New Opera Alpha Out!

I just thought i'd post this myself, then noticed this thread here's mypost anyway haha:

Not many people care about poor old opera, but it really is one of the better browsers out there. 9.5 also known as kestrel brings a whole host of new features plus better/faster rendering more google support (as half of there stuff never seemed to quite work properly with opera 9.2).

See a review here. It now syncs with my.opera.com (your own user details) and remembers bookmarks speed dial page (an amazing feature that browsers should have had for years!) and personal bar.

Basically opera has everything already included, it does everrything out of the box very well. I'm still messing about with the alpha along side the current 9.23 stable but i can't fault it so far... Execpt they've missed out the inline spell checked that really would sell it for me. However this is an Alpha release so things can only get better!

Discuss. :cool:

Oh and you can get it here the opera weeklies (well so much weekly anymore :D) blog.
 
Excellent news! I'm a recent convert to Opera after deciding Firefox was just getting slow and crashed too often.

There are one or two sites that don't display properly in Opera 9.23 but I have a feeling it could be the sites themselves? Or will Kestrel implement pages in a clearer way?

Any idea when we can expect Opera 9.5/Kestrel to be out proper?
 
I am a long term lover of Opera it's just fantastic.

I only moved to it due to the memory leak problems associated with FF but it's the tiny little browser I need, and it does what I ask of it well.

It just needs a few more skins to be a complete solution for me :)
 
Development tools for me! I only have FF still installed so I can use the DOM inspector to help me generate css rules for the websites I use that have ads on them.

If Opera came with something similar I'd get rid of FF instantly.
 
MarcLister said:
Excellent news! I'm a recent convert to Opera after deciding Firefox was just getting slow and crashed too often.

There are one or two sites that don't display properly in Opera 9.23 but I have a feeling it could be the sites themselves? Or will Kestrel implement pages in a clearer way?

Any idea when we can expect Opera 9.5/Kestrel to be out proper?
Click to expand...

This renders everything i've thrown at it so far. Most sites where just not written properly, although i think there were a few opera google ajax bugs. But people kept saying they werent really opera's fault, i'm never too sure. Either way all the stuff that didn't work with google does now, and everything else that didn't quite render properly does for me now. It hasn't tripped up or crashed at all yet, for an alpha its bloody sturdy.

I guess it'll be a while until the beta 9.5 is out and even longer until 9.5 is considered truly stable. Just run 9.5 stand alone alongside 9.23 i've set it up as my default browser. That way i can submit bug reports for "normal" browsing and if i do have problems (none so far today) whip open 9.23 and carry on...

Definately worth an install guys!

Only snag i've hit so far, quite major for actually, is wand refuses to fill password boxes in when submitting my username and password information for ALL wand passwords. Which means daily browsing is back to being a big chore! I miss being able to use wand but i'm putting up with it for the minute, to keep testing for them :)

Greenlizard0 said:
I am a long term lover of Opera it's just fantastic.

I only moved to it due to the memory leak problems associated with FF but it's the tiny little browser I need, and it does what I ask of it well.

It just needs a few more skins to be a complete solution for me :)
Click to expand...
I've been using opera for god knows how many years now! Since at least 6 or 7... It's always been way ahead of its competition, for instance first to use MDI when IE was back at version 3 and could barely support CSS or anything!

I've set the skins to native windows and it looks pretty in keeping with my vista machine. Shame they don't use any fancy vista transparencies yet like IE7 but hey i can live with it as its full screen 99% of the time anyway!

MarcLister said:
Development tools for me! I only have FF still installed so I can use the DOM inspector to help me generate css rules for the websites I use that have ads on them.

If Opera came with something similar I'd get rid of FF instantly.
Click to expand...

I'm no developer so i can't help you too much, but i've seen tools thrown around here, i don't think theyre as good as the FF stuff but i think its something always being worked on.

http://dev.opera.com has a lot there anyway have a read around!
 
