Opera 10 displaying Wikipedia on Windows 7. |
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| Developer(s) | Opera Software ASA |
| Initial release | September 1, 2009 |
| Written in | C++ |
| Operating system | FreeBSD Linux Mac OS X Microsoft Windows Solaris until v. 10.1 |
| Engine | Presto |
| Size | 10-23 MB (depending on version) |
| Available in | 44 languages [1] |
| Type | Web browser and Internet suite |
| License | Proprietary (Freeware) |
| Website | www.opera.com |
Opera 10 is a version of the Opera web browser. The initial version, 10.00, was released in September 2009.[2] This release added a variety of new features, a new skin designed by Jon Hicks, increased standards support, and a new application icon to Opera. Opera 10.00 was touted as being 40% faster than Opera 9.6, with the upgrade of Opera's rendering engine to Presto 2.2.15.[3]
Opera 10.50 was released in March 2010. Opera Software claimed a further 7× boost in JavaScript execution speed, owing to the introduction of the Carakan ECMAScript engine (also known as a JavaScript engine). Opera 10.50 also included a major upgrade to Presto, and an entirely new graphics library, Vega, which will bring hardware accelerated rendering to future versions. A major focus of 10.50 was to improve desktop integration with the various systems on which Opera is deployed, and this release adds full Aero integration for Windows, and use of the Cocoa framework on Mac.
The release of 10.60 marked the first stable release of a browser to ship with native support for WebM video. Geolocation is now supported, and standards support in Presto has been improved. This release also brings native integration with popular Linux desktop environments, currently KDE and GNOME, while removing the previous dependency on Qt. The latest version is Opera 10.63, released October 12, 2010.
In comparison to 9.x versions, Opera 10.50 uses Presto 2.5.22 which improves rendering speed, adds support for web standards such as RGBA/HSLA color, border-radius, and CSS transitions, and improves existing support for web standards. From 10.00, Opera passes the Acid3 test.[4]
Opera 10 automatically detects when a connection is slow, and offers to compress web pages via Opera Software's Turbo servers, thus reducing download size. Because web pages are compressed, page-loading times on slow connections may improve dramatically, with less data transferred, but images will display with significantly reduced quality. Opera Software intends Turbo for use over slow connections, or in situations with limited bandwidth.[5]
Opera Turbo could also be used to access websites that are blocked on a school or work network, because the browser sends the request to the Opera servers when using this feature, preventing the network from understanding which website it is trying to access. [6]
Previous versions of Opera contained an on-demand spell-checker based on Aspell. Opera 10 introduced an inline spell checker based on Hunspell. This is available in multi-line text areas and in the mail client. As you type, misspelled words are underlined and can be corrected via a right-click menu. The US-English dictionary is included, and there is an interface to download additional dictionaries from within the browser. This inline spell-checker has support for 48 languages.
Opera 10 introduces the ability to author HTML email in Opera's mail client. Previous versions were capable of displaying HTML mail, but only capable of plain text composition. When HTML mail composition is selected, a toolbar appears allowing selection of rich text formatting options, such as font, italics, links, images, etc. Along with inline spell-check, this addresses the two largest criticisms of Opera's email client. Threads can now be easily followed or ignored, allowing more efficient management of emails.
Opera 10 has a new skin, designed by Jon Hicks, famous as the original renderer of the Firefox icon. Originally, a new skin was not planned for Opera 10, but as various icons were updated, it was decided that an overhaul was appropriate. Many complaints with the previous skin of 9.5 and 9.6 are addressed.[7] There is now a higher contrast between the active and inactive tabs. An activity indicator has been added to tabs in the form of a blue dot in the corner.[8] This indicator is also present in other parts of the interface, indicating new mail, completed transfers, etc. The menu bar can now easily be hidden, and a menu button has been added, which appears when the menu is disabled.[9] Overall, the skin uses less screen space, and is not as dark as the previous one.
Previous versions of Opera showed a thumbnail of the page when hovering a tab. In Opera 10, it is possible to display this thumbnail as part of the tab, allowing quick navigation. Visual tabs use an image thumbnail rather than the default favicon and description. Displaying the visual tabs can be achieved via dragging the toggle line between the address bar and the tab bar. Visual Tabs can be placed on the bottom, top, left, or right section of the browser window.
A new configuration dialogue has been added to the Speed Dial, which facilitates easy customization of this feature. A background image can now be chosen independently of the skin, and it is possible to select a custom number of speed dials, ranging from 2×2, to 5×5 tiles.
The new icon, designed by Oleg Melnychuk, has been widely welcomed, replacing a ten year old icon. Opera was careful to preserve branding, and the icon is still a large, red ‘O’. However, the shadow has been replaced with a subtle drop shadow, and the ‘O’ thickened, reshaped, and given a matte 3D look.[10]
Opera 10 adds the option of opening mailto: links in webmail interfaces. Opera has been criticized for its choice of default providers, Yandex, FastMail, Opera Mail, and Mail.ru. Popular providers Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Windows Live Mail have not been included in the default selection as they do not officially support Opera. These providers may be added to the list when they start to support Opera. Opera currently does not have an interface to add or edit webmail providers.
