Opera 9.0 Released

Nurgled writes "After teasing us for months with betas and snapshots, Opera Software have finally released version 9.0 of their web browser. The new version features correct ACID2 rendering, native support for the SVG Basic profile, a built-in BitTorrent client, support for Microsoft's designmode and contenteditable extensions, per-site configuration, Atom support, Web Forms 2.0 support, Canvas support (and some Opera-specific extensions), NTLM authentication, some support of parts of CSS3 and lots more. The full changelog is available." p14nd4 adds "And for you *nix users, it hasn't hit their .deb repository quite yet, but there are regular installers available for the major players, including a fixed Ubuntu installer and an x86 Solaris version."

How about an API

[Magada]

I love Opera. I'd love it even more if it came with the possibility to create extensions.

OMG!? "Opera-specific extensions"!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ehh.. What happened to the worlds "most standards complient browser"? *dismay* 8-O

Re:Finally

[someone300]

More of a resource hog?

In my experience, Opera is the least resource hogging browser there is that supports the latest standards (except IE maybe, but that's broken so it doesn't count). I usually use firefox but will start Opera when I'm low on RAM.

Re:Good,

[elrous0]

While it is closed source (and doesn't benefit from extensions like Firefox) I'd still like to say that, in my experience, Opera is probably the best browser out there for both supporting standards like Acid and simultaneously rendering IE-specific pages with a great deal of fidelity. In fact, at one time, I actually suspected it was just a skin for IE--since it was so consistently good at rendering IE-specific pages that sent Firefox into a tailspin.

-Eric

Re:BT Client sucks - about:config

[Anonymous Coward]

about:config / opera:config -> BitTorrent -> Max Upload Rate
Not that I'd use Opera for mail, bt, irc, notes and whatnot. Damn featurebloat, just let me surf :/

Re:Finally

[ceeam]

They tend to try different combinations of features and then check users feedback. They had built-in ICQ client once, for example. If no-one uses something it will probably go away.

Re:Finally

[Danga]

I used to agree but after downloading and installing Opera 9.0 it is using 33MB RAM with just this slashdot article open while IE and FireFox are hovering around using 23MB RAM. While typing that last sentence it has now gone up to 34.5MB. I love Opera and it has everything I need and has always been fast and reliable but this is starting to worry me. There are only 34 comments in this thread so far, what is so much memory being used for? I suspect some type of caching but of what on a slashdot article page? Strange.

Re:OK, since you're so well informed..

[Nurgled]

It varies. Web Forms 2.0 is open and specified at the URL linked in the original summary, though it isn't actually finalized yet. It's also designed to be backwards compatible, so there's no reason why you can't go ahead and use most of it on sites now and suffer no ill-effects. As for canvas, I believe it now works in Firefox, Safari and Opera but obviously not IE. SVG can be added to most browsers via a plugin if they don't support it already.

Certainly we're not going to be making use of most of these things tomorrow, but it's getting to the point where IE is the only one left that doesn't support them. Obviously that's a biggy, but the IE team has shown recently that they are willing to play nice by implementing everyone else's adaptation of their XMLHttpRequest object, so it's not inconcievable that they'd implement some of these other new toys if they prove useful.

nice!

[MrP-(at work)]

Just upgraded to 9.0 on my work PCs (windows and ubuntu linux) without any problems.

Will upgrade my home PC within a week probably.

I just love how easy it upgrades, from version 7.x to 8.x and now 8.x to 9.x I've had my same skin/custom buttons and it just works. I remember upgrading previous versions and the skins would no longer work and I'd have to find a similar one and customize it from scratch again.

Now its so easy.

Only bad part is the new widgets menu.. I'm very anal/obsessive compulsive and I hate change (which is why ive had the same skin since version 7 and similar skins in 5 and 6).. now im all twitchy.. i hate when they add/remove menus =P

Re:Finally

[baadger]

While it's true that Opera and Firefox run neck and neck, with Opera losing the overall resident memory battle in some cases, Opera doesnt suffer from the runaway memory issues some people report with Firefox (although i've never experienced it that badly myself) and it always seems to _feel_ much more responsive and snappy than the fox.

I personally find myself using Opera exclusively on Windows and Firefox on my Gnome/Linux desktop.

Frightening the Fox.

[delire]

Reading changelogs such as these [opera.com] should strike fear into the hearts of the Firefox developers, while that they squander so foolishly their hard-earned market share. If it wasn't for Opera, Joe Clickit wouldn't have reason to think FF was so poorly cobbled together.

