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Opera 10.50 beta
I have been playing around with the 10.50 pre-alpha and thoroughly impressed. This ones gonna be even better
Heres a short review of the browser.
Tabbed Browsing
By far the best and most complete tabbing interface in any browser. Tabs are like sub-windows and the tab UI should be consistent with windows. Here are the flaws in other browsers.
Carakan - Fastest Javascript Engine
Opera has been lagging behind in this for a while. While its a critical part of website performance, I did not feel websites were significantly slower because of a slower JS engine in Opera (this maybe be related to my browsing pattern). However, with Chrome and Firefox competing to make websites load 0.000003 femtoseconds faster, Opera didnt want to be left behind. They got a spanking new JS engine, Carakan, with native code execution and other improvements. Heres the benchmark on how fast these browsers run through a 3 gazillion bazillion loop in JS. I hope the benchmark kiddies are happy now
Vega - Hardware Accelerated Graphics Engine
One more awesome innovation from Opera. Their rendering engine (Presto 2.5) uses a new graphics library, Vega, which is hardware accelerated. This means it uses OpenGL/DirextX to improve rendering times. A lot of the rendering is now off-loaded to the GPU. The intense focus on improving JS speed had decreased the importance given to rendering. You can improve a websites loading time only by so much using a faster JS engine. At some point you will be limited by the rendering engine. Opera had a really quick rendering engine, and it just got faster!
This is of much importance in the mobile, netbook space. Mobile processors are limited by compute power and battery life. Off-loading rendering to the GPU improves rendering speed and increases battery life, since GPUs are more efficient than CPUs at rendering. Most smartphone mobile processors come with a GPU these days and its nice to see it can be put to good use, apart from video decoding and gaming. I hope to see this technology in Opera Mobile soon. Netbooks with a good GPU should also see improvements in rendering speed and battery life.
Non-blocking Javascript, HTTP dialog boxes
A pending JS or HTTP notification doesnt prevent you from interacting with other tabs or the browser. Admittedly, Chrome was the first to have this feature, as a direct consequence of their browser architecture. Firefox is FUBAR, again.
Speed Dial
A nice innovation from Opera. Though its been copied by other browsers, Opera still has the best Speed Dial implementation. Cant the Trio even copy features properly?! You can manually add entries to your speed dial, which I find missing in the Trio. The speed dial can also be configured to display 4, 9, 12, 16, 20 or 25 websites. The websites in slots 1-9 are accessible by using the Ctrl+<Number> keyboard shortcut.
Private Browsing - Pr0n Mode
A rather nice innovation from Chrome(??). Opera has improved upon the implementation and its as close to perfect as you can get. Apart from the regular features in Chrome, these are the new features.
Opera Link
Its a free service provided by Opera that keeps data synced across multiple machines. These are the items that can be synced
Opera Turbo
This feature unique to Opera, improves page loading times over slow connections by compressing the website. All your HTTP requests are streamed through Operas servers, which then fetches the page. Their servers compress images, flash and text and then send it back to you, enabling a fast experience even over slow connections. The compression IS lossy, so there is some reduction in image quality, but the level of compression is customisable to a certain extent. This increases latencies due to the intermediary server taking time to compress pages but saves bandwidth. Very useful if you are browsing on a limited data plan or slow dialup/mobile connection or on roaming (where data costs are high).
Theres one other benefit too. It can be used as a proxy to access websites blocked by your ISP. It can also be used to browse websites that have blocked your IP, since your IP is now hidden from the website. Recently, it was useful to access isoHunt, when they blocked all BSNL IPs
Torrent Downloader
Opera also packs in a basic torrent downloader. Its quite decent and saturates my connection easily. It automatically throttles the torrent speed when Im browsing, so that websites dont load too slowly. Its not as configurable as stand alone applications (like uTorrent, Vuze) though.
[BREAK=Features (Continued)]
Ad Block
Opera also has the best ad block implementation and UI, ever. I tried the add-ons in Firefox and Chrome and was disappointed, to say the least. Heres how its done in Opera.
