The next major upgrade to Opera Mini, code-named “Dimension,” is on the verge to being released to testers. Daniel from Opera Watch says that you have to be invited to be part of the Beta program and that you can be put on the list by providing your name and email address here.
Tabs are probably one of the things that have almost become a requirement for Web browsers. Without tabs I know for sure that my productivity would dramatically decrease because they help me multitask in a way that keeps all of my Web browsing separated from my other applications.
Nintendo just announced that the Internet Channel browser (powered by Opera) has reached its final form. This browser is optimized for the Wii and contains several improvements over the last Beta release, including better search support for Yahoo! and Google.
Opera 9.1 was released back in December 2006, and now several months later we are able to welcome Opera 9.2 with open arms. With new features like Speed Dial and developer tools this makes Opera even more valuable to its users. Here is a brief overview of what’s new in Opera 9.2:
I subscribe to feeds all the time, but many of the browsers are different in the way they handle feeds. Firefox has a pretty nice interface for choosing an external application as the default subscription handler while Internet Explorer (IE) and Opera are both a little more tricky.
Firefox is known for having its inline spell checker that underlines misspelled words as you type them. I truly believe that this feature in Firefox has helped the Internet as a whole become more readable by reducing the number of misspellings in even the simplest things, like comments.
A new release of Opera is inching closer, and right now early adopters can get their hands on the official Opera 9.2 Beta. This version actually contains a compilation of features that I have mentioned as they were in development:
While I have a tendency to use the Firefox browser most of the time, I do use Opera quite a bit as well. Opera is kind of my casual browser because it is slim, efficient, and yet powerful while Firefox offers the extensibility that I need when plowing my way through hundreds of different sites I visit everyday.
I’m not sure how I missed it, but on Wednesday Opera revealed a new “speed dial” feature that is currently available in their latest weekly release (thanks to XPGeek in our forum for pointing this out!). It’s actually been two-weeks since Opera announced that they were going to offer a unique feature in the next release, but they didn’t want to say what it was.
Opera’s development team is at it again, leaving the users in nail biting suspense! In a recent post by the Opera Desktop Team they walk you through the various codenames for upcoming releases of Opera.
Now that Windows Vista has been released it is time for software developers to start making their applications look a little cleaner with the Aero Glass interface. Right now most applications look alright, but many of them don’t take advantages of Vista’s new graphical capabilities...specifically browsers.
The Opera Desktop Team just announced a new experimental build of the desktop version of the Opera browser. The version that they are currently working on is 9.2 and when released it will have a few new features, including a usage report collection as mentioned a few weeks ago.
The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) computers fall a little short from being a hardcore gaming machine, so they need to include an efficient Web browser that can handle the job without consuming all of the available resources. Opera is working on a custom version of their browser for the laptop but, as this post states it really isn't anything different other than a custom skin and toolbar.
Opera has decided to take the route that other software companies are taking to improve the user experience. They are now asking people to download an experimental build of Opera (version 9.12) that will test a new reporting function that they have implemented. Like most other usage reports, this one is not designed to steal any personally identifiable information from you.
As websites continue to become more and more AJAXified I believe that bookmarklets are going to become a larger driving force. Some of you may not be familiar with bookmarklets, so I was trying to think of a good way I could explain them. When I stumbled upon the Wikipedia article I thought it couldn't be said any better:
