Opera 12 released

MarcLister

MarcLister

MarcLister

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As thread title says, Opera 12 was released earlier today.

Opera 12 has been released today! With Opera's new theming support it's easier than ever to dress Opera the way you like. But behind Opera's visual changes there are numerous of technical enhancements in Opera 12. Here are 12 of our favorite under-the-hood improvements in this release.

  1. Faster startup with many tabs
  2. Previously it could take a while to start Opera if you had many tabs open. In Opera 12 tabs are loaded smarter; fewer at the time with those that are visible or recently accessed loading first. Opera now always starts up equally fast no matter how many tabs you have open.
  3. Out-of-Process Plug-ins
  4. Plug-ins are notorious for causing stability issues. In fact almost one third of all crashes in Opera are caused by plug-ins. In Opera 12 plug-ins are isolated in a separate process, when they crash all you need to do is reload the page.
  5. Experimental Hardware Acceleration and WebGL
  6. Opera 12 contains experimental support for full hardware acceleration and WebGL. While the stability and performance depends on the OS, drivers and graphics card, it is already available for testing. Enabling opera:config#UserPrefs|EnableWebGL allows you to test WebGL content and enabling opera:config#UserPrefs|EnableHardwareAcceleration makes not only the web page but the whole user interface being render via the graphics card. By accessing opera:gpu you can check the current status of Hardware Acceleration and WebGL. Using opera:config#UserPrefs|Preferredrenderer you can switch between OpenGL (0) and DirectX (1).
  7. opera:cpu
  8. Is something slowing down Opera or your computer? You can now easily check with opera:cpu.
  9. Improved loading performance
  10. In Opera 12 the loading of pages has been optimized to ensure that resources like scripts, style sheets and images are loaded more efficiently. The result: Faster loading of pages!
  11. Improved performance on secure connections
  12. When loading a secure page (https) the browser goes through a complex process to establish a secure connection. This exact steps in this process vary from web server to web server, depending on the certificates, version and implementation of TLS they support. For Opera 12 we've analyzed and optimized many of the different steps in this process. Overall many secure pages are now loading faster than before!
  13. RTL
  14. In each release Opera learns a new language. New in Opera 12 is the capability to support Right-To-Left languages which makes it possible to support Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Urdu. With Kazakh in addition, Opera is now translated into 55 languages.
  15. Improved HTML5 support
  16. HTML5 is the heart and soul of the web. Opera 12 adds support for drag and drop, camera access (getUserMedia), css animations and more.
  17. Improved extensions support
  18. The windows/tabs extensions api has been revamped to include support for access to tab stacks. Check out dev.opera for more upcoming extension features.
  19. 64 bit Windows and Mac
  20. Opera 12 is now available in 64 bit for all platforms. Note that because 64 bit applications use more memory than their 32 bit equivalent, the default version of Opera for Windows will continue to be 32 bit.
  21. Do Not Track
  22. Opera 12 enhances you privacy by supporting the "Do Not Track" feature. You can enabled it in Opera's Preferences dialog (Preferences > Advanced > Security > Ask websites not to track me).
  23. Improved address field suggestions
  24. Based on feedback from you we've implemented numerous of tweaks to the address field making the suggested results cleaner, more accurate and more relevant.
Click to expand...

http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2012/06/14/twelve-under-the-hood-improvements-in-opera-12

http://www.opera.com/browser/

I have to say that the theme option looks pretty cool. I'll have to play with it when I get home.
 
For anyone wanting to migrate to the 64Bit version it is installed side by side with 32bit and not a direct upgrade.

I successfully copied the following from %appdata%\Opera\Opera to %appdata%\Opera\Opera x64

operaprefs.ini
\sessions\autopera.win
bookmarks.adr

The operaprefs.ini also pointed x64 at my old mail storage location. You cannot run 32bit and 64bit at the same time with the same mail location however. This is a non-issue for me as I will only run 64bit.

If you want to run side-by-side then make sure you reconfigure the x64 version preference to new temp/mail locations.
 
