Oslo (Norway) - Opera, the other browser company, released version 9.25 of their mainstream desktop browser late last night.  Opera has been benchmarked and shown to have the fastest Javascript execution of any major browser.


Opera has mouse gesturing, tabs, a speed dial feature which can hold nine commonly accessed web pages on the main startup screen when the browser launches (if a homepage is not set), the ability to move back and forth with cached web pages rather than requesting a full page refresh, the ability to mimic or report itself as being Firefox, IE, or other browsers, and several other features which make it a desirable alternate choice.

Opera is a free download and works with Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris SPARC and Intel, QNX, OS/2, Linux SPARC, PowerPC and i386, FreeBSD i386 and BeOS.  Version 9.25 is the latest stable release.  Opera also releases future versions which are still under development.  The current "preview release" as Opera calls it, is version 9.50b.

Opera also has several other mini-browsers, called Opera Mobile and Opera Mini for portable PDAs and cell phones.  Opera Mobile is a full featured browser designed for small screens on cell phones and PDAs, while Opera Mini is a scaled down, basic browser with many features disabled.  It has a much smaller memory footprint making it a potentially attractive alternative to the built-in, often proprietary, embedded browsers which come with many devices.

Opera releases regular updates to their browser, about one every two months.  Major versions will switch from 9.1 to 9.2, with minor releases showing up as 9.11, 9.12, etc.


Opera's 9.25 changelog indicates the following fixes/enhancements:
1)  Fixed an issue where plug-ins could be used to allow cross domain scripting.
2)  Fixed an issue with TLS certificates that could be used to execute arbitrary code.
3)  Rich text editing can no longer be used to allow cross domain scripting.
4)  Prevented bitmaps from revealing random data from memory.
5)  Fixed a problem where malformed BMP files could cause Opera to temporarily freeze.

Read more ... Opera main page.


Author's opinion
In my experience from reading user's comments about Opera over the years, many users who migrate from Firefox or Internet Explorer have some initial difficulties in adapting to Opera.  I have used Opera exclusively ever since Dean Kent of RealWorldTechnologies mentioned that it was the only browser he used several versions ago (probably Opera 7).  I have found it to be robust and it does nearly everything I need it to.  There are still some web pages which Opera has a problem with, and for those I use Firefox or if I'm running Windows XP under Ubuntu Linux via VMware Server (which is all free, save the WinXP license), then I run IE6.

If anyone has not given Opera a chance, I recommend you spend a week with it.  It has a really nice feature called "sessions", which allows you to save all open tabs exactly as they are.  When you load Opera the next time you can resume your browsing session exactly as you were, with page histories in tact for each tab, etc.  Quite a slick feature.

It's a crime that...

Dec 19, 2007 15:17     

There is no competition on some apps and that they can't do like everyone else wants. TO GET PAID FOR THEIR EFFORT. What if you had to go to your job daily and work for free and make the difference up by pan handling on the side? If micro fluff would quit fluffing up the OS with there paid apps things would be much better for the consumer. It's a damn shame many of you can't see it.
Enlighten report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Sessions note

Dec 19, 2007 16:05     

I would like to note that Firefox also supports sessions through add-ons (ex.: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2324)
Wise Guy report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Rick, maybe you should switch to Safari...

Dec 19, 2007 16:29     

If Safari is good enough for one of the founders of the World Wide Web, then maybe it is good enough for you: [I've tried Safari on Windows, not on Linux though. It was okay. I used it quite a bit on my wife's Mac Mini. I never had any problems with it that I can remember. Still, I'm an Opera guy. Ahhhhhhhhhhh! See. :) -Rick] "Today I use mainly Safari because it uses CSS best and above all for the typography. Even Firefox can learn from Safari's typography. Why is it that so few programs handle text well? Why is typography so lousy on the screen?" - Robert Cailliau, Wikinews August 16, 2007

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Re: Wise Guy

Dec 19, 2007 18:02     

But the thing about opera is; you dont NEED plugins to do things. Opera has RSS, IRC, Widgets, Sessions, the very nice ablity to drag anything into the bars as links, quick dial (9 site links when you open a new tab) and much more WITHOUT any need for plugins or patches. Sure we always here Firefox can do this with blah blah blah plugin, firefox cna do that with blah blah plugin, but what people forget is Opera does this without using ANY plugins. I use opera as my web browser, RSS reader, IRC and everything and have never had any sort of problem; I havent even needed plugins

Sir_Cabbage report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Currently on it now...