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Been using opera for a long timr and everytime I upgrade someones pc I make another convert its just so much better than the rest with features ease of use and stability. thanks for the alpha heads up :)
 
LeperousDust said:
I'm no developer so i can't help you too much, but i've seen tools thrown around here, i don't think theyre as good as the FF stuff but i think its something always being worked on.

http://dev.opera.com has a lot there anyway have a read around!
Click to expand...
Wow! Thanks. Exactly what I wanted. Am having problems with it though. Dragging the developer tool onto a toolbar like it said generated a Javascript error window. So I clicked on the button which seemed to work.

Not sure how to get it to run. The page says Tools>Advanced>Developer tools. All that does is redirect the current page to the Opera dev tools page. :confused:

This is in Opera 9.23 btw.

Edit. Got it working. Thanks again. And how do we report bugs in Kestrel?
 
I don't really like Opera and they are just introducing even more features I don't need or want. I will stick with Firefox. :)
 
Opera bug reports can be put here, check the changelog for known bugs first though!

Glad your happy with the Dev i know theres a big community behind it i just don't do any Dev stuff so wouldn't really know, i only comment on what i actually know forwell!

dbmzk1 said:
I don't really like Opera and they are just introducing even more features I don't need or want. I will stick with Firefox. :)
Click to expand...

You say this, but i don't understand, the installer is about the same size as firefox, it uses up same amount if not less memory than firefox with lots of tabs open, and it gives more features for that, how is that a bad thing? To get firefox to remember previous tabs you need to install 3rd party potentially dodgy code, to get it just to add x's to the tabs same again, for mouse gestures again same problem. The list goes on i agree its very easy to customise, but the amount of 3rd party extensions you need to get half the usability of opera inherrantly trips firefox up. As much as i like firefox opera is a more well rounded out of the box beast, but still customisable. For instance a lot of greasemonkey scripts still work with opera UserJS (it is more complicated i agree i think thyre sorting this too with a GUI). Content Block is a superb alternative to Adblocker another 3rd party! (again almost hidden more for legal reasons i assume).

Thats just my 2p though really what i've gathered over the years really...
 
LeperousDust said:
Opera bug reports can be put here, check the changelog for known bugs first though!

Glad your happy with the Dev i know theres a big community behind it i just don't do any Dev stuff so wouldn't really know, i only comment on what i actually know forwell!
Click to expand...
The Opera dom tool opens a little window on the left of my screen. I click on something and it shows me what it is. With Firefox the dom inspector opens a full window so I can't see the page I want to inspect. Then I have to click a ruddy arrow to initialise the inspector or something. I then have to alt-tab or whatever back into FF and click on the object. Then the dom inspector pops up and whatever it is I clicked is highlighted in the code. If I want to see what x is in the inspector, I right click on the code and click "Blink element". This gives me roughly -3430 milliseconds to switch back to FF and try and spot the flashing red box. :rolleyes:

Opera is just so much better on all levels that I'm interested in! I don't do "developing" as such. I just want to inspect pages so I can find out what ads are being kept in so I can write css rules for each site to hide them.



LeperousDust said:
You say this, but i don't understand, the installer is about the same size as firefox, it uses up same amount if not less memory than firefox with lots of tabs open, and it gives more features for that, how is that a bad thing? To get firefox to remember previous tabs you need to install 3rd party potentially dodgy code, to get it just to add x's to the tabs same again, for mouse gestures again same problem. The list goes on i agree its very easy to customise, but the amount of 3rd party extensions you need to get half the usability of opera inherrantly trips firefox up. As much as i like firefox opera is a more well rounded out of the box beast, but still customisable. For instance a lot of greasemonkey scripts still work with opera UserJS (it is more complicated i agree i think thyre sorting this too with a GUI). Content Block is a superb alternative to Adblocker another 3rd party! (again almost hidden more for legal reasons i assume).

Thats just my 2p though really what i've gathered over the years really...
Click to expand...
I can't really improve on that! So I'll quote it. :p Firefox 2.0.0.6 is 5.5Mb. The US English version of Opera is 4.6Mb although the International version is 6.2Mb. An extra 700Kb or so for International language support is more than a decent trade off in my book.
 
