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Software Opera 9 Released
Brandon Hill (Blog) - June 20, 2006 10:28 AM
Print 44 comment(s) - last by Clauzii.. on Jun 21 at 7:21 PM
Move over Firefox

With all of the attention that Firefox gets these days, it's sometimes easy to forget about Opera. Today, no one can ignore that Opera 9 has just been released. The latest version of the free browser is available today in 25 languages for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms.

Opera 9 brings a host of new features to the table including widgets, native BitTorrent support, saved sessions and a new security bar to prevent phising. "For Opera 9, we worked hard to push the limits of what people expect from a Web browser, with increased speed, new Web standards support and innovative features such as widgets and BitTorrent. Even though we shaped this browser for the Web’s future, we have the powerful features people want and need for their surfing today. I truly feel Opera 9 has something for everyone," said Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software.

Opera 9 is available for download right now. For those looking to add widgets to the browser, you can head over to Opera's Widget site. And for those of you who may have forgotten, it was announced back in early May that Nintendo selected Opera as the browser of choice for its Wii console.

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Not too shabby.
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 6/20/2006 10:40:13 AM , Rating: 2
Intergrated Bit Torrent Client..... Not bad at all.




RE: Not too shabby.
By chilled on 6/20/2006 10:42:05 AM , Rating: 2
Hopefully it includes more than just the basic features.


RE: Not too shabby.
By Xenoid on 6/20/2006 10:50:38 AM , Rating: 2
But I doubt it can replace Azureus any time soon...


RE: Not too shabby.
By keitaro on 6/20/2006 11:34:57 AM , Rating: 3
As a former user of Azureus, I do hope it replace it. In fact, I hope anything replaces Azureus.


RE: Not too shabby.
By jsowder18 on 6/20/2006 11:43:02 AM , Rating: 2
what's wrong with Azureus?? seriously I wanna know, lol... cause i use it everyday, i still have an old release though, i haven't upgraded in a long time


RE: Not too shabby.
By ksherman on 6/20/2006 11:55:58 AM , Rating: 2
It used to suck memory faster than a kid drinkning a milk shake...

Maybe not the best analogy, but it did take away a TON (several hundred megs) of memory... which was only not a big deal because I have 2GB... That being said, it was by far my favorite BT client. I loved how much info it gave me, and the dl speeds were better than most...

Now am back to the wonderful and amazing newsgroups... oh, why did I ever leave in the first place? nothing like downlaoding at 600KB/s+ ALL the time ;-)


RE: Not too shabby.
By ksherman on 6/20/2006 12:08:38 PM , Rating: 2
for the record, I would attribute most of Azerus' resource hogging to the fact they use Java coding... maybe its just me, but every time I use a proggie that uses Java (OpenOffice) it uses more memory than should be nessecary


RE: Not too shabby.
By Nocturnal on 6/20/2006 6:02:12 PM , Rating: 2
Unless you're absolutely broke, I don't see why you'd stray away from Newsgroups in the first place. Newsleecher, Newzbin Acct., Giganews = ftw.


RE: Not too shabby.
By GreenEnvt on 6/20/2006 11:58:33 AM , Rating: 2
As the other poster said, it is a serious resource hog. I routinely would see my CPU pegged at 100% with it running.

Now I use utorrent, and like it much better.


RE: Not too shabby.
By stmok on 6/20/2006 12:32:24 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
by GreenEnvt on June 20, 2006 at 11:58 AM

As the other poster said, it is a serious resource hog. I routinely would see my CPU pegged at 100% with it running.

Now I use utorrent, and like it much better.


Azureus = Java-based (doesn't matter which OS you use).
uTorrent = C++ based (using Windows specific libraries)

Gee, you wonder which is faster? *rolls eyes*
(Clearly you folks are NOT programmers).

Regarding the CPU usage...What a load of nonsense. I use the current version of Azureus on an old PIII 933Mhz with 1GB RAM. CPU usage never gets past 15%. (And that's with Win2k in a virtual environment in VMware Server on Linux. So Windows can throw tantrums all it wants, but the system remains solid for months on end). RAM hits about 125MB though, if I leave it on for weeks.

I don't use uTorrent for one reason only. Its not open-source.

