8 ms·

Opera 11 Alpha is out, brings plugin support

34 points by bsk 16y ago

alexknight 16y ago
Going to give this a whirl. Heard about extensions support when they were chatting with Reddit users the other day.
sushi 16y ago
Gave it a try on Ubuntu. Extensions are very alpha but nevertheless a welcome move.
justlearning 16y ago
"An option has now been added to have plug-ins such as Flash content load only when clicked on.." nice feature there!. no more of pretty-woman-greeting me on page load.
opiuygtfrtghyju 16y ago
The thing I liked about Opera was the lack of plugins. No waiting for 10 add0-ins you've never heard of to update themsleves and ask you to restart your computer. No having to search the net for add-ins to do things like toggle image loading or prevent popups.
- aaront 16y ago
  These aren't Firefox add-ins. These are small pieces of JavaScript and HTML/CSS. Probably won't bog down your browser any more than UserJS scripts.
  - Pistos2 16y ago
    According to them, these new extensions will also have [more?] control over tabs and windows, which plain JS (like their existing Widgets) cannot do. http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/getting-started-with-opera-extensions/ http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/getting-started-with-oper...
- carussell 16y ago
  If you haven't heard of them, why do you have them? Why don't you get rid of them? I'm also interested in what kind of add-ons you have installed that require you to restart your computer. I also don't see how the existence of extensions is a downside for a browser. Firefox ships with none to begin with.
  - opiuygtfrtghyju 16y ago
    Dependencies. You want to toggle image loading (opera's original killer feature), that uses the wibble library witch needs the flooble dll. So you get a message telling you a new flooble library is available everytime you start to browse. The plugins generally don't need a restart - but under windows the default for installer examples is to restart and the guy that did the flooble binary packaging didn't bother to change it.
raquo 16y ago
I wonder if they will ever make their Mac version more native (e.g. standard OSX shortcuts would work in text fields). It's really strange that having a lot of stuff well polished, and releasing a lot of new features, simple things like that are forgotten about. Kind of like OSX not letting you select an arbitrary solid color as your background (that may be intentional though).
- r4ps 16y ago
  Well Opera has gone Cocoa since 10.5 and feels much more native than it used to. Still, I wish it had the same level of polish as Chrome does on OS X.
  - SkyMarshal 16y ago
    They've been more focused on 'Macification' since 10.50 apparently. There's some discussion of this over on the Opera engineer AMA Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dtbcz/hey_reddit_join_the_opera_browser_team_for_an/c12qxqo http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dtbcz/hey_reddit_join_...
macco 16y ago
Alpha feels quite stable. Stumbleupon-Addon works great. Whished the would made the addon-system compatible to Chrome's
- aaront 16y ago
  Technically, it should be. They're using W3C Widget specifications, an open standard, to do extensions. EDIT: But I don't think they're compatible out of the box, unfortunately.
starrwarrior 16y ago
I'm very glad opera will finally support extensions. Hopefully it will provide a better interface for tackling ad blocking than the built in blacklist feature or doing it elsewhere(proxy,dns,etc.).
- Pistos2 16y ago
  Personally, I've never found the built in ad blocking lacking. Where it missed anything (which is rare), blocking a specific ad is two clicks or so away. In what ways would you like things improved?
  - raquo 16y ago
    For me most useful would be subscription to some EasyList or whatever it's called to block 90% of the ads.
whalesalad 16y ago
Honestly, does anyone use Opera?
- judofyr 16y ago
  I believe they only have 3% desktop market share, but it's definitely the most used mobile browser: http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-200909-201009 http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-200909-...
- uptown 16y ago
  We use it internally at one of my client sites. Until recently, it was the only browser fast enough to keep up with the realtime portfolio screens. Chrome and others are finally catching up, but Opera still performs the fastest with what we throw at it.
- aaront 16y ago
  I started using it at version 10.0 (when it finally started looking better, thanks to John Hicks). And the whole Cocoa conversion sealed the deal for me. That, and the fact that I can control it fully with only the mouse or only the keyboard.
- endtime 16y ago
  I've been using Opera as my main browser for a few years now.
  - budman 16y ago
    Same here. Love it now to where other browsers feel boring. Opera takes a bit of commitment in the beginning because it isn't as "popular thing to use" but once you LEARN how humbly powerful it is (browsing speed wise AND feature set), you sort of end up catching yourself going back to it more and more to where you use it for most of the time. Many small features I take for granted now with Opera others don't have or you need some sort of extension to get (or they end up copying later). Also, the times of running into sites not compatible with Opera are so far and few between now thanks to the growth of browser wars. It happens once in while, sure... It happens in Chrome too. BUT no other browser has a the simple though out ability to right-click the broken webpage and allow you to select to open it in another browser on your system. That to me is "friendly" and shows Opera has a open philosophy. Try it
sirn 16y ago
Extension support is nice, but I'm disappointed by lack of CSS Flexible Box Model[1] support in this release. It is available in WebKit and Gecko for over a year. Only if Opera supports it… [1]: http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/04/the-css-3-flexible-box-model/ http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/04/the-css-3-flexible-box-mode...

