opera

It's time to embrace software's auto-update era

Driven by Google and like-minded software makers, a new era is dawning in which your software is constantly refreshed--often without any intervention on your part at all.

Depending on how you see things, that could be either a scary loss of control over your own computer or a boon to convenience and security. Either way, the practice is increasingly common.

I, for one, welcome it.

In the last week or so, I've manually updated Google's Chrome, Chrome Canary, and Picasa; Adobe Systems' Flash Player, Photoshop, Premiere, and AIR; Microsoft Windows 7 and Office 2008 for the Mac; Apple … Read more

Opera 11 rocks out

The bottom line: Extensions, highly competitive page-load times, cutting edge features, and strong support for "future Web" technologies make Opera 11 one of the best browsers available.

Review: The second-oldest browser currently in use, Opera debuted way back in 1995 and has recently undergone a major overhaul. No longer the quirky choice of enthusiasts, Opera has developed into a robust, full-featured suite of browsing tools.

Opera covers the basics with tabbed browsing, mouse-over previews, a customizable search bar, advanced bookmarking tools, and simple integration with e-mail and chat clients. Mouse-gesture support, keyboard shortcuts, and drag-and-drop functionality round out … Read more

Opera 11 joins the add-ons club

Mobile Opera may be driving the Norwegian browser company's growth, but that doesn't mean that the desktop browser is getting ignored. Debuting today, Opera 11 for Windows, Mac, and Linux has only gotten more stable since the beta version of the browser launched last month.

The most requested of the new features is the lightweight extension API framework, which brings to Opera a long-missing capability to directly add to and customize the browser. Having launched while the browser was in beta, there are already several popular extensions available, including ad-blocker NoAds; YouTube downloader FastestTube; Image Preview Popup for … Read more

Top downloads and more

Download.com served up more than a billion software downloads in 2010--a huge feat, to be sure. And it may be tough to believe, but just 10 products made a huge contribution to that number. To recognize the programs that have dominated the Most Popular list for this year, we ranked the top 10 in 2010 among Windows downloads for your viewing pleasure.

Also, it may not have made our top 10 list, but Freemake Video Convertert certainly has its fair share of loyal fans. Since the software recently revved to version 2.0, we checked it out yet again … Read more

Opera for Android to get HTML5 video, Flash

Two significant features are coming to Opera Mobile for Android, the Oslo company's higher-end smartphone browser: playing HTML5 video and accommodating Adobe Systems' Flash Player plug-in.

"New Web technologies aim to replace it, but Flash will be around for some time. If you have Flash player installed on your phone, Opera will support it," mobile team member Pavel Studeny said in a blog post on Saturday.

HTML5 video, one of those technologies that encroaches on Flash's turf, lets developers embed video directly into a Web page, as happens with images. It's also en route Studeny … Read more

Opera goes to 11 with an extensions API

Editors' note: This post originally stated that the Opera 11 beta was not yet available for Linux. In fact, Opera 11 beta 1 for Linux is available for download here.

Opera may be getting most of its attention these days from its mobile browsers, but that doesn't mean that the company is ignoring its desktop browser. The first beta for Opera 11 introduces a long-missing extensions API in a lightweight profile similar to those that run on WebKit-powered browsers like Chrome and Safari.

Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Opera 11 beta 1 debuts other minor but useful changes. … Read more

Android gets a multi-browser advantage

The browser wars have extended to mobile devices, and that's good news for consumers.

Last week, Mozilla released a second Firefox beta for Android. Yesterday, Opera released its first Opera Mobile beta for Android. Neither is ready for prime time, much less used on more than a tiny fraction of phones, but already I see them as a step forward.

Why? Because now there's an important new front in the browser wars.

And while that means more stress for browser makers and more testing for Web developers, it holds the potential to dramatically improve browsing for the rest … Read more

Hands-on Opera Mobile beta browser for Android

Opera Software just unveiled Opera Mobile 10.1 beta for Android tonight, but we've had a chance to play around with a prerelease version for several days. Opera has already had a presence on Android phones in the form of Opera Mini, a Java-based proxy browser that delivers Web pages fed through Opera's servers. Opera Mobile, by contrast, is a standalone HTML browser that can request, render, and display Web content independently of Opera's servers.

On the front end, the two apps look identical, down to the log-in screen and license agreement you'll have to accept before you can begin browsing. Opera Mini 5 and Opera Mobile 10.1 beta both have tabbed browsing, and a signature nine-entry "speed dial" for storing favorite sites. There's also a password keeper, long-press context menus, and support for Opera Link, Opera's service for syncing bookmarks, favorites, notes, and browser history across Opera browsers.

Mobile versus Mini Despite the similarities, there are a couple of significant differences between the two Android browsers. Opera Mini is usually the faster of the two browsers, a move that hearkens back to Opera's days making browsers move quickly on feature phones with slow processors and slow data connections. As a result, Opera's servers compress Web page data; this assures that pages load in a timely manner, but it also reduces text and image resolution quality. Besides that, there's no Flash support.

Opera Mobile, on the other hand, renders images (using its Presto rendering engine) with more clarity. If the browser seems too sluggish for your tastes, you can engage Opera Turbo, Opera's compression engine, to essentially make Opera Mobile adopt Opera Mini's levels of compression and speed. Opera Mobile beta doesn't currently support Flash, although an Opera representative assured CNET that the release version will.

Naturally, we tried out Opera Mobile 10.1 beta and Opera Mini 5 side by side on Android phones. In addition to rendering more clearly, Opera Mobile displays the desktop version of CNET.com, whereas Opera Mini opts for the faster-loading mobile-optimized site, which is also lighter in content and imagery. … Read more

Browser underdog Opera fights for survival

OSLO, Norway--Opera Software, the scrappy Norwegian browser maker, today faces arguably the biggest competitive threats of its 15-year history.

The first challenges are on personal computers. Right after Google's Chrome burst onto the scene two years ago, Opera slipped from fourth to fifth place in browser usage worldwide. And longtime archrival Microsoft is no longer the punching bag of the browser market; its forthcoming IE9 is a serious attempt to match rivals in performance and support for new Web standards.

Second, in Opera's other domain, Apple's iPhone and now Google's Android are rewriting the mobile browsing rules. Their browsers are adapted for phones more like miniature desktop computers than the small-screened, candy bar-shape models that prevailed when Opera's mobile browsing business began.

And yet the Oslo underdog has adapted to crises before and appears to be adapting to the present changes as well.

In a series of interviews at its headquarters here, Opera executives showed they suffer no illusions about the competition. They also made a credible case that Opera, while not about to dethrone its bigger rivals, will continue to defend its turf with a profitable business.

A new mobile strategy One cornerstone of its confidence comes from a major shift in its mobile strategy in response to a dark, unprofitable patch in the second half of 2009. Opera shifted its alliance efforts from phone companies to the powerful network operators who see their future threatened by the new generation of smartphones and services. … Read more