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Hot on the heels of Firefox 3, the Opera team announced today that they are preparing for the launch of Opera 9.5, and they are doing so by shooting out the first (and possibly last) Release Candidate to the public. This comes just about one week after they added a new default theme to the browser. The Mac version of the theme is depicted in the screenshot above, and the Windows version can be seen here.
Here’s what the Opera team had to say about the big news today:
You might have noticed we’ve focused on stabilizing the Opera 9.5 snapshots lately, waxing the new look and feel of Opera, improving performance, security and most of all fixing a lot of bugs. Almost two years after the release of Opera 9.0, Opera 9.5 is now (almost) ready to be released.
This will be a pretty big release for Opera since this is the first version of their desktop browser to include the new Opera Link technology. With it users can synchronize their bookmarks between both Opera 9.5 desktop and Opera Mini, which is a killer combo.
There’s no mention of a release date for Opera 9.5, but they make it sound like it’s coming very soon. Maybe we can expect to see it out in June?
P.S. If you decide to install the Release Candidate in Windows it’s important to know that it will overwrite your existing (stable) Opera installation.
Get Opera 9.5 RC
Thanks for the tip Cody!
I’d like to point out that the new default theme is different from the one that was first introduced one week ago. The developers have listened to the feedback of the users (more users provided feedback on the skin snapshot than any other snapshot) and made some noticeable changes:
The improved theme has a less dark toolbar and panels (there were complaints that the theme was too dark). The active tab stands out more now, there is a new blue Home button which balances out the striking presence of the green button (it was a bit too much before), and some overall polish.
Also I’ve noticed that Gmail and Google Docs seem to work OK now — hopefully with the release of 9.5 Final, Google will bypass the browser check on most Google products.
Kinda fell bad for them since Firefox 3 will crush them….
@Googler,
Sure it will in terms of downloads — it’s the leading browser after IE. People, the majority of people, lack the advanced level of knowledge and aesthetics, in order to evaluate a web browser with objective criteria. Hence, tha majority of population is usually wrong. Having said that, it is only natural that IE and Firefox lead the browser market. Most people use Firefox just for the hype and because of the extensions (which are already built in in Opera and Maxthon).
I am both a Firefox and Opera user — I just don’t let myself get influenced with the former’s huge marketing campaign every time a new version is released. This time FF3 will be marketed not only as the “safest”, and “fastest” browser, but also as the one with the smallest memory footprint. And believe me, when the final versions of both Opera and Firefox are released, these statements will be proven wrong.
With CEO’s address and all I get a feeling that the final build of Kestrel may be here sooner than end of June.
Wow, I thought it was going to take a bit longer to reach the RC state. It seems that contrary to my assumptions, maybe Firefox won’t reach final sooner than Opera. In any case, it’s time to backup data for a clean installation
I did see that they released the version with all of the theme changes, and it’s impressive that they responded to the feedback of the users. I do agree that the blue Home button balances out the Refresh button.
Yeah, but Opera has their own diehard fans that will surely be excited about the release.
Firefox has a huge word-of-mouth campaign that has really proven to work for them. I actually have people ask quite a bit what Firefox is, and whether they should be using it. I don’t think that I have ever had someone ask me about Opera.
Yup, it will definitely be June according to the stuff I read. Opera Watch said “With Opera 9.5 and Firefox 3 both around the corner, June is shaping up to be a good month for the future of the web.” I would say that’s a good indication of a June release.
Yup, starting with a clean profile for every major release is something I always do. Helps alleviate some of the problems that people tend to have.