LeperousDust said:
Opera bug reports can be put here, check the changelog for known bugs first though!

Glad your happy with the Dev i know theres a big community behind it i just don't do any Dev stuff so wouldn't really know, i only comment on what i actually know forwell!



You say this, but i don't understand, the installer is about the same size as firefox, it uses up same amount if not less memory than firefox with lots of tabs open, and it gives more features for that, how is that a bad thing? To get firefox to remember previous tabs you need to install 3rd party potentially dodgy code, to get it just to add x's to the tabs same again, for mouse gestures again same problem. The list goes on i agree its very easy to customise, but the amount of 3rd party extensions you need to get half the usability of opera inherrantly trips firefox up. As much as i like firefox opera is a more well rounded out of the box beast, but still customisable. For instance a lot of greasemonkey scripts still work with opera UserJS (it is more complicated i agree i think thyre sorting this too with a GUI). Content Block is a superb alternative to Adblocker another 3rd party! (again almost hidden more for legal reasons i assume).

Thats just my 2p though really what i've gathered over the years really...
Click to expand...

I don't care how big the installer is. For gods sake your taking about a few mb here, it's not like they are several hours worth of downloads! I also don't care how much memory it uses, it's not like I'm going to run out any time soon.

Opera has a ton of features I will never use. I don't want mouse gestures. I don't want 9 images on my home page. The only Firefox addons I used, apart from dev tools and IE view which I use when developing too, are Google Preview because it looks pretty and Undoclosetabs which makes no difference what so ever to anything. Oh and DownloadThemAll for, erm... yea! I don't need skins or fancy buttons, I don't need x's on my tabs and I certainly don't want blocked adds.

Basically I don't need anything Opera gives me that Firefox does not. More pages don't work in Opera and it has a few annoying niggles that I just can't get on with, like a line constantly down the left side of the page like IE which drives me MAD! lol

:)
 
The overriding thought for me (not that I'm surprised) are how many of the new features are coming down the pike for Firefox 3 (page zoom's done, syncronization of bookmarks and other Places objects is coming, full history search in the address bar is done).
Most of the other changes (like extra CSS3 support) are irrelevant, unless Opera can capture enough of the browser market with 9.5 to make supporting these features worthwhile.
I'd rather have the option of losing the mail/torrent/notes/whatever clients too - it's extra interface bloat as far as I'm concerned.

I still like Speed Dial though, but to be useful to me it would need to be automatic with the top 9 most-visited sites (pretty trivial in Fx3 with Places and some SQL, even the thumbnail previews).

To get firefox to remember previous tabs you need to install 3rd party potentially dodgy code, to get it just to add x's to the tabs same again
Click to expand...

Neither of those need an extension. Restoring saved sessions when you next start the browser can be enabled in the options panel (and the option to restore closed tabs happens by default), and changing back to the Fx 1.5 tab close buttons is possible with an about:config change.

MarcLister said:
With Firefox the dom inspector opens a full window so I can't see the page I want to inspect.
Click to expand...

You do know you can resize it, right?
AFAICS, the DOM inspector in Opera doesn't keep focus when you click on a tab underneath and you can't drag it outside the browser window.

MarcLister said:
Sounds like the tab bar thingy to me.
Click to expand...

I think what's meant is the bar which expands to Bookmarks/Notes/Transfers/History/Links
 
MarcLister said:
Sounds like the tab bar thingy to me.
Click to expand...
Yeah easy access to pannels, also can press f4 for that :)

dbmzk1 I think your one of few people who use firefox at its most bare form. Out of interest have you used mouse gestures on a long enough timescale? I originally never got on with them, but they've have become engrained in me now and make so much sense when it comes to navigating things, why have any buttons for most used features when i can gesture it with my mouse? I crave a similar decent add on for windows explorer GUI even simple back and forward traversing through folders is horrid without mouse gestures! You seem pretty set on firefox and thats fine, in fact i've been very impressed with the firefox 3 nightlies they seem pretty darn good. But its the extras that come built in to opera by the developers that are tested properly as opposed to 3rd parties that win it for me. Which is the exact thing you seem to hate, thats why there are choices in this world!