Firefox, while it started with good intentions has become thick around the midriff. It's memory useage is embarassing, and I use Linux which is apparently the build target Firefox is most optomised for. [howtocreate.co.uk] How long can we be told we're sick of being told they're imagining FF's gushing memory leaks.. Why does an open-source application fall so miserably behind a closed-source competitor? The trend is the inverse.

Re:Good,

[ceeam]

As an anecdotal evidence: back in the day (Opera 3.60) it did not support unicode (few browsers did) and it displayed russian pages in Unix encoding (KOI8) all quirky. I did not have source for Opera, but the binary was quite clear enough so that I could hack in a menu item and optional transcoding subroutine (disassembler, debugger, hex editor - usual tools) - I'm not making that up. You know - Mozilla may be open source but it is bloated enough that I don't want to fuck around trying to make it compile on my machine (and I'm not sure if it compiles with anything other that MSVC compiler for Windows). So - in this sense Opera was more open for me. The difference between binary and source code is more quantative than qualitative.

EMAIL CAUTION

[sl3xd]

Opera's email client is awseome in general (and is usually my primary email client) -- but there is one issue that I've found that they have yet to fix: IMAP mail...

It's a bit of a weird one: If you use a non-opera email client (with IMAP, at least -- I don't use POP), and that email client is the first to see a new message, there are a few issues. (Say, you use your 'company mandated' email client to get the mail at work, then Opera at home.)

Opera doesn't acknowledge the existence of emails that have been first detected with a non-opera browser. I noticed this because I kept looking for particular emails that had seemed to vanish on me. I finally noticed the problem -- Opera simply wasn't detecting the messages. They were sitting there in my inbox, but Opera coudln't see them.

Otherwise, I've been using the Opera 9 (beta) series, and I've been quite pleased.

Re:The Lifestyle that is Opera...

[Tezkah]

have you found any decent skins for Opera on OSX? The nicest one I've found has variable tab length, which is annoying. (for example, if you go to a page with a long title, it takes up most of your tab bar. see this example [imageshack.us].)

Not a deal breaker for most people, but the lack of good skins is enough to keep me using Safari+Saft (it looks very nice with Unified Aqua applied). Anyone have any ideas?

But how does it work with Google?

[navarroj]

I have always loved the Opera browser, I really think it is the best browser available out there. Fast, standards complaint, everything well integrated together, it has also a very clean, nice, intuitive and easy to use interface. I really was a huge Opera fan. However I had to give up and stop using it essentially for one reason: it does not work well with new Google products. Gmail used to break every other week, maps didn't scrolled properly, I never managed to properly render the calendar. Dunno who's fault is this Opera for not implementing some relevant stuff heavily used by new Google's technology, or Google for heavily using technology on which there is still not yet a standard. I am now downloading the new Opera 9.0 to see it for myself, but does anybody knows whether the situation has improved, or if there is at least some interest on either party to solve this very frustrating problems??

Looks like Opera is back.

[guidryp]

I used Opera for years, but once firefox hit 1.0, I switched. I kept trying new Opera versions, but they fell short in compatability area or content control like Flashblock that I just couldn't live without.

But now with all the per site configuration, I may finally switch back. Per site identities, per site masking, per site control of multimedia; These were things I always said Opera needed to deal with a poor web pages. The diehard Opera heads would always tell me we have the change all the bad web sites. Being a realistic person, I knew that wasn't going to happen. So I stuck with Firefox.

But now I am ready to give Opera another shot. It was a great browser, now with more control and compatability, it may be back in my books.

Bravo Opera dudes.

Re:Good,

[Matt Perry]

Opera may well be closed source but it's a far better browser than Firefox which still suffers from memory issues and runs like a pig if you happen to hit the wrong website with the wrong combination of plugins installed.

Yeah, but Opera is just a browser whereas Firefox is slowly becoming more of a platform for web based tools. Let's forget about whether Opera is open source or not. The real issue is that until Opera supports the ability to add some type of extensions, like Firefox does, then there will be many people who continue to use Firefox over Opera, even if they feel Opera is a better "browser". I like Opera a lot. I use it when editing data on certain sites (like MusicBrainz.org) because it renders pages so quickly. However, for the majority of my day to day work it lacks the functionality I get with Firefox and all of the installed extensions that I use. I just can't abandon those tools.