Opera 12 has been released today! With Opera's new theming supportit's easier than ever to dress Opera the way you like. But behind Opera's visual changes there are numerous of technical enhancements in Opera 12. Here are 12 of our favorite under-the-hood improvements in this release.
Faster startup with many tabs
Previously it could take a while to start Opera if you had many tabs open. In Opera 12 tabs are loaded smarter; fewer at the time with those that are visible or recently accessed loading first. Opera now always starts up equally fast no matter how many tabs you have open.
Out-of-Process Plug-ins
Plug-ins are notorious for causing stability issues. In fact almost one third of all crashes in Opera are caused by plug-ins. In Opera 12 plug-ins are isolated in a separate process, when they crash all you need to do is reload the page.
Experimental Hardware Acceleration and WebGL
Opera 12 contains experimental support for full hardware acceleration and WebGL. While the stability and performance depends on the OS, drivers and graphics card, it is already available for testing. Enabling opera:config#UserPrefs|EnableWebGL allows you to test WebGL content and enabling opera:config#Enable%20Hardware%20Acceleration makes not only the web page but the whole user interface being render via the graphics card. By accessing opera:gpu you can check the current status of Hardware Acceleration and WebGL. Using opera:config#UserPrefs|Preferredrenderer you can switch between OpenGL (0) and DirectX (1).
opera:cpu
Is something slowing down Opera or your computer? You can now easily check with opera:cpu.
Improved loading performance
In Opera 12 the loading of pages has been optimized to ensure that resources like scripts, style sheets and images are loaded more efficiently. The result: Faster loading of pages!
Improved performance on secure connections
When loading a secure page (https) the browser goes through a complex process to establish a secure connection. This exact steps in this process vary from web server to web server, depending on the certificates, version and implementation of TLS they support. For Opera 12 we've analyzed and optimized many of the different steps in this process. Overall many secure pages are now loading faster than before!
RTL - Right To Left
In each release Opera learns a new language. New in Opera 12 is the capability to support Right-To-Left languages which makes it possible to support Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Urdu. With Kazakh in addition, Opera is now translated into 55 languages.
The windows/tabs extensions api has been revamped to include support for access to tab stacks. Check out dev.operafor more upcoming extension features.
64 bit Windows and Mac
Opera 12 is now available in64 bit for all platforms (on that download page, clicks Architecture, and select 64 bit). Note that because 64 bit applications use more memory than their 32 bit equivalent, the default version of Opera for Windows will continue to be 32 bit.
Do Not Track
Opera 12 enhances your privacy by supporting the "Do Not Track" feature. You can enabled it in Opera's Preferences dialog (Preferences > Advanced > Security > Ask websites not to track me).
Improved address field suggestions
Based on feedback from you we've implemented numerous of tweaks to the address field making the suggested results cleaner, more accurate and more relevant.
Today we have released Opera 12.10 with many updates and more bugfixes than I can count. This release is a recommended security update.
Extensions in Opera is now more powerful than ever, head over to www.opera.com to check it out.
Here are some other highlights in Opera 12.10:
- SPDY support:
Faster communication between the browser and the server, using SPDY.
Popular sites like Gmail.com and Twitter.com already uses this technology. This is also available via Opera Turbo.
- Fullscreen API:
Supporting the new, Fullscreen API.
- ICC profiles:
Opera now supports the color management of images using ICC profiles, which gives more vibrant and accurate colors.
- Extensions:
Extensions can now be added to Opera's context menus, and extensions can now only be installed from trusted web sites.
- Windows 8 support:
Now that Windows 8 is released, it's important to support the latest features, it's now possible to scroll, zoom etc with touch. As a bonus, this also works on Windows 7.
- Mountain Lion support:
Mountain Lion users will be able to use the built-in share function using Opera's Share button in the address bar, as well as see Opera notifications in the Notification Center.
- Retina on Mac:
Opera on Mac now supports twice the pixel density, which will give much crisper text and with a new skin Opera looks better than ever.