Opera still only has 1-2% browser share (remarkably) so maybe a lot of people agree with you, or just don't know of Opera...
 
tolien said:
You do know you can resize it, right?
AFAICS, the DOM inspector in Opera doesn't keep focus when you click on a tab underneath and you can't drag it outside the browser window.
Click to expand...
Yes but does it resize the contents of the window? The Opera version just suits me better atm. Plus I don't have to fiddle around with the arrow button on FF's dom inspector. The number of times I've clicked on something to find nothing happens with the dom inspector because the arrow icons needs to be re-clicked. :rolleyes: :mad: Does it run off a coin meter?



tolien said:
I think what's meant is the bar which expands to Bookmarks/Notes/Transfers/History/Links
Click to expand...
Yeah thats what I meant! Hence "thingy" ending to my reply. ;) :p

Just couldn't remember what it was called precisely or how to get it back. Got rid of it here.
 
I'm not talking about the tab bar or popup thing which I have disabled because there is absolutely no need for it and leaves an even thicker line which really REALLY drives me mad haha. I mean this line, which does nothing. IE does it too, Firefox does not.



:p

I've tried mouse gestures a lot, yes. I don't see the need for it when I can click back etc with my mouse buttons and click home to go home etc. To me it is no faster (in the case of back/forward its a lot slower, actually) and is just annoying trying to remember what action does what.

Opera has a less than 1% market share last time I checked, though growing slowly, but so is everything except IE I think haha.

EDIT: Here is maybe a better example. The dark grey bit is the edge of the window and of course not visable when the window is maximied. The light bit is the evil thing.

anothernukeitqx3.jpg
 
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tolien said:
The overriding thought for me (not that I'm surprised) are how many of the new features are coming down the pike for Firefox 3 (page zoom's done, syncronization of bookmarks and other Places objects is coming, full history search in the address bar is done).
Most of the other changes (like extra CSS3 support) are irrelevant, unless Opera can capture enough of the browser market with 9.5 to make supporting these features worthwhile.
I'd rather have the option of losing the mail/torrent/notes/whatever clients too - it's extra interface bloat as far as I'm concerned.
Click to expand...
I agree with all of that firefox 3 will be great when it gets here, Opera was always better but wasn't free as i said, Firefox has a hold on the market and a lot of fanboys too :p (i'm not calling you one in case you didn't realise i just come accross them all them time :( ) 9.5 has everything you've listed there and has had the real page zoom thing for about 3 versions or more i think. Plus full (albeit useless) CSS3 and passes all silly acid2 tests etc... ( i don't care what it passes as long as it works, but i can't be bad!)
The mail client doesn't do anything unless you set an account up, same with feeds, and the torrent thing really is negligible but agreed it would be nice as a custom install to leave it out. I've learnt to ignore them tbh!
tolien said:
I still like Speed Dial though, but to be useful to me it would need to be automatic with the top 9 most-visited sites (pretty trivial in Fx3 with Places and some SQL, even the thumbnail previews).



Neither of those need an extension. Restoring saved sessions when you next start the browser can be enabled in the options panel (and the option to restore closed tabs happens by default), and changing back to the Fx 1.5 tab close buttons is possible with an about:config change.
Click to expand...
Shows how much i know, sorry for the missinformation, my quip about how well built in mouse gestures are still stands though compared to 3rd party similar extensions.
tolien said:
You do know you can resize it, right?
AFAICS, the DOM inspector in Opera doesn't keep focus when you click on a tab underneath and you can't drag it outside the browser window.



I think what's meant is the bar which expands to Bookmarks/Notes/Transfers/History/Links
Click to expand...

Panels, which is pretty full of crap as it goes most of the time too, although i like to add the "info" part to the panels, i rarely use it though...
 
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