The contraversy that occured with the developer working on side projects with a known anti-P2P company raises a question of how much faith you all have in software that you or anyone else can not analyze.

Basically, how do you know that someone can't sneak some rogue code in there? You don't, do you? I suppose you have a lot of trust in security solutions as well? Have you folks bothered to test what specific dlls or other things utorrent calls?

Its sad to see such an attitude develop...
System speed/performance over system security.

With Azureus, the source code is there to download, and Java isn't that hard to learn. (Much easier to get into than C++, despite being more resource hungry). You know the Azureus development team can't afford to sneak garbage in, if they do, someone else looking at the code will scream bloody murder. Their reputation gets damaged, and it'll end the project and someone else will create a fork (their own version) without the crap.

With uTorrent, you've got the Developer's word. In today's world of system/network security, are you really willing to bet your system's health on "someone's word"?

Oh wait...I forgot, Windows users are used to formatting on a regular basis. My mistake.


RE: Not too shabby.
By GreenEnvt on 6/20/2006 1:05:48 PM , Rating: 3
Actually I do program, I prefer my network admin duties, but I do program Java, vb.net and c+, though I don't claim to be particularly good at any of them.

I'm also well aware Azureus is written in Java, but at the same time, why would I care?
I don't go car shopping, and get the slower, less efficient car simply because it's red, nor do I care what programming language an application is written in if it performs well.

It's great to have a program that can run on pretty much any OS, and if I needed that flexibily in a torrent program I would be the first one to use it, but the fact is, I don't need a cross platform application, I just want the one that works best.

As for not trusting open source, I guess I am just not paranoid everyone is out to get me.

For the CPU usage, at the time, I was running an AthlonXP 2800+ with a gig of ram, and with 5-6 downloads running at 100KB/s each, I did get 100% cpu usage frequently.
With utorrent, same # of downloads and speeds, it's a fraction of that.


RE: Not too shabby.
By Spoonbender on 6/20/2006 7:47:44 PM , Rating: 2
only time I've seen Azureus use 100% cpu is when it's hashing a big file (it does that when you start it up, to find out which fragments are complete)

But back on topic, I'd like to try out Opera, but I'm too addicted to Firefox extensions. The actual browser is getting suspiciously slow and unstable, but all the extensions available for it more than make up for those shortfalls.

Wish I could get Opera's speed (and stability), while keeping Firefox extensions.

(And no, it's not my extensions causing slowdown/crashes. I've tried disabling them, helped a bit on the speed, but not enough to compete with Opera. Didn't improve stability)


RE: Not too shabby.
By masher2 (blog) on 6/20/2006 1:25:58 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Azureus = Java-based (doesn't matter which OS you use).
uTorrent = C++ based (using Windows specific libraries)

Gee, you wonder which is faster? *rolls eyes*


Sun had it right the first time...Java IS the perfect language. For toasters, that is.


RE: Not too shabby.
By TomZ on 6/20/2006 3:25:49 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Sun had it right the first time...Java IS the perfect language. For toasters, that is.

Not a big fan of Java, are you?

Being able to run on lots of platforms is really nice. There's really not any easier way to do multi-platform development, especially for servers.

That said, I can't understand why folks like Java so much. I can only think it is because they have not used C#. I know some people dislike Microsoft, but there really is no comparison between the two - C# blows Java away all day long in every aspect except for platform portability.


RE: Not too shabby.
By aos007 on 6/20/2006 4:43:21 PM , Rating: 2
<qoute>That said, I can't understand why folks like Java so much. I can only think it is because they have not used C#. I know some people dislike Microsoft, but there really is no comparison between the two - C# blows Java away all day long in every aspect except for platform portability.

Uhm... Java is *much* older than C#. And C# was made with Java as role model in mind. Why *would* someone who knows Java learn C#? Yet another language, in an industry that is less worth working in year by year. Investment in knowledge nowdays needs to be justified, as there are no more quick payoffs (or ANY payoffs, at that matter). I'm not going to learn something just because it's there, if a perfectly good way to solve the problem already exists. Gone are the times of learning everyting under the sun - they went the same way where plentiful job opportunities and good salaries have gone. Right now there