Opera started off the morning by pleasing a lot of people! They broke the news that work on Opera 9.5 is almost to the point where they can begin releasing weekly builds to the public. They were a little light when it came to what new features would be included, but you can surely expect to see great things coming from their developers. Here’s what they did say:
- Improved CSS3 support (including text-shadow)
- Superior SVG support
- New javascript engine with support for ECMAScript 4 ’getters’ and ’setters’.
- Several usability improvements that make the popular features easier to access, and more consistent with other browsers. The changes made are based on the feedback received from the users.
- Screen reader support, which is typically used by the visually impaired to have websites read back to them.
- Improved keyboard navigation and more consistent keyboard shortcuts
- Mac users will get a new visual look and feel
- Many speed improvements which result in faster page loading and a more responsive interface.
Improved CSS3 support is sure to be a hit with developers, and as you can see in the screenshot (from the Desktop Team) Opera 9.5 passes the CSS Selector Test (definition) with flying colors:
The benefits of CSS3 compatibility won’t necessarily be apparent for awhile until other browsers also start to support many of the CSS3 features. I did, however, decide to test other browsers with the CSS Selector test to see how they stacked up, and to no surprise IE7 earned last place:
- Opera 9.5: Passes 578 out of 578 tests
- Firefox 3 Nightly: Passes 369 out of 578 tests
- Firefox 2: Passes 357 out of 578 tests
- Opera 9.2: Passes 346 out of 578 tests
- Internet Explorer 7: Passes 330 out of 578 tests
And did you notice the "Censored" part of the screenshot? That is apparently some new feature that they felt the need to hide from us. Guesses are running rampant over on the Desktop Team Blog as to what this feature is, but it seems like many are expecting a dock for the widgets. I agree because being able to click on an icon to pull up a widget would simply be awesome.
Aside from that I heard one guess that really struck me as interesting: virtual windows for the browser. It would kind of be like virtual desktops on Linux except it would only manage your browser windows. This would actually be cool because I could organize my tabs into virtual windows so that my tab bar wasn’t always so cluttered.
I’ll be sure to post when Opera 9.5 hits the shelves for testers, so keep an eye out for it!
It really amazes me that so few people use Opera. Of course IE holds the lead by far, but Fx’s share towers over Opera’s. I know extensions are good, but do all Fx users use them?
I’m really amazed by that as well, and the funny thing is that a lot of people I know don’t actually use any Firefox extensions. In fact I don’t think any of my friends do.
When it comes to Opera I think a lot of people assume it is too advanced for them because of all the features it has incorporated into it. I’ve been using Opera a lot more lately because of the better memory management, and I’ve been surprised at how little I’ve missed my Firefox extensions.
As soon as Opera opens up for extensions, I will switch back. Being able to send data to my notetaking app is a must have feature.
[quote comment="99215"]I know extensions are good, but do all Fx users use them?[/quote]Absolutely. To me, it is one of the major advantages of the Firefox web browser. No extensions, no Opera.
Wow…first they are 100% HTML complaint now the team is shotting for CSS, great job Opera team. Man it’s too bad that such a good product doesn’t get half the attention it deserves. Well at least mobile devices (such as the Palm Feleo, Nokia N800 to name a few) are using Opera web browser as their default browser.
Ahhh my beloved Opera i love u
Does Opera not being used by more ppl mean most ppl are too stupid to care ? I say yes.but that just me.
What features are you talking about?
Mail? I have a standalone mail program that is better than Opera’s.
IRC? I have a standalone IRC client that is better than Opera’s.
Bittorrent? I can’t recall ever downloading anything using bt.
Tabs, popup blocking, privacy control, session control, etc? Can do all of those in Firefox.
Now don’t get me wrong, I think Opera is a great browser, but that’s all it is. Firefox is much more flexible and give a lot more opportunities for integration with other applications.
Opera has a lot of features out-of-the-box that don’t require you to download extensions to do. It has mouse-gestures, more configuration options than Firefox, more advanced toolbar and button customizations, and then also the mail/irc. There is no doubt that you can do most, if not all, of this in Firefox with the help of extensions, but having all of this out-of-the-box can be intimidating for new users.
Look at the Wii. Nintendo chose Opera!
I think the biggest problem with including all of that out of the box isn’t intimidation, rather it is the fact that they are all included whether you want them or not. With firefox, you get to essentially “roll your own” set of advanced features. Sure a lot of people don’t use extensions, but I’m certain a lot of people don’t need or want all of those features in Opera either.
Indeed, and the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) also chose Opera who made a custom version of their browser just for it.
Yeah, you’re definitely right. The point being that people don’t want to use Opera because it has so many features, whether it be because they are intimidated or they see it as “bloat”.
One of my friends just switched to Opera though because Firefox and IE 7 both had memory leaks that would frequently cause his browser to go above 1GB of memory usage. He thinks it has to do with leaving Google Reader open all of the time, but he said that Opera never surpasses 250MB of memory usage. So you would think that all of Opera’s features (Mail, IRC, etc…) would bog it down but in reality they have the best browser when it comes to memory managment.
I use Firefox on a regular basis, but I also use Opera so I’m not partial one way or another. I recommend both browsers to people because they are both better than IE.
But even with the exhaustive feature list Opera somehow stays faster than Fx! Those developers are magicians.
With all this, it could be hard to believe I use Fx. The reason is I love IE7’s menubar-less interface. Buttons are easier to find, take less clicks to get too, look cooler, and save space. But I can’t use IE7 (no download manager, no undoclosetab, no spellcheck, no RSS to Y!, no find as u type) so I skin Fx to have the same great interface. I just don’t like the traditional menu bars. They’re inefficient, and the future looks like it’s w/out ‘em.
You could always put the Menu bar in a drop-down button in Opera as well:
[operawiki.info]
Can you put menu buttons on both sides of the tab bar like in IE7? I also really like the IE7 buttons and color scheme.
I don’t think that there should be a problem placing two buttons one on each side of the tab bar. There are also IE 7 skins for Opera