Opera 10 aims to rev up browsing
Published: 01 Sep 2009 13:06 BST
Opera Software on Tuesday released version 10 of its browser, which has loyal fans but not as much adoption as several rivals.
The Norwegian company said in its launch announcement that Opera 10 has better performance, a Turbo mode to make up for slow internet connections, support for a variety of web standards such as web fonts, and improvements to the Opera Mail feature. The company issued two Opera 10 release candidates for the free software in last week, before the final version arrived on Tuesday.
In addition, Opera provided a new update to its Dragonfly set of web development tools, allowing coders to inspect HTTP headers.
Opera has been available for years as an alternative to the dominant Microsoft Internet Explorer, the second-ranked Firefox, and Apple's third-place Safari. Opera was pushed into fifth place with the arrival of Google Chrome.
The Opera browser has charted new browser territory in the past. For example, its Speed Dial feature, which presents an array of Web site thumbnails when a person opens a new browser tab, was first introduced in 2007. Speed Dial has been tweaked in Opera 10 to become a customisable tool. A similar feature can now be found in Chrome and Safari, and Firefox has said it may add a comparable tool.
Opera is working on a new Carakan JavaScript engine, which is used to run Web-based applications such as Google Docs, but that technology isn't done yet.
Firefox, Safari, and Chrome also all are working furiously on better JavaScript performance too, in an effort to make the Web a better foundation for applications.
Credit: Opera 10 to emerge Tuesday from CNET News
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