Life Rocks 2.0 » Opera

Opera Mini 5 Review and Screenshots

Nirmal — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:04:35 +0000

Opera has released the latest beta version of its popular mobile browser Opera Mini 5. Opera Mini 5 beta is a free mobile browser which comes with lots of new features like tabbed browsing, new password manager, speed dial, touch screen and keypad and all new interface. Opera Mini compresses pages by up to 90% before being sent to your phone, meaning faster page-load times than in other mobile Web browsers. It also features scroll at warp speed using your phone keypad or by dragging the page on a phone with a touchscreen.

We tested Opera Mini 5 Beta on our Windows Mobile powered XPERIA X1 and here are some of the screenshots and review of Opera Mini 5.

At first when you install Opera Mini 5, you will notice the difference in interface which is very much improved over the previous version. The new interface although in beta phase, looks really good. The buttons like back and forward, refresh, tabs and settings are very easy to use and responsive.

1. Tabbed Interface: This is one of the much needed feature in mobile browsers. Although Opera Mobile does have tabbed browsing, Opera Mini which is more popular was lacking it. The new Mini 5 has a very good tabbed interface which is easy to use. The tabs show a thumbnail of the website opened and you can directly close the tabs with the close button located.

2. Speed Dial: Similar to Opera for PC, Opera Mini 5 now features speed dial and you can save your favorite and most used websites to speed dials. To add a new page, simply click on an empty Speed Dial slot, and Opera will make suggestions based on your browsing history and bookmarks.

3. Password Manager: The new Opera Mini 5 comes with a full fledged password manager. Opera Mini 5 will remember your credentials, and you can log on to your favorite Web sites with just a single click. The passwords are stored on your phone for your convenience.

The settings, bookmarks and other options also have been designed well and easy to use and responsive.

Overall we liked the new Opera Mini 5 beta and its new features. Opera Mini 5 would definitely going to change the way internet is used in mobile phones. Having said about the good aspects, we found Mini 5 gets struck few times when we enter URL or click on the speed dial tab. This could be attributed to the fact that it is still under development.

So what are you waiting for, download the latest version by visiting the address m.opera.com/next, using your phone’s default Web browser or download to your computer.

Opera 10 Beta Released

Nirmal — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:37:19 +0000

Opera has released the latest beta version of its popular browser- Opera 10. This new version of Opera comes with lots of improvements, features and more importantly the turbo mode for faster browsing. This new Opera feature of Turbo increases your internet bandwidth speed on slow connections using data and image compression technologies. Opera Turbo uses Opera proxy servers to compress the traffic before it reaches the Opera browser on the client’s computer.

Apart from the turbo, other notable features in Opera 10 include in build spell checker which will now show spelling errors are now indicated as you type via a dotted red underline in all places where you can input text: form fields.

The speed dial functionality is further improved and now you can use more than 9 speed dials. There is a new configure Speed Dial button that opens a brand new configuration dialog for customizing speed dials.

An integrated user interface for built-in crash reporting has been added to Opera. This feature automatically appears when Opera has suffered a crash and enables a user to easily report the event directly back to Opera. Apart from this, Opera now includes the ability to update itself automatically when new releases become available.

Tabs will feature thumbnail views and this feature is hidden by default and if you want to have thumbnails enabled for tabs, drag the slider down and this will give way for the thumbnails.

Overall Opera 10 beta looks good with some great features.

Download Opera 10 Beta

Download StumbleUpon Toolbar for Opera with Opera Stumbler

Nirmal — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:57:40 +0000

StumbleUpon is a great way to discover and give a thumbs up for new sites. Stumble can bring you tons of traffic especially when you sites become popular. The toolbar which is used to give thumbs up for websites was previously not available for Opera users. But not anymore, Opera Stumbler has released a Stumble Upon menu bar/ buttons for Opera for stumbling new sites.

This toolbar is available in four versions;

Menu Version
Stumble Button + Dropdown Menu
Individual Buttons
Speed Dial / Bookmark

To download the toolbar you need to provide the Stumble Upon ID, name and password.

Opera Stumbler [Via Keith]

Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta for Available for Download

Nirmal — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:15:36 +0000

Opera has released the first beta version of the Opera Mobile 9.5. This beta version is designed for Windows Mobile 5 and 6 with touchscreens. Opera Mobile, first launched in 2000, and with over 100 million installations since 2004. The first beta of Opera Mobile 9.5 comes outfitted with added performance, faster speed and a new UI.

Features in Opera Mobile 9.5;

Opera Mobile 9.5 beta loads Web pages 2.5 times faster than Internet Explorer Mobile.
It defaults to full Web page viewing with the ability to allows users to pan and zoom.
The new UI is cleaner and more intuitive.
Opera Mobile 9.5 is the most standards compliant browser available.
Browse with the full richness of AJAX.
Integrated with address auto-complete, Password Manager and pop-up handler.
Multitask with tabbed browsing and view content in wide screen.

