Just days after the Opera 9.52 release, the Opera Desktop Team has posted the first preview of Opera 9.60. Highlights include:

Opera Link synchronizes more data, adding custom search engines and typed history (i.e. URLs that you type into the address bar).

Feed previews when you click on an RSS/Atom feed, so you can look at the content before subscribing.

Mail improvements including:

• Low Bandwidth Mode. In this mode, IMAP will only synchronize new messages and only retrieve attachments when requested, and POP will only fetch the first 100 lines of each message until you request that it download the full message.
• Follow/Ignore threads and contacts, making it easier to track discussions when you have a lot of messages.
• Go To Thread, which filters the view to show only the current thread.

As usual, the preview is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Download the Opera 9.60 snapshot

The Opera Desktop Team released Opera 9.52 today, which addresses several security and stability issues. This release is a recommended upgrade for all those running the latest stable releases.

See the changelog for more information.

Download Opera 9.52

Digg!

Columnist Andrew Brown, of The Guardian, wrote a nice column yesterday about why he’s switching back to Opera from Firefox 3.

“With the release of Firefox 3, I mounted a private celebration: I went back to using Opera 9.5 as my main browser. This wasn’t just perversity. Firefox without its add-ons is clearly inferior to Opera. Firefox with enough add-ons to make it really useful is very much slower. And Opera has one advantage over all the competition which is enough to outweigh all its other faults to me.”

(Read the entire column)

- Hat tip: Keith Rapado

The Opera Desktop Team released Opera 9.51 today, which addresses a few security and lots of stability issues. This release is a recommended upgrade for all those running the latest stable releases.

See the changelog for more information.

Download Opera 9.51

Digg!

Opera today released a new version of its desktop browser, Opera 9.5.

Opera 9.5 is a major update to the desktop web browser. Highlights include:

• Opera Link synchronizes your bookmarks, Speed Dial, and notes between Opera on different computers, and even links to Opera Mini on your mobile.
• Enhanced address bar searches your entire browsing history, including the contents of each page.
• Security enhancements: malware protection, improved fraud protection, and support for Extended Validation SSL Certificates.
• New rendering engine with improved site compatibility and performance.
• Opera Dragonfly, the long-awaited tools for web developers.
• New skin inspired by Scandinavian design.

Opera 9.5 Changelog
Download Opera 9.5
Opera 9.5 Features

If you use mail, see Opera Mail: Upgrading to Opera 9.5 post.

If you are new to Opera 9.5, see Opera FAQs from #74.

Digg it!

I recently made a video showing off WinGogi (the Windows version of the preview build available at Opera Labs) scoring 100/100 on the Acid3 test and passing the Acid2 test. In that video I also mentioned that it was a lot more efficient on Google Maps. I said that current weekly and stable builds of Opera have a hard time with Google Maps. While I was testing out some stuff in a virtual machine running Vista x64 (the same version I made the video on, and the same version I normally browse on) I found that this was not entirely true. The latest weekly build at that time (Windows build 9864) of Opera 9.5 runs Google Maps much better than I thought.

With Opera, the most common cause of performance and stability issues (not only like the one I ran into, but crashing issues as well) are related to a single file. This file is opera6.ini and it is where Opera stores all of your settings. The issue is believed to be caused over time as you update from version to version of Opera (due to this reason, weekly build users like me tend to experience this issue much more frequently), or when system crashes and such cause corruption to the opera6.ini file. When there are discrepancies in this file, it tends to cause problems in Opera ranging from lowered performance and hang-ups to crashing.

Fortunately for those of us suffering from opera6.ini related issues, the fix is as simple as deleting/renaming the opera6.ini file. The down side is that you will have to reconfigure Opera as if it were brand-new, as Opera will create a new opera6.ini file with the default set of preferences the next time you launch it (note that just a re-install of Opera cannot fix this issue). The plus side is that you can simply rename opera6.ini to opera6.ini.bak (or any other name you want) so that your old opera6.ini file is still there in case generating a new opera6.ini didn’t fix your problems.

So, how do you go about deleting opera6.ini? It’s simple. Just follow these instruction:

• Open “About Opera” (click help, then click on “About Opera”).
• Find the path to the preferences file.
• Copy and paste that path into the address bar in “My Computer”.
• Make sure that Opera is no longer running at this point, otherwise this will not work.
• Find the file named opera6.ini (or a file called opera6 that Windows claims is a “Configuration Settings” file).
• Rename that file to something like opera6.ini.bak or backup_opera6 so that you keep a backup copy of it.
• Close “My Computer”, and open Opera.
• Now you just need to set Opera back up the way you like it.

To make it easier to assimilate these instructions, I’ve also made a short video detailing how this works. The video can also be downloaded in WMV (7.7M) and XviD (9.5M) formats. Both are 800×600 pixels in size, and were recorded in Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 running in VMWare.

The year of 2007 was a strong and positive one for the Opera desktop browser. At year’s end, there were more than 20 million monthly users of Opera on the desktop, a 55% increase from 2006.

The growth shows that there’s certainly an interest in alternative browsers, other than Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox.

Opera Link, currently available in Opera Mini 4 and the beta version of Opera 9.5, will give additional exposure to the Opera desktop browser. And I believe the popularity of Opera Mini is also giving the desktop browser a boost.

Photo credit: Oleg Melnychuck

The Desktop team today released Opera 9.26, an update that addresses a few security and stability issues. (Download Opera 9.26 || changelog)

The Opera desktop team today released a snapshot of Opera 9.5 containing new tab behavior, similar to that found in Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer (IE).

