Opera 9 Technical Preview 2

[manadren_it]

Opera 9 preview

We've released a technology preview of Opera 9, codenamed Merlin, on Opera Labs. There are some very cool features we want you to try:

Opera Widgets – Widgets are small AJAX applications that provide specific functionality – like getting your favorite news, converting currency and so on. We've posted documentation on Opera Widgets – not only how to use them but also how to make them. Go to My Opera Community to download Widgets.

BitTorrent – BitTorrent has become one of the most popular file transfer protocols around. We built it right into the browser so you can download torrent files easily. No more hassle finding the right port, no worries about setting upload and download speed. We've worked to optimize all of that for you.

Customize your search engines – Use your favorite search engine in the search box. Go to the site you want and right click on the search field site and click on the search field. You will then be prompted to “create search”

Improved content blocker – Cosmetic surgery for Web pages. Just right click on a page and select “block content”. Any content not greyed out can be blocked with a click. Select “done” and see the page the way you want.

Improved pop-up blocker – Just try it with some nasty popups. We added more intelligence to help weed out even more pop-ups. But since not all pop-ups are created equal, use the trash can to retrieve pop-ups you may want.

Site specific preferences – For those of you who want to control settings for specific pages. Want to accept some cookies and deny others? How about setting your own style sheet to make the site more accessible? Just right click on the page and select “Site preferences”.

Thumbnail preview – Opera conserves system resources and uses less memory than other browsers so it's easy to have many tabs open at once. But just what tab had that video you wanted? Using the thumbnail feature, you can find out by resting the mouse on any tab.

As with any of our technology previews, this is not meant to replace your current version of Opera. That caveat aside, we welcome you to download the TP and let us know what you think.






Being a loyal firefox user, I kinda hate to say it, but opera is looking pretty slick. I downloaded the preview, and while I haven't been using it long, it's rather speedy and has a few nifty features, that *almost* make me want to switch. Who knows what will happen when v9 goes final.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4158, old post ID:33934

[Chris Vogel]

Opera 9 looks like it will be a great release, especially considering the new XSLT support. I can definitely see people leaving IE and Firefox for it.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4158, old post ID:33944

[Red Squirrel]

I forget where I heard this, but is it true that it's free now? As in, no ads that take up 15% of the screen?

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4158, old post ID:33945

[sintekk]

I forget where I heard this, but is it true that it's free now? As in, no ads that take up 15% of the screen?

Yes, I believe they make their monies off of tech support and their cell phone browser.

There was no ads, but I still have a hard time with Opera's interface versus my fairly minimalistic-yet-extended firefox. Still, kudos to Opera for fitting tons of neat features into a compact package.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4158, old post ID:33949