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Opera has always been better on Linux, especially with the text-to-speech thing. Does any Linux browser have such capabilities?

Anyway, looking forward to site-specific features! If implemented right, imagine being able to disable anything from images to CSS on any given site. Of coruse, you could do it with something like Proxomitron, but external apps are a pain

I meant better on Windows!

No surprises really. As a general rule, * on windows > * on Linux. But Linux will be ready for the desktop "realy soon now", right? right?

It's been ready for years. FOAD you lame troll.

text-to-speeck -> konqueror does that since a long time ago. But speech to control the browser (windows only), I can't find another one.

Ooops, sorry.

Here's the unix release:
http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/u90p1.html

And mac:
http://snapshot.opera.com/mac/m90p1.html

http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/9.0-Preview-1/

Amen. I definitely didn't expect support for XSLT and Canvas 2D.

There's almost nothing left I want in Opera.

Considering that all their products use the same core, why would stop developing their product when all their products rely on the same source.

Yes, Opera has auto-update.

> Yes, Opera has auto-update.

Mind telling me where it is?

What Opera does is check for new releases periodically (can't tell you period). You can also force it to do so by going Help->Check for new release.

@abdavidson
Great! Thanks!

Yep. Hopefully people will stop calling it "stealing" and realize it's good for both sides.

Sometimes features aren't introduced simply because another browser has it, but because it's requested by the users.

Amen to that. I like the use of that term instead of 'theft'... God forbid someone implement a feature found on something else because the users requested it. Usually if users request a feature from something else it means that something else falls short of their expectations.

Case in point: Gecko based browsers. I REALLY wanted to abandon IE as my primary browser, but Opera 7 costed money AND didn't render sites well, so I was really hopeful on Mozilla/Firefox/other gecko's to come up with SOMETHING useful.

But (in my experience at least) I came away with a sour taste in my mouth after dealing with the {expletives deleted} at bugzilla and that I basically had to kill ___fill in your favorite gecko based browser here___'s task every 20 minutes from a memory leak locking it up, five minutes if I was browsing particularly aggressively or god forbid downloading files (including "Save Image As" which seems to be the buggiest part of all).

So, Opera 8.5 has been a godsend. Finally free, renders most every site I visit in a useable (not always perfect, but close enough) fashion, none of the IE flaws and to be honest, a more polished, professional appearance... Best of all it's available on the three platforms I hop between regularly.

Wow, I'm a convert. (nothing more zealous than a recent convert)

Opera 9 beta looks good so far, typing this up from it. Amazingly it retained ALL my settings from the previous version intact, something Firefox seems yet to have figured out... Even the installer is more polished from simple things like when I chose "don't create a program group on the start menu" it doesn't create a program group on the start menu... unlike Firefox which when you choose that option it still creates a folder in the start menu... mind you it's an empty one (oh, that's {censored} BRILLIANT!)

They keep this up, they will finally shed their "Also ran" status.

and that I basically had to kill ___fill in your favorite gecko based browser here___'s task every 20 minutes from a memory leak locking it up, five minutes if I was browsing particularly aggressively or god forbid downloading files (including "Save Image As" which seems to be the buggiest part of all).

You've been pretty unlucky. I've been using Firefox for a very long time, and haven't had any of these issues. But I do know that some exists, but most of these stems from plugins and/or poorly written extensions.
I've never had problems with "Save Image As".

But I know that some have had issues, but most of these stems (as earlier stated) from buggy plugins and extensions. And a few memory leaks are due to flaws in FF itself (all known memory leaks in FF have been fixed - but that's probably because we haven't found the unknown ones yet).

"Yep. Hopefully people will stop calling it "stealing" and realize it's good for both sides. "

Uh, huh. And who's calling it "stealing"? The persons writing the code certainly aren't. The only complaint that people have is when one "borrows" an idea, and then pretends that it's somehow original.

Look around the web, a lot of people say "stealing", even some users on this site.

But yeah, borrowing a feature than claiming its innovative is definitely annoying.

If you still can't get it, let me know, and I can either host it or email it. If not, there might be mirrors up by now (try MajorGeek[s].com).

Do you, or anyone else, have the Mac file?

As title says, the servers are back up again. I'm looking forward to trying it, but I'm afraid that there's still a few OS X problems left.

If they add the features and rewrite whole chunks of the code, why not bump the version number? Just because the rest of the computing industry is stuck in a rut doesn't mean Opera has to be.

I agree with you about bumping to 8.50, but not about bumping to 9.0. I assume 8.50 was definitely a marketing thing to get it out there since it went free. 9.0 does a bunch of major changes though.

Firefox did the same thing, bumped 1.1 to 1.5 and 1.5 to 2.0. I don't think either WANTS to, but with IE7 coming out soon, they do it to try and even the playing field a bit.

There are probably a good deal of internal builds to justify the number jumps.

"Honestly, I don't like seeing Opera bumping whole versions like that, it's less than a year that Opera 8 came out and they bumped into 8.50 out of the blue (from 8.0.2) only *a few weeks ago* (when the only new feature in it was that it had no... ads in it anymore)."

LOL. That has the be the best new feature they've ever come up with!

"They are playing a marketing game and the version numbers are part of it. They should slow down a bit their radical versioning."

Too many people play that game, but it seems to me to be a minor thing. That isn't saying that I disagree with you...

Please don't turn this into an argument about who copies who and who says what.

