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Opera 9 availible for download

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 9:33 am
by Grim...
PC: http://snapshot.opera.com/windows/o90p2_8212.exe
Mac: http://snapshot.opera.com/mac/

Build in RSS, Bittorrent downloader and Adblocker.

And I like the trash bin :)

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 9:37 am
by malcolmboston
i actually installed opera 7 (legacy reasons) just last night, ive never liked opera, i cant really put a finger on why, probably because i now use firefox extensively and if its not firefox, its IE6 loaded up on my machine, whats it like?

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 9:54 am
by Chris Corbyn
I too don't like Opera much, although I have to say it's gotten *a lot* better the past few releases. The JavaScript capabilities are awesome too :)

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 9:58 am
by malcolmboston
from what i remember, whether it was other browsers fault or its own, i always remember opera showing things completely different to other browsers making me very angry and frustrated at some of the more 'exciting' designs i tried to employ, is it more consistent at rendering now?

i remember it used to have major problems with DHTML (dont worry, i dont use DHTML anymore, but when it came out.....exciting), even though it was slighly wrong in other browsers, opera would truly cock up and make it cimpletely unusable

has this got any better? what rendering engine is it using? its own? gecko?

i would just install it, but the amount of crap on my system now........

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 10:05 am
by Weirdan
has this got any better? what rendering engine is it using? its own? gecko?
It uses its own engine... I would be very surprised if they had switched to some other rendering engine.

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 10:07 am
by Chris Corbyn
malcolmboston wrote:from what i remember, whether it was other browsers fault or its own, i always remember opera showing things completely different to other browsers making me very angry and frustrated at some of the more 'exciting' designs i tried to employ, is it more consistent at rendering now?
This used to be a big issue with opera yes. It seems that they actually meet standards for a lot of things now though... most things I've tried in version 8.5 look the same as in firefox, even if IE still wears it's knickers on it's head.
malcolmboston wrote:i remember it used to have major problems with DHTML (dont worry, i dont use DHTML anymore, but when it came out.....exciting), even though it was slighly wrong in other browsers, opera would truly cock up and make it cimpletely unusable

has this got any better? what rendering engine is it using? its own? gecko?

i would just install it, but the amount of crap on my system now........
I still use a lot of DHTML.... just not in websites, only in applications and not without alternatives :)

Opera's DHTML handling has, for at least the past 2 releases impressed me. I'll bite my tongue and say that although non-standard and annoying IE still wins if you don't mind writing non-standard code for DHTML. Opera includes a lot of it's own JS features as well as all the standard stuff.... and it's nowhere near as slow at handling it as FF or IE :)

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:23 pm
by Roja
I wrote a brief review about Opera in general, and Opera 9 (beta 2) in particular on my blog. Hope its useful reading, please share feedback if you have any.

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 3:01 pm
by Moocat
I'm pretty much dead on with Roja about most of his comments (on the blog), although I somewhat disagree with the extensions. I'm more concerned with the over-usability of Opera. I personally like keeping my browser simple, without all the tools of Opera. While it does offer quite a number of tools (many of which I will never use) I find it easier to take 3 seconds to install the plugins which only have the tools I utilize and nothing more.

I also (being a layout/design oriented person) like the inherent "neatness" of Firefox, where everything is placed in nice little boxes with no extra muss (see above "extras"). Not only can I just "get rid of it if I don't like how it looks" I can actually change the appearance of things, such as my menus, icons, etc.

The last gripe I have about Opera is that it has some downright weird displays on some CSS based pages. While Opera does many things correctly (probably more than IE) it does things wrong "differently" than FF or IE, which means that I have to code for three browsers...which is not on the top of my "things I like to do" list. FF and IE are at least similar in the problems they produce, while Opera leaves me hunting for sometime before I come across a small paragraph hidden away stating something like "Opera's default padding is not 1px like every other browser".