Now, when closing a tab, Opera has the option to activate the tab to the right. Previously (and the default behavior now), the most recent active tab would go back into focus.

To change the tab behavior in Opera, go to Preferences > Advanced > Tabs > ‘When closing a tab’ and choose your desired behavior:

• Activate the last active (default)
• Activate the tab to the right
• Active the first tab opened from closing tab

This has been a major gripe from Firefox users switching over to Opera. I’m very glad to see that we’ve finally added this option to Opera.

It’s never too late to do the right thing.

(The new tab preferences in Opera)

Opera offers quick access for foreign language translation with just a couple clicks.

Here’s how to translate:

1. Select the text you wish to translate
2. Right click to open the context menu
3. Click on ‘Translate’
4. Select the language to translate

(Translate text in the Opera browser)

The CVS pharmacy website is notorious for blocking Opera users from accessing its homepage. When visiting cvs.com with Opera, you’re forwarded to a page saying:

“You have landed on this page, because we do not currently support your web browser and/or browser version.”

“Our site currently supports the majority of Mozilla-based and Internet Explorer browsers on Windows and Macintosh systems. However, we do not support Opera, Beta versions, or recent releases of some browsers. We hope to remedy this in the near future.”

Google Search Bot also blocked
Here’s the problem for CVS and others who only allow Internet Explorer (IE) and Mozilla browsers: The GoogleBot is neither IE nor Mozilla, and thus they too will be blocked from view the site.

Here’s proof. Take a look at the Google’s cached version of cvs.com; it shows the same ‘upgrade’ message Opera users see. (See screenshot below)

We at Opera have contacted CVS a few times over the past few years, each time telling us that they’re working on ‘Opera support.’ Nothing has ever happened. Needless to say, Opera works perfectly on cvs.com; I see no issues at all.

So after cvs.com neglected Opera users for this long, we’ve taken the matter into our own hands.

Fixing sites with Browser.js ua.ini
We’ve just updated our browser.js ua.ini to give the ability for Opera users to visit the cvs.com homepage.

With browser.js, Opera is able to modify and change the code of the webpage before the browser renders the page. We use it to fix sites that refuse to recognize Opera. The browser.js file is automatically updated on your computer every two weeks. (To manually get the latest browser.js version, go to Help > Check for updates).

Now when you go to cvs.com, Opera will identify itself as Firefox when it requests the page from the server. CVS now gives you the correct webpage instead of the bogus upgrade error.

Of course we’re taking a risk with this (i.e. identifying as another browser). CVS won’t see any Opera visitors in their site logs, which surely won’t compel them to fix their issues with Opera.

Sprint and Open the Web
My next Open the Web pet project is Sprint. I can’t login into my Sprint account when not identifying myself as either IE or Firefox. I’ve emailed the developers working on that part of Sprint’s site, but have yet to receive a response.

(This is how Google sees cvs.com)

Jon von Tetzchner, the co-founder and CEO of Opera, was in New York this week. He had a chance to sit down and speak with PC Magazine.

Here are some snippets from PC Magazine’s write-up of his visit:

“According to von Tetzchner, the company’s mobile Web browsing platform, Opera Mini, has 30 million users worldwide with around 100,000 new downloads a day.”

“On the desktop side, the company has been working on the next update of its Web browser, which will be Opera 9.5. The goal is to make app faster and more efficient.”

“According to von Tetzchner, Opera 9.5 will also show a significant speed boost, thanks to greatly improved JavaScript optimization, among other under-the-hood improvements. Some tests show it will be twice as fast [as the previous version]” von Tetzchner claimed. “Some tests even show it’s as much as 10 times faster than Internet Explorer.”

(Read the complete PC Magazine article)

(Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner)

Digital Web Magazine published an excellent interview with Jan Standal, Director of product management at Opera, and Chris Mills, developer relations manager at Opera.

The interview covers many aspects of why Web developers and designers should choose the Opera browser. In addition, they also talk a bit about what’s ahead for Opera with its developer tools and other technologies.

Get the word out
Digg this interview – Help get the word out about Opera!

(Read the interview)

The Opera desktop team today released Opera 9.25 containing various security updates to the browser. The complete list of changes can be found in the changelogs.

Opera 9.25 is a recommended security upgrade.

(Download Opera 9.25)

PC World magazine has an article up that talks about the plan for native video support from within the browser.

Along with Mozilla and others, Opera is pushing for the idea of native video support in the browser without the need for any plugins (such as Flash and Windows Media Player).

Video (and sound) should be treated no differently than images. Browsers are very capable of displaying images on their own, and don’t require you to download any plugins.

We’ve recently released a special build of the Opera desktop browser containing native video support.

We’ve been seeing a huge increase in our internal usage numbers of the Opera desktop browser. Internal usage statistics show that the Opera desktop browser grew its number of users by about 45% in the last 10 months.

I closely monitor the internal usage numbers on a weekly basis; it has been going up and up. We currently have a record high number of users.

Our goal for the year of 2007 was to grow our number of users by 50%. With the 45% increase, we’re very close to reaching our goal. We’ve got one more month to go; hopefully we’ll surpass our goal for the year.

According to statistics released by NetApplications, Opera grew its browser market share to 1.11% in the month of November, up from 0.87% in September, a 28% increase. (See note about these statistics)

The increase in popularity of the Opera desktop browser is no doubt a result of our many fans promoting and spreading the word of Opera. It’s great that we have such a vibrant and active community of users who go out of their way to tell people about Opera (in blogs, comments, forums, etc). I always enjoy reading blog posts about Opera. Keep it up.

(Browser statistics for the month of November. Source: NetApplications)