Chrome has a complicated method to block ads, though its fairly customisable. Chrome doesnt have an elegant way to see what ads are blocked in a page either. Found this rather annoying. I would have to whitelist the page and reload to see whats blocked. Heres a screenshot of how its done in Opera. Right-Click anywhere in the page and choose "Block Content". Voila! All the blocked content is shown automatically.
Also a peculiar thing I noticed in Chrome was that the ads would be displayed for a few seconds before the page completely loaded. Then the page would flicker (refresh) with the ads blocked. I get the feeling that the ads are downloaded to the machine and blocked just prior to display. This is an extremely poor way of blocking ads. Opera does not even fetch the ads that are blocked. Heres proof of my statement.
Heres a screenshot when the page is partially loaded. Notice the Crucial advertisement at the top of the page, marked in red.
Heres the page after its fully loaded. Notice how the Crucial ad is no longer displayed.
One more bug (??) I noticed was that the space occupied by a blocked ad collapses in Chrome. This might cause formatting issues in some websites. I havent come across any major issues, but the formatting of a website is noticably different when ads are blocked. Heres a screenshot to illustrate the point.
Original page in Opera and Chrome
Same page with ads blocked in Opera and Chrome
Notice how the article text has moved up in Chrome, while Opera still retains the space for the ad. Opera retains the intended layout of the page with and without ads, thereby delivering a consistent browsing experience. Chrome tries to increase the quantum of information displayed, which might be a good thing for some.
Chrome adblock has the following disadvantages compared to Opera.
Opera M2 - Built-in Mail Client
Opera packs so much into such a small download footprint, it makes Firefox look like Rosie O'Donnell. Opera has its M2 mail client tightly integrated with the browser. The mail client comes along with the browser in 8.9MB. Thunderbird alone is 8.6MB. Opera M2 does almost everything Thunderbird can and does it better too. A couple of key features that distinguish it from Thunderbird.
Opera M2 - Quick Find
One more thing that Opera does, and Thunderbird cant. Its basically incremental search on your mail. Opera begins to search and display matching emails as soon as you begin to type. The results are refined as you continue to type. It is blindingly fast too.
HTML5 Support
Opera has been the leader in HTML5 support and continues to be. Provides much wider support for HTML5 standards than any other browser. Chrome is still catching up and Firefox is no where in sight. A point to be noted is the absence of native support for H.264 embedded video in HTML5. Opera supports he Theora format, which comes with no copyright/patent/license issues. H.264 is supported by installing an open source add-on called GStreamer.
Inline Search Highlight
Safari had an interesting feature that helped in easily locating where exactly a search result was found within a page. The page would automatically darken and the search result alone will be highlighted. The page would return back to normal on a click. The effects were rather nice. Opera has the same feature now, I hope this is made customisable in the final release.
This is just a short review and I have highlighted only the important features. Im hoping to write a comprehensive review later, where I will nitpick at a much more detailed level
Flowers/flames most welcome as long as you state your reasons. If you have any questions please feel free to ask.
References
Opera 10.50 beta
I have been playing around with the 10.50 pre-alpha and thoroughly impressed. This ones gonna be even better
Heres a short review of the browser.
Tabbed Browsing
By far the best and most complete tabbing interface in any browser. Tabs are like sub-windows and the tab UI should be consistent with windows. Here are the flaws in other browsers.
- Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs, when in fact it should alternate between 2 tabs. The behaviour should be similar to Alt+Tab. Firefox, Chrome and Safari (lets call them the Trio from now on, because they share the same broken UI at many other places too) always cycle through tabs with no option to change the behaviour. Operas default behaviour alternates between 2 tabs. In case you are too used to the broken UI in Trio, Operas behaviour is customisable to mimic those.