34 points by bsk 16y ago

alexknight 16y ago

Going to give this a whirl. Heard about extensions support when they were chatting with Reddit users the other day.

sushi 16y ago

Gave it a try on Ubuntu. Extensions are very alpha but nevertheless a welcome move.

justlearning 16y ago

"An option has now been added to have plug-ins such as Flash content load only when clicked on.." nice feature there!. no more of pretty-woman-greeting me on page load.

opiuygtfrtghyju 16y ago

The thing I liked about Opera was the lack of plugins. No waiting for 10 add0-ins you've never heard of to update themsleves and ask you to restart your computer. No having to search the net for add-ins to do things like toggle image loading or prevent popups.

aaront 16y ago
These aren't Firefox add-ins. These are small pieces of JavaScript and HTML/CSS. Probably won't bog down your browser any more than UserJS scripts.
- Pistos2 16y ago
  According to them, these new extensions will also have [more?] control over tabs and windows, which plain JS (like their existing Widgets) cannot do. http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/getting-started-with-opera-extensions/ http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/getting-started-with-oper...
carussell 16y ago
If you haven't heard of them, why do you have them? Why don't you get rid of them? I'm also interested in what kind of add-ons you have installed that require you to restart your computer. I also don't see how the existence of extensions is a downside for a browser. Firefox ships with none to begin with.
- opiuygtfrtghyju 16y ago
  Dependencies. You want to toggle image loading (opera's original killer feature), that uses the wibble library witch needs the flooble dll. So you get a message telling you a new flooble library is available everytime you start to browse. The plugins generally don't need a restart - but under windows the default for installer examples is to restart and the guy that did the flooble binary packaging didn't bother to change it.

raquo 16y ago

I wonder if they will ever make their Mac version more native (e.g. standard OSX shortcuts would work in text fields). It's really strange that having a lot of stuff well polished, and releasing a lot of new features, simple things like that are forgotten about. Kind of like OSX not letting you select an arbitrary solid color as your background (that may be intentional though).

r4ps 16y ago
Well Opera has gone Cocoa since 10.5 and feels much more native than it used to. Still, I wish it had the same level of polish as Chrome does on OS X.
- SkyMarshal 16y ago
  They've been more focused on 'Macification' since 10.50 apparently. There's some discussion of this over on the Opera engineer AMA Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dtbcz/hey_reddit_join_the_opera_browser_team_for_an/c12qxqo http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dtbcz/hey_reddit_join_...

macco 16y ago

Alpha feels quite stable. Stumbleupon-Addon works great. Whished the would made the addon-system compatible to Chrome's

aaront 16y ago
Technically, it should be. They're using W3C Widget specifications, an open standard, to do extensions. EDIT: But I don't think they're compatible out of the box, unfortunately.

starrwarrior 16y ago

I'm very glad opera will finally support extensions. Hopefully it will provide a better interface for tackling ad blocking than the built in blacklist feature or doing it elsewhere(proxy,dns,etc.).

Pistos2 16y ago
Personally, I've never found the built in ad blocking lacking. Where it missed anything (which is rare), blocking a specific ad is two clicks or so away. In what ways would you like things improved?
- raquo 16y ago
  For me most useful would be subscription to some EasyList or whatever it's called to block 90% of the ads.

whalesalad 16y ago

Honestly, does anyone use Opera?

judofyr 16y ago
I believe they only have 3% desktop market share, but it's definitely the most used mobile browser: http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-200909-201009 http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-200909-...
uptown 16y ago
We use it internally at one of my client sites. Until recently, it was the only browser fast enough to keep up with the realtime portfolio screens. Chrome and others are finally catching up, but Opera still performs the fastest with what we throw at it.
aaront 16y ago
I started using it at version 10.0 (when it finally started looking better, thanks to John Hicks). And the whole Cocoa conversion sealed the deal for me. That, and the fact that I can control it fully with only the mouse or only the keyboard.
endtime 16y ago
I've been using Opera as my main browser for a few years now.
- budman 16y ago
  Same here. Love it now to where other browsers feel boring. Opera takes a bit of commitment in the beginning because it isn't as "popular thing to use" but once you LEARN how humbly powerful it is (browsing speed wise AND feature set), you sort of end up catching yourself going back to it more and more to where you use it for most of the time. Many small features I take for granted now with Opera others don't have or you need some sort of extension to get (or they end up copying later). Also, the times of running into sites not compatible with Opera are so far and few between now thanks to the growth of browser wars. It happens once in while, sure... It happens in Chrome too. BUT no other browser has a the simple though out ability to right-click the broken webpage and allow you to select to open it in another browser on your system. That to me is "friendly" and shows Opera has a open philosophy. Try it

sirn 16y ago

Extension support is nice, but I'm disappointed by lack of CSS Flexible Box Model[1] support in this release. It is available in WebKit and Gecko for over a year. Only if Opera supports it… [1]: http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/04/the-css-3-flexible-box-model/ http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/04/the-css-3-flexible-box-mode...