That all being said, I would prefer to use Opera over IE because they do at least try to fix their problems and it is a very fast browser. They are also good on the security side in my book. If IE weren't so popular, they'd be my second choice of browser testing. Alas, their market percentage in the PC market does not encourage me to put in the extra effort required for compatibility so...Opera users...use that nice little toolbar you so proudly tout and click "FF compatible mode" if you will...for the time being :)

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:38 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
Weirdan wrote:
has this got any better? what rendering engine is it using? its own? gecko?
It uses its own engine... I would be very surprised if they had switched to some other rendering engine.
Opera 9 TP2 is a Test Preview and not even a beta but even for a test preview it acts more like a beta or release candidate.

Opera 9 uses a completely different rendering engine from previous versions. This engine is called Merlin. Usually when Opera changes a full version number (5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, ect) that usually means they are using either a completely different rendering engine or there have been massive changes to the previous versions engine.

Opera 9 TP2 is damned amazing for being so SMALL with so many features. And the nice thing about it is how little memory it uses. :) Right now only 53 meg is being used with 10 web pages open and the M2 email client running (if you do not enable the email client in Opera the dll isn't even loaded). They have some smart programming where only what is needed or enabled is ever loaded unlike the shotgun effect other browsers tend to use.

I kept Opera 8.51 installed at the same time as Opera 9 TP1 because TP1 had problems rendering some sites. I went back to those sites and they all render perfectly now so I am half temped to uninstall Opera 8.51 since I haven't run into anything that TP2 can't display properly.

And they actually got the Bittorrent support RIGHT with TP2 unlike the Opera 8 test preview almost a year ago. I have downloaded a number of things using Opera 9 TP2 from a number of Bittorrent sites and everytime it was damned fast and flawless. Nothing like downloading a 200 meg file at 350+ Kbytes per second from 4 peer connections while browsing other web sites. :D

They plan on releasing the final version of Opera 9 in June and it is just going to kick butt.

The only thing I didn't care for are the Widgets. I know they added them because other browsers like Firefox have them but I think they are totally useless. Fortunately the Widget bar is disabled by default. ;) They don't take up hardly any room if you install some of the availible widgets but I think junk like that, no matter the browser, just clutters things up needlessly. I like my browser to be clean. :D

Here is how I have my Opera 9 TP2 configured.

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Click Image to view full size in another window.

As you can see mine is radically different from the default setup for Opera 9. :D That is one of the great things about Opera. You can configure all toolbars to display however you want. You can even move things to a single toolbar instead of using multiples. It's just too damned cool.

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 7:10 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
Oooo... this is new...

Image

If you move your mouse over any of the tabs for the different web pages you have opened it will open a tooltip for that tab giving information about the page in that tab as well as a thumbnail image showing the page contents. :D

And the History tool is one hell of a lot better.

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The history information is now categorized by website and when. :D Makes hunting down where you have been a hell of alot easier. :D I am finding out many new things with this test preview. :D

Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 2:04 pm
by Roja
AKA Panama Jack wrote:Opera 9 TP2 is damned amazing for being so SMALL with so many features. And the nice thing about it is how little memory it uses. :) Right now only 53 meg is being used with 10 web pages open and the M2 email client running (if you do not enable the email client in Opera the dll isn't even loaded). They have some smart programming where only what is needed or enabled is ever loaded unlike the shotgun effect other browsers tend to use.
That gap is closing quickly. Firefox 1.50.1 made substantial improvements in memory use. My FF with *24* plugins installed (many of which have no equivalent in Opera) weighs in at 25mb, while Opera is at 17mb.

Granted, 33% is nothing to sneeze at, but when the minimum reqs for the OS itself is 256mb, and most people have half a gig, an 8mb difference is little to crow about. Especially when you add in the reduced functionality and extensibility. Lets put it in monetary terms. Right now, NewEgg.com has 1gig of pc3200 DDR ram for $73. That means Opera saves $0.58 worth of ram.

Don't get me wrong, I'm quickly becoming an Opera fan, but making it out to be the ultimate in memory savings is overselling it quite a bit. Personally, I'll trade 8mb (and $0.58 ) for my 24 extensions any day.

One thing that totally should be mentioned is that O9 appears to be only a *single* bug away from passing the Acid2 test!!! [EDIT: Turns out its three, two are subtle]