBrand]

This version of Opera is really nice. It's fast and has a pretty small footprint. I mean really small. I opened the Task Manager and checked running processes.

Firefox (with 3 open tabs): 116,804 KB
Opera (with 3 open tabs -- same sites): 12,312KB
IE6 (one window, no tabs): 17, 052KB

Maybe there is another process name it's running, but if there is I couldn't recognize it. I will have to compare it to IE7 when I get home.

Aside from that I impressed how much work they're putting into this version. I really hope it meets my needs.

[jasay]

Anyone else having issues with Opera 9.5a and google maps? It's incredibly choppy in map mode and almost unusable with satallite images for me.

Otherwise, I'm liking it a lot.

[Kingsley]

http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/opera/urlfilter.ini

copy and paste that into the urlfilter.ini file in the Opera folder in your home directory. You'll never see an ad again, just like with adblock plus.

Oh, and I haven't tried the new one yet. I've always downloaded their weekly builds, but the fact that this is still in alpha makes me nervous. I'll wait until there's more work done on it.
That's pretty cool. Thanks.