- Flexbox:
Opera now supports Flexbox, an easier way to do page layouts.
- Prefetch DNS
Opera will now perform a DNS look-up when you hover a link, this can make the link load faster when it's clicked.
Today, we're happy to release Opera 12.10 for Mac, Windows and Linux! There are many goodies in this release, such as OS integration, improved standards support, new extensions APIs, compatibility tweaks and more. An overview.
OS Integration
Opera 12.10 for Mac supports a number of Mac OS X Mountain Lion features such as Notification Center (to let you know when e.g. a download is finished) and built-in sharing of pages to Facebook, Twitter, and more, and it also comes with Retina Display support.
Windows users aren't left out of course: as part of our continuing work on Windows 8 integration, Opera 12.10 has inertia scrolling and pinch-to-zoom on Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Pretty colors
Opera 12.10 also supports International Color Consortium (ICC) profile v4, which will make photographs more vibrant and colorful, displaying them exactly as the photographer intended.
In the example below, you see what difference this can make. This photo of a caterpillar by Flickr user Scarlet St looks more vibrant in Opera 12.10 compared to its predecessors, because the Adobe RGB (1998) profile included in the image metadata is applied (as intended).
SPDY support
Opera has always been about speed, so the new release incorporates the new SPDY protocol, which makes web pages load faster on SPDY-enabled sites such as Twitter, Gmail, WordPress and (soon) Facebook. For users, things will just work faster, but developers wishing to see which sites have SPDY support can download our SPDY indicator extension.
Extensions
Talking of extensions, we've added several new APIs to give more power to developers. The most notable of these is the Context Menu API that allows an extension to add options to the user's right-click menu. Other improvements include the Resource Loader API, the Screenshot API and an update to our URL Filter API.
We've also added support for high-DPI screens in our extensions framework: with two simple adjustments, you can make sure your extension icons look great on Retina Display screens. We invite you to read more about this particular change on the extensions blog.
And last but not least, we've tightened extension security: by default, only extensions that are hosted by Opera may be installed, as these have been rigorously tested to ensure they're safe and don't harm a user's machine or data.
Today we are releasing a brand-new version of Opera for you to try out. As the name suggests, Opera Next for Windows and Mac is a sneak preview of the next release of our desktop browser.
When it comes to making a completely new and improved web browser, there are a few indispensable elements such as: powerful technology, clean and modern design, and fresh new ideas.
But most important of all is your feedback, so please have a look at the next version of Opera and these new features:
Speed Dial
Lighter, brighter, and with the addition of a search box and folders to make it fun and easy to stay organized.
Stash
Think of it as your browser’s back pocket – a nifty way to store pages temporarily, like when you’re doing research or comparing online offers.
Discover
With 13 different content categories across more than 30 languages, you’ll be spoiled for choice when it comes to finding more news and entertainment online.
Combined address and search bar
Search smarter, with an all-in-one window that guesses what you’re looking for as you type – and gives you a choice of search providers.
JUMP LISTS NOW SUPPORTED FOR WINDOWS
Jump lists are now supported on Windows. Jump lists allow quicker navigation from the task bar, like getting an overview of your Speed Dial.
SUPPORT FOR W3C GEOLOCATION API
The geolocation API lets you share your location with trusted websites. When you visit a location-aware website, like foursquare, the browser will ask you to share your location. If you accept, Opera can tell the website where you are located.
PRESENTATION MODE FOR MAC
Browse the web with presentation mode to get a full-screen experience. Quick tip: you can go straight to presentation mode by pressing shift+CMD+F
FORM FILLER
Save time with the form filler. Simply input your information in the settings and then use to it to auto-fill forms on the web.
Opera 16 has better performance and improved support for HTML5. This release is also based on Chromium 29.
If you are a web extension developer and you want to keep on track with our fast release cycle, remember ourDeveloper stream is available for download.
Author
Post time 9-12-2011 03:41 AM
Post time 29-3-2012 11:45 PM
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