Just installed the update on my Desktop and Netbook. The themes are a nice touch but didn't seem to do an awful lot when I tried them out :D
 
philtor said:
Just installed the update on my Desktop and Netbook. The themes are a nice touch but didn't seem to do an awful lot when I tried them out :D
Click to expand...
I've tried the Cookie Monster one and it doesn't seem to display quite as the preview does when Opera loads up the post-install webpage. That and having a Speed Dial wallpaper overrides the theme so you have to get rid of the wallpaper to see the theme. Even then the theme is hidden behind the previews of each site so it seems that so far the themes aren't brilliant.
 
So who here uses the Speed Dial? Have you noticed that it seems smoother in terms of graphical, er, smoothness? I use Speed Dial and I reckon that it you open a new tab and then choose a dial, then open another tab to get the speed dials up again, it's appearing smoother with Opera 12 than 11.6x. Has anyone else noticed this?

Oh and following on from this, http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=21108880&postcount=4, I reckon it's gone. Anyone else agree?
 
MarcLister said:
So who here uses the Speed Dial? Have you noticed that it seems smoother in terms of graphical, er, smoothness? I use Speed Dial and I reckon that it you open a new tab and then choose a dial, then open another tab to get the speed dials up again, it's appearing smoother with Opera 12 than 11.6x. Has anyone else noticed this?
Click to expand...


Yes, I've noticed that it looks easier on the eye and switching speed dial shortcuts around is slicker. Also with 11.xx when dragging a tab into an empty speed dial place (Ctrl+right mouse drag), sometimes I had to do this a couple of times before it actually worked. With 12, it works every time.

Another improvement I've noticed is with the wand for entering passwords automatically. Previously with quite a few sites' login pages, I would have to refresh the page before the wand would enter the password but with 12.0 I've not had that problem. It was mainly an issue with pages that had a drop down box to click on before you could enter the login details.

So far the only issue I have is that Opera stays open as a task (shown in Task Manager) for a while after closing down so if I exit and try to open soon afterwards, I have to Force Start. Hopefully they will fix this issue as the latest 11.xx I had been using had cured that problem that also existed with prior versions.

**edit** Having problems logging into topcashback either via wand or by manually entering the password. No problems with other browsers so my username/password is OK.

**edit** The above topcashback problem is only with the 64bit Opera 12. Logging in fine with 32bit Opera 12.
 
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Sin_Chase said:
For anyone wanting to migrate to the 64Bit version it is installed side by side with 32bit and not a direct upgrade.

I successfully copied the following from %appdata%\Opera\Opera to %appdata%\Opera\Opera x64

operaprefs.ini
\sessions\autopera.win
bookmarks.adr

The operaprefs.ini also pointed x64 at my old mail storage location. You cannot run 32bit and 64bit at the same time with the same mail location however. This is a non-issue for me as I will only run 64bit.

If you want to run side-by-side then make sure you reconfigure the x64 version preference to new temp/mail locations.
Click to expand...

There is a free tool settings program you can download from here http://my.opera.com/Disco%20Stu/blog/opera-settings-import-export-tool ,


Features:
Easy to use
Lets you preview your settings before importing or exporting
Allows cleanly transferring individual settings without the cruft that can build up in an Opera profile folder
Available for both Windows and Linux, and your settings can be transferred between OSes
Intelligently locates all the Opera profiles on a typical Windows system, so good for finding "lost" profiles
Stores settings files in their original state in an open archive (tar.gz) format, so your exported settings can always be easily restored by hand should the need arise
Corrects .ini paths on import so settings imported from a different folder/OS work correctly
Click to expand...


I tried it for 32 bit to 64 bit Opera works great, it copied all my bookmarks,passwords, visual layout over.
 
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Btw some people still ask how to enable hardware acceleration in Opera 12,



Opera 12.00 can now use hardware acceleration from GPU to render websites,Opera Interface itself and WebGL. Unfortunately this feature is disabled by default.

However you can easly activated it.

1) Type in address bar opera:config#UserPrefs
2) Find "Enable Hardware Acceleration" and set value to 1
3) Find "Enable WebGL" and set value to 1
4) Press Save (which is on bottom on User Prefs section)
5)Restart Opera
Click to expand...
 
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