The reason Opera added it is because of user requests. The reason users requested it is because there are advanced options in the INI files that aren't accessible through the preferences dialog. Editing an ini then reloading Opera was annoying, so this was a good way for advanced users to change the more advanced settings.

Not turning into an argument of who copied what. In this case, Opera copied a Firefox feature, very plainly. I don't mind that.

I just think it's a poor feature to copy, user requests or not. It's - as I said - a sign of having given up with coming up with decent UI for preferences.

Yes, it's better than editing INI files (absolutely) but still it's a miserable alternative to proper integrated preference choices.

No, I think it's a good solution. Cramming EVERYTHING into the preferences dialog would be a nightmare and a mess. The way they simplified it now is very nice. They have to keep it as simple as they can (even the Advanced tab) to not scare away users.

I don't see why it bothers you, since you probably never will use it, and probably will never have to. It provides an interface for those options only the geeks touch, and keeps the UI dialog more simplified.

"No, I think it's a good solution. Cramming EVERYTHING into the preferences dialog would be a nightmare and a mess."

Did I say that? No. There are more inventive ways of providing advanced preferences that Joe User isn't going to touch rather than throwing them all in one big list.

"I don't see why it bothers you, since you probably never will use it, and probably will never have to. It provides an interface for those options only the geeks touch, and keeps the UI dialog more simplified."

How exactly are you characterising me to be able to say that I'll probably never use it?

I've been using Opera pretty much solidly since v5 came out, think it is the best browser of the bunch, and do my own fair bit of customisation to my interface feel with it.

None of that alters the fact that a big long scrollable list of changeable parameters is a bad bit of HCI.

Sorry, I shouldn't have done that.

My point is, it's abad idea to implement all those things into the preferences dialog. So what other solution is there?

You don't integrate all those options into the standard preferences dialogue for a start; that *would* be nightmarish.

There is nothing however to prevent an *actual* advanced prerefences option that is hidden away from Joe User (maybe under the "specials" submenu) which categorises the options properly and - importantly - (and this is something I dislike about the current preferences window but understand given who all has to use that) - isn't modal.

Allow the tinkerers to tinker in something that is a bit less chaotic and a bit more organised while still using the browser.

That aside, it's always fun playing with a new release.

>1. An option to open pages from external apps in a new window.
>- This would make Opera more usable with all external apps

That is already available:
opera -newpage '%s'

"5. Option to use native QT themes"

That exists. Kinda.

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=78468

When it comes to looks the bottom line is that I don't give a rat's ass about skinning. I just want the app to blend into the environment.

I don't even like skinned media players. Skinned apps are a bit childish actually.

Opera is in many ways like "a teenager who doesn't care about anybody else", begging for attention at the same time...

This applies to functionality as well.

Opera blends perfectly into my OS. I use the Native skin and it uses all the native widgets, and everything else works fine as well (clipboard, drag&drop, etc).

"Opera blends perfectly into my OS. I use the Native skin and it uses all the native widgets, and everything else works fine as well (clipboard, drag&drop, etc)."

You obviously don't use Linux then. Oh... Linux users too have the *Windows native* skin available right there in the Appearance dialog. And it really makes Opera widgets look like win98! How nice...

Clipboard and drag&drop seems to works nicely though.

Yeah, I had a feeling you were talking about Linux. You're right, the linux version doesn't blend in nearly as well. I do hope they fix it, as it would be nice to see some more Linux users adopt Opera as well.

"Yeah, I had a feeling you were talking about Linux. You're right, the linux version doesn't blend in nearly as well. I do hope they fix it, as it would be nice to see some more Linux users adopt Opera as well."

Well, it would be fairly easy to fix this to some extent: Opera devs could put this skinning feature into good use and provide high quality skins that mimic the default look of the most popular desktop environments, Gnome, Windows XP and Mac OS). It should be possible to make the skins to adapt to custom color schemes too.

Then, when a user first installs Opera he/she would be asked to choose between these skins and the original Opera look. This could be automatic too, of course.

"6. Remove MDI now!"

Why remove something that's purely an option? You can use Opera like other tabbed browsers such as Firefox without ever seeing it's MDI app history.

The MDI interface can be very useful, for example it allows you to tile or cascade web pages within one window. It's one of the things that makes Opera so powerful and customisable compared with other browsers so they'd be mad to remove it.

"*There's a persistent drop-down when you type an address in the URL bar. I think it's very distracting. (Amazon, Price Comparison search, etc) I suspect many others find it distracting, too."

I kinda agree. The URL bar is not the right place for this. But when it is customized to users needs it can be handy as you can but there some of the most used things without cluttering the main interface.

Maybe the search box on the right would be a better place for this. Maybe I would then actually use this box sometimes...

Oh well, It wouldn't matter much to me if they'd remove this "Start bar" for good.

"*All the while real strengths of the browser that were previously accomplished with 1-click (or easily seen) - like page zooming and image-toggling - are now more painful exercises in clicking (2 clicks, at least). In my opinion? A step backwards. The real strengths of the browser (that would be used most often) should be in the forefront; revealed in the default GUI, not hidden."

I don't think that page zooming is one of the most used features unless you happen to have very poor eye sight.

There could be an "Accessibility option" for visually impaired. Enabling this option should be made easy.

I also don't believe that image-toggling is a very popular feature either.

The cleaner the browser interface the better. On the other hand it should be customizable for people who need special features. IMO, Opera is very good in this regard.