Plans for future betas include:

Opera Widgets
Opera Link
Gears
Symbian OS support

Download Opera Mobile 9.5

Check the Security Status of Browsers with Opera Widget

Nirmal — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:50:10 +0000

We all know the fact that browser have many security loopholes and some of them could be minor ones and some very critical ones. Stay Secure is an Opera Widget which helps you to keep an eye on the security status of web browsers. This widget shows the security status of the latest versions of IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Konqueror 3.

The bar on the graph indicates the security level of each browsers. The bars represent how dangerous is the worst unfixed hole for each browser and this means the lower a bar, the better security. It also shows the number of security holes in each browser. The data about the vulnerabilities is loaded from Secunia site and it is refreshed once per hour.

The test showed that Firefox 3 was most vulnerable one and Opera the least. Internet Explorer had the maximum number of security holes-10. The higher number of security holes does not always mean that the browser is the most vulnerable one. Here Firefox with one security hole is more vulnerable than IE with 10 holes. Safari and Konqueror 3 had 1 and 2 security holes respectively.

Download Stay Secure Widget (Opera Browser Needed)

Opera 9.5 Released, Available for Download

Nirmal — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:53:44 +0000

Two days after the release of Opera 9.5 RC, the final version of Opera 9.5 is ready. All the bug fixes in the RC is complete and the latest version of Opera can be downloaded from here. We have been using Opera 9.5 RC and its really fast. Here are some facts on Opera 9.5;

Opera is now available in 29 languages, 6 more than in 9.27 and more are coming
The number of Opera users has more than doubled since the release of 9.0
IMAP is up to 4 times as fast in 9.5 than in 9.2
Almost 500.000 people were already using betas of 9.5

Opera 9.5 also sports a new theme and refreshing looks.

Download Opera 9.5 Final

Download Opera 9.5 Release Candidate

Nirmal — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:06:59 +0000

Opera 9.5 which was in development is nearing completion and getting ready for release. Almost two years after the release of Opera 9.0, 9,5 version is is being released. Apart from this, Opera 9.5 has a brand new look which is looking more sharper and also better.

You can try out the Release candidate of upcoming Opera 9.5 which has lots of improvements and bug fixes.

Download Opera 9.5 RC

How to Do Spell Check in Opera Browser

Nirmal — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:20:21 +0000

Opera is one of the best browser in terms of memory consumption and it also has a number of other features. But of the feature missing in Opera is the Spell check. Spell check is very important especially if you are using Opera for blogging or for submitting content to social sites. Spell check can be enabled in Opera using GNU Aspell.

GNU Aspell is a Free and Open Source spell checker. Opera can recognize this software once its installed in Windows or Linux machine.

How to Install this software?

1. Download GNU Aspell and install it.
2. Install one or more Aspell dictionaries (The list of dictionaries are available in download site).
3. Restart Opera.

On restart, Opera will automatically recognize when GNU Aspell and one or more dictionaries are installed on your computer, but without a dictionary, GNU Aspell will not function as a spell checker.

Once the spell checker is installed, “Check spelling” option will appear in the context menu of all edit fields.

Top 8 Opera Browser Skins

Nirmal — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 18:50:30 +0000

In the browser memory comparison test, Opera was the one which came first with least memory consumption. In case you would like to try out Opera, here are top 8 Opera Browser skins with which you can customize the looks of the browser.

1. Tango GL:

Download

2. WinVista Classic:

3. Neo Theme:

4. Free Style:

5. Cocoa:

6. Shadow Guard:

7. Metal Blue:

8. Fresh:

Which is your favorite theme? Do share your thoughts on it.

Firefox vs Opera

Nirmal — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 19:09:08 +0000

I have been using Firefox for browsing the net unless the website doesn’t support Firefox (there are a few which I use often). I had reported in this blog about a strange problem I faced with Firefox while browsing (if you have not read it, click here). Of late this problem was coming out more frequently and hence I decided to try out Opera. Opera is almost similar to Firefox with some small changes in the looks ( I had used Opera previously).

When I checked the memory usages of both the browsers, I found that Opera took 17 MB of memory more than Firefox for same windows and websites (see picture above) and this could be because of various reasons. Further tabbing through the pages are more faster in Firefox than Opera.

Next I wanted to check the loading time for any site. For this I compared the time taken by both these browsers for different websites. Here I found that Firefox was bit superior to Opera as it took less time. Another thing I noticed was, Opera takes more time to load sites with lot of images and again this is relative.

After installing Opera, the Firefox problem seems to have solved and it has not occurred in the past 2 days. Sometimes competition does solve issues.

NB: The comparison given here may vary in different systems and based on other conditions. I used Windows XP with 512 MB RAM for this comparison.

Technorati tags: Firefox, Opera, Internet