Dec 19, 2007 19:58     

Already it uses a lot less memory than Mozilla, almost 30,000 K on my PC. It still loads faster than Mozilla, seems to be pretty stable so far. Good release for Opera.
cabose369 report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

IMHO opera is good and one of a kind

Dec 19, 2007 21:27     

I've switched to Opera few months ago and yes it is a nice browser. I am using a 5 year old laptop with 256 memory. Fact of the matter is, most current software is hard to handle with such a system. Mainly due to memory hogging software. Main disadvantage is of Firefox is the memory leak, not to mention, IE has similar problems. What I liked about Opera is, its light in its feet. It has bucket-load of features, which really makes my life easy (like speed dial). Based on my few months expereince, I can guarantee that Opera browser is a well thought, intelligently designed software I have come across recently. People like my self really happy when software performance/functioning is much better over aesthetics. In that sense.. Opera is a definite hit...

Alien report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

@Enlighten

Dec 20, 2007 21:27     

from your comment it seems like you are suggesting opera employee's work for free. they dont. they are paid, very well in fact, including free stock.
C report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Opera is way ahead in user experience

Dec 21, 2007 01:42     

mouse gestures, highlight text and go to web address i HATE when i'm forced to use other browsers i miss these features greatly
John A report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Starts faster than firefox

Dec 21, 2007 06:53     

A few month ago I bought a second hand 3 year old subnotebook. Since it came without an OS I installed Linux Mint (based on ubuntu) on it. I was satisfed with the laptop except for firefox: because the subnotebook has a slow HDD it took around 10 second for firefox to just start. I installed opera for linux: it starts in 3 to 5 seconds, much faster than firefox.
vanhaesendonck report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Free

Dec 21, 2007 09:59     

C - "from your comment it seems like you are suggesting opera employee's work for free" I said "It's a crime that there is no competition on some apps and that they can't do like everyone else wants. TO GET PAID FOR THEIR EFFORT." Please correct me if I'm wrong, because the last time I check Opera wasn't sold and purchased microfluff underhandingly gets paid real $$$ directly for IE. We would have better products across the board and more choices from competition if microfluff didn't fluff up the OS. If their tactics wasn't a problem then other companies wouldn't be seeking court help. Even this companies knows that it's not fair to pay people using other forms of revenue streams other than collecting DIRECTLY for a product effort. agreed? Please read www.tgdaily.com/content/view/35265/118 If anyone can't see what's wrong with it.

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Just Installed FireFox 2.0.0.11

Jan 04, 2008 05:16     

I just installed FireFox 2.0.0.11 4 days ago. I have a 6 year old T-Bird 1400 MHz, 1 GB system which (still) has 98SE installed. Everything works fine. I don't really have any problems and I don't care to upgrade. In fact, I probably do more on this machine than the average user does, except for games which I don't play anymore. I had to install FireFox. For some reason, last year my IE v6.0.2800.1106-SP1 started freezing on me when I had multiple windows open. Once IE6.x froze, I'd have to reboot. Also, I recently had occasional and strange problems at certain Amazon product pages where the text would shift back and forth. I finally got tired of this and switched to FireFox. Hopefully this won't happen anymore. Using Norton Utilities 2003 System Information, I checked RAM usage for FireFox 2.x and it was using 30.5 MB's with 3 tabs, now 50.4 MB's with 5 tabs. I will keep track of RAM usage and see if there is a leak. Since I have 1 GB, I really don't care about RAM usage. In fact, years ago I tweaked 98SE NOT to use a Swapfile. My Swapfile has always been '0' (zero). Because 98SE is so thrifty with RAM, I have rarely used more than 350 MB's of RAM. However, I am concerned with GDI and USER resources, a 9x limitation. This is where the real limits are for 9x and I must always watch them. Perhaps Opera will use less. Because I have very fast Seagate 250 GB, 16 MB cache, 7200 RPM drives, I still consider this a fast system. IE 6.x, which still works for most sites, starts in 2 seconds. FireFox starts in 5 seconds on the first load, 2 on subsequent loads. I suspect Opera will start in 2-3 seconds. I'll try Opera and see if it's stable or uses less GDI and USER resources.

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