back to article Norwegians spill Opera 10 alpha

Some Norwegians are offering you an alpha version of Opera 10, a new desktop web browser due for official release around the middle of next year. "With this alpha release," Opera Software director of consumer product management Jan Standal told The Reg, "the focus is on improving support for web standards and improving …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Horns

    3 attempts

    Oddly took 3 tries to get to100/100, First 96, then 99 now every refresh gets to 100. Mmmm buggy.

  2. JB

    Great!

    I hope they've added the ability to open a new tab by right-clicking a bookmark entry and selecting from a context menu, and they've had a go at their content/ad blocker. Apart from that, Opera is just great, as far as I'm concerned, and I'll be giving the beta a go when it's available.

  3. Christian Vest Hansen
    Go

    Re:3 attempts

    Mine worked on the first try, but I've heard others report an unstable performance.

    If I'm not mistaken, some of the tests are also about the speed of rendering, which in turn can depend on the hardware in use. Still, It's alpha software so bugs are to be expected, but even so I'm finding it remarkably stable and it is currently my primary browser for home use.

  4. Kanhef
    Go

    Progress

    Latest builds of Opera and the WebKit engine pass, Gecko engine close at 93, Konqueror coming along at 81. And IE 8 beta 2 is at 21. I'll bet it won't pass until Windows 7 is out, maybe not until its successor is released.

  5. Robert E A Harvey
    Thumb Up

    I wonder how they stay in business?

    I used to pay for Opera, back when that was what you did, because it was so good. People who didn't pay got an ad supported version. Now the only revenue stream seems to be the odd mobile phone vendor who is not a microsoft slave. I wonder how they pay the wages?

    I still like Opera, and use it on Linux and WIndoze.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bloat

    In-line spell checking is already in Opera 9 and people who write "rich text" email should be shot. Slowly.

    Like all long-lasting apps, Opera is suffering the "what can we talk about in the press release" problem. The fact is that all I want it to do is render pages better - but that's not a "new" feature that makes headlines any more than making an aeroplane that doesn't crash is something to crow about.

  7. Dane Pack

    Re: I wonder how they stay in business?

    They've licensed code to Nintendo for the Wii, and I think possibly to the XBox too.

  8. jon

    @JB

    erm, do you mean a new, *empty* tab/page?? Ctrl T, click on empty tabspace, rightclick on tab... been there for ages...

    - or just open a bookmarked page in a new tab?? just open the 'bookmark pulldown' and click the bookmark,

    or better, press F4, and rightclick for many actions.. (this menu stays put, no matter what you do on the page, even if it is all minimized... )

    - or are you just another anal, who cannot forget your beloved FF or IE???

  9. jon

    Its an ALPHA!!

    - and yes, when the last pre-pre-release alpha of FF came out, there were many things wrong with that, too...

    Opera 9 may have 'had' spell-check, BUT it did not work unless you downloaded a few other things first!! V10 works straight out of the box...

    Oh, and opera is making PLENTY of money from licensing deals... G'wan, google it...

    - its the internet model, guys... you dont really need much money to 'stay in existence'...

    and yes, the 'duff' note... there is a quite a bit of dissension here...

    http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=258333

    Myself, I blame opera's diminished ratings on them thinking too much on tidiness, style & security, instead of *making it compatible* with the strange and unusual webs out there....

  10. Mark
    Stop

    Unstable?

    I think they are selling themselves short, I have been using the Alpha since last Thursday, and it's very stable indeed, no crashes, memory management nicely under control, and web pages rendering correctly.

    There are a couple of small bugs I have come across, nothing earth shattering.

    I say why wait, give it a spin now, see what you are missing out on.

  11. Jon
    Paris Hilton

    @I wonder how they stay in business?

    The default search engine is Google. (And maybe the homepage is too?) So Google pay them tonnes of money for driving traffic to Google's search adverts.

    Mozilla have a similar deal for their Firefox browser.

    No "piles of money" icon, so I chose the "person who has piles of money" icon.

  12. J Thompson

    SharePoint

    It'd be lovely to have a version of Opera that is fully okay with the SharePoint site we have at work. I could then forget about having both IE and Opera open all day.

    I suspect that this is more a comment on SharePoint compatibility than Opera though. Long live Opera!

  13. Richard North
    Thumb Up

    It just keeps getting better...

    At the risk of sounding like a fanboi, I've been using Opera since about 3.5 or thereabouts, and it's been my default browser all the time - I've never needed to use a different browser unless a site has deliberately locked-out non-M$ browsers.

    I was first attracted to it by the fact I can browse completely mouse-free if my arthritis is playing up, but stayed for the 'feel' - I can make it just the stripped down to basics way I like it.

    IE8 is vastly improved over other M$ offerings, but it's still not a patch on Opera, and until the MS dev-team get as close to their user-base as the Opera devs do, it never will.

    I think that's a large part of what makes Opera special - the devs are only a forum-post away rather than hiding in a bunker someplace, so they get to hear the bare-arsed truth direct from the people using their product rather than being insulated by many layers of management.

  14. jon

    @ Jon, by jon :D

    quote:

    "The default search engine is Google. (And maybe the homepage is too?) So Google pay them tonnes of money for driving traffic to Google's search adverts."

    but that figure is rather small compared to the licensing deals...

  15. jon

    SharePoint compatibility...

    If you want support, goto the RIGHT place....:)

    http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=258997

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