- Operas tabs are resizable, just like how they should be in the first place. This behaviour is what is expected out of a sub-window. The Trio doesnt have this feature. Trios implementation of tabs is not akin to a sub-window. The Trio would be more accurate in calling their implementation Tarbs, reTarded tabs. Operas tabs can be resized, cascaded and tiled (vertically and horizontally)! Heres how I usually follow scores from 2 cricket matches at work without "Ctrl+Tab"ing every time or cluttering my Windows taskbar
Carakan - Fastest Javascript Engine
Opera has been lagging behind in this for a while. While its a critical part of website performance, I did not feel websites were significantly slower because of a slower JS engine in Opera (this maybe be related to my browsing pattern). However, with Chrome and Firefox competing to make websites load 0.000003 femtoseconds faster, Opera didnt want to be left behind. They got a spanking new JS engine, Carakan, with native code execution and other improvements. Heres the benchmark on how fast these browsers run through a 3 gazillion bazillion loop in JS. I hope the benchmark kiddies are happy now
One more awesome innovation from Opera. Their rendering engine (Presto 2.5) uses a new graphics library, Vega, which is hardware accelerated. This means it uses OpenGL/DirextX to improve rendering times. A lot of the rendering is now off-loaded to the GPU. The intense focus on improving JS speed had decreased the importance given to rendering. You can improve a websites loading time only by so much using a faster JS engine. At some point you will be limited by the rendering engine. Opera had a really quick rendering engine, and it just got faster!
This is of much importance in the mobile, netbook space. Mobile processors are limited by compute power and battery life. Off-loading rendering to the GPU improves rendering speed and increases battery life, since GPUs are more efficient than CPUs at rendering. Most smartphone mobile processors come with a GPU these days and its nice to see it can be put to good use, apart from video decoding and gaming. I hope to see this technology in Opera Mobile soon. Netbooks with a good GPU should also see improvements in rendering speed and battery life.
Non-blocking Javascript, HTTP dialog boxes
A pending JS or HTTP notification doesnt prevent you from interacting with other tabs or the browser. Admittedly, Chrome was the first to have this feature, as a direct consequence of their browser architecture. Firefox is FUBAR, again.
Speed Dial
A nice innovation from Opera. Though its been copied by other browsers, Opera still has the best Speed Dial implementation. Cant the Trio even copy features properly?! You can manually add entries to your speed dial, which I find missing in the Trio. The speed dial can also be configured to display 4, 9, 12, 16, 20 or 25 websites. The websites in slots 1-9 are accessible by using the Ctrl+<Number> keyboard shortcut.
Private Browsing - Pr0n Mode
A rather nice innovation from Chrome(??). Opera has improved upon the implementation and its as close to perfect as you can get. Apart from the regular features in Chrome, these are the new features.
- Even tabs within regular windows can be made private. Such fine grained control is nothing short of awesome!
- Multiple private windows. I wonder why Chrome doesnt allow this in an easier way.
- Speed Dial is available in private tabs, if needed. Absent in Chrome for some unexplained reason again.
Opera Link
Its a free service provided by Opera that keeps data synced across multiple machines. These are the items that can be synced
- Bookmarks
- Speed Dial
- Personal Bar
- Typed History
- Notes
- Searches
Opera Turbo
This feature unique to Opera, improves page loading times over slow connections by compressing the website. All your HTTP requests are streamed through Operas servers, which then fetches the page. Their servers compress images, flash and text and then send it back to you, enabling a fast experience even over slow connections. The compression IS lossy, so there is some reduction in image quality, but the level of compression is customisable to a certain extent. This increases latencies due to the intermediary server taking time to compress pages but saves bandwidth. Very useful if you are browsing on a limited data plan or slow dialup/mobile connection or on roaming (where data costs are high).
Theres one other benefit too. It can be used as a proxy to access websites blocked by your ISP. It can also be used to browse websites that have blocked your IP, since your IP is now hidden from the website. Recently, it was useful to access isoHunt, when they blocked all BSNL IPs
Torrent Downloader
Opera also packs in a basic torrent downloader. Its quite decent and saturates my connection easily. It automatically throttles the torrent speed when Im browsing, so that websites dont load too slowly. Its not as configurable as stand alone applications (like uTorrent, Vuze) though.
[BREAK=Features (Continued)]
Ad Block
Opera also has the best ad block implementation and UI, ever. I tried the add-ons in Firefox and Chrome and was disappointed, to say the least. Heres how its done in Opera.
- Right-Click anywhere in the page and choose "Block Content".
- Click on the ads that you want blocked in the page. Opera will also block other ads that partially match the URL of the ad that you clicked. You can use "Shift+Click" to block/unblock specific instances. In this case I clicked on only 1 ad and all the ads at the top and sides of the page were automatically blocked because they share a common pattern. Needed one more click for the ad in the middle of the page, which had a different URL.
- You can view and verify the match patterns are correct, if needed, by clicking on "Details" at the top of the page.
- Click "Done" at the top of the page.
Chrome has a complicated method to block ads, though its fairly customisable. Chrome doesnt have an elegant way to see what ads are blocked in a page either. Found this rather annoying. I would have to whitelist the page and reload to see whats blocked. Heres a screenshot of how its done in Opera. Right-Click anywhere in the page and choose "Block Content". Voila! All the blocked content is shown automatically.
Also a peculiar thing I noticed in Chrome was that the ads would be displayed for a few seconds before the page completely loaded. Then the page would flicker (refresh) with the ads blocked. I get the feeling that the ads are downloaded to the machine and blocked just prior to display. This is an extremely poor way of blocking ads. Opera does not even fetch the ads that are blocked. Heres proof of my statement.
Heres a screenshot when the page is partially loaded. Notice the Crucial advertisement at the top of the page, marked in red.
Heres the page after its fully loaded. Notice how the Crucial ad is no longer displayed.
One more bug (??) I noticed was that the space occupied by a blocked ad collapses in Chrome. This might cause formatting issues in some websites. I havent come across any major issues, but the formatting of a website is noticably different when ads are blocked. Heres a screenshot to illustrate the point.
Original page in Opera and Chrome
Same page with ads blocked in Opera and Chrome
Notice how the article text has moved up in Chrome, while Opera still retains the space for the ad. Opera retains the intended layout of the page with and without ads, thereby delivering a consistent browsing experience. Chrome tries to increase the quantum of information displayed, which might be a good thing for some.
Chrome adblock has the following disadvantages compared to Opera.
- Waste of bandwidth because the advertisement is still downloaded. Pages load as slowly with the ads, as without it. It may even be slower because of the time needed to filter the ads after downloading them. Significant time is spent waiting for the ads to download.
- Does not reduce usage on data limited connections.
- Ads can still track your movement across websites since they are fetched, but just not displayed.
- Page layout is different with and without ads. This might be inconsistent with what the website author intends.
Opera M2 - Built-in Mail Client
Opera packs so much into such a small download footprint, it makes Firefox look like Rosie O'Donnell. Opera has its M2 mail client tightly integrated with the browser. The mail client comes along with the browser in 8.9MB. Thunderbird alone is 8.6MB. Opera M2 does almost everything Thunderbird can and does it better too. A couple of key features that distinguish it from Thunderbird.
- Compose in tabs. Thunderbird still doesnt seem to have grasped the concept of tabs. What is the point of tabs, if mail can be composed only in a new window?
- To, CC, BCC are separate fields, like they should be.
- Extremely light weight.
Opera M2 - Quick Find
One more thing that Opera does, and Thunderbird cant. Its basically incremental search on your mail. Opera begins to search and display matching emails as soon as you begin to type. The results are refined as you continue to type. It is blindingly fast too.
HTML5 Support
Opera has been the leader in HTML5 support and continues to be. Provides much wider support for HTML5 standards than any other browser. Chrome is still catching up and Firefox is no where in sight. A point to be noted is the absence of native support for H.264 embedded video in HTML5. Opera supports he Theora format, which comes with no copyright/patent/license issues. H.264 is supported by installing an open source add-on called GStreamer.
Inline Search Highlight
Safari had an interesting feature that helped in easily locating where exactly a search result was found within a page. The page would automatically darken and the search result alone will be highlighted. The page would return back to normal on a click. The effects were rather nice. Opera has the same feature now, I hope this is made customisable in the final release.
Flowers/flames most welcome as long as you state your reasons. If you have any questions please feel free to ask.
References
- Javascript Benchmarks - Choose Opera - A new era of browser speed
- Carakan - Opera Core Concerns - Carakan Revisited
- Vega - Opera Core Concerns - Vega - Opera's vector graphics library