Previously, users were notified of an update, whereon they were directed to a download page. This was criticized as a laborious update process, leading to many users ignoring security updates. An Auto-Update mechanism is now integrated, and updates are installed automatically on the next browser restart. Auto-Update is available for Windows and Mac, while on Linux systems, updates are handled by package managers.
To facilitate improvements to stability, a crash reporter has been added in Opera 10. If the browser crashes, a dialogue will appear asking if a crash log should be uploaded. Here the last displayed web page is automatically detected, and the user is presented an opportunity to provide details of the crash and/or their email address for further contact.
Opera 10 received improvements to Opera's web page debugger, Opera Dragonfly. These improvements include:
Opera was the first mainstream browser to reach double-digit version numbers. As many older websites only detect the first character in the browser version, Opera 10 would be detected as Opera 1. For this reason, Opera 10 identifies itself as Opera 9.80, and appends to the string the true version. The full string on Windows 7 (English) would read as follows:
Opera 10.10 was released on November 23, 2009. Included in this release were Opera Unite and various bug fixes. During the first week of availability, 12 million downloads were counted.
Originally it was planned to release Unite in Opera 10.00, however its release was delayed until Opera 10.10 to allow further stabilization. Unite is essentially a home server on which many applications can be run. Opera provides an optional DNS service at operaunite.com, and can act as a proxy where port forwarding is unavailable. Unite Applications are based on existing web technology, and can be written by third parties. The following official services are included with Unite:
The initial release of Opera 10.50 was for Windows only, in order to allow the development team to focus on a timed release with the EU browser ballot. The Mac version reached final status with 10.52. Linux skipped 10.5× altogether, meaning the release of Opera 10.60 brings Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD releases back into sync for the first time since Opera 10.10.[11]
The Windows version of 10.50 was released on March 2, 2010.[12] This is the first release to feature the new JavaScript engine, Carakan.[13] Support was added for HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements, allowing playback of WAVE PCM, Vorbis audio, and Theora video.[14] Support has also been added for CSS Transitions and 2D Transforms,[15] web storage,[16] and the Backgrounds and Borders module.[17] A privacy mode dubbed Private Tabs and Private Windows has also been added.[18] This is the first release to disable the menu bar by default, placing most options instead in a branded button to the side of the tab bar.
Opera 10.50 introduced a new privacy mode, allowing the user to browse in private tabs or windows which, when closed, delete all data related to that session. This is in addition to the previously available option to delete browsing history stored by the browser. While privacy modes have previously been available, Opera was the first browser to offer a privacy mode on a per-tab basis.
Opera 10.50 introduced full integration with Windows Aero, allowing any skin element to inherit Aero Glass translucency. Support for Windows Jump Lists and Aero Peek was also added, although the latter was later disabled by default, as it was deemed to be inconvenient for many users. The Mac version has switched to the Cocoa framework, featuring a unified toolbar and Growl notifications, and also supports multi-touch.
Opera 10.60 was released on July 1, 2010. The standards support has been extended with support for Geolocation, WebM, Web Workers, Offline Web Applications, and a major update to Cross-Document Messaging. This release focuses largely on speed and stability, and is up to 50% faster than Opera 10.50 on key benchmarks. Linux versions have removed their previous dependency on Qt, and it is now integrated directly with the major desktop environments. AVG malware protection was added to the existing Fraud Protection technology (Netcraft and PhishTank from Haute Secure).[19]
Along with Ogg Theora, Opera now natively supports VP8 in the form of WebM video. Opera 10.60 is the first stable release of a browser to offer native WebM support.
It is now possible to receive as-you-type suggestions when searching in the search bar, or when keyword searching in the address bar. Currently supported engines for search suggestions are Wikipedia, Yandex, and Bing.
The Geolocation API is now supported in Opera, using Google's Location Service to scrape Wi-Fi data. This allows a more precise location to be determined for computers with wireless cards or GPS capabilities. The user is prompted to allow or refuse permission to web sites requesting their location.
Tab previews have been further improved in 10.60. Descriptive icons are now displayed for internal pages such as the bookmark manager and email client. The previews shown when hovering tabs have been restyled, and are now animated on moving from hovering one tab to another.
Speed Dial has been restyled with wider preview thumbnails and a default background picture. Microsoft's Bing replaces Ask.com as the default Speed Dial search engine.[20]
Dragonfly utilizes the Application Cache mechanism introduced in Opera 10.60, allowing seamless offline availability. Owing to this, and to general improvements in Presto, Opera Dragonfly is now significantly faster to load.[21]
A detailed description of changes can be found at www.opera.com/docs/history.
Opera 10.00 was well received, achieving nearly 2 million downloads on the first day, compared to Opera 9, which achieved around 600,000 downloads on the first day.[22] Overall critical reception has been very positive. On day of release, Opera 10 received such attention that Opera Software's servers struggled with the high demand, and as a result were unavailable for parts of the day. During the first week of availability, 10 million downloads of Opera 10 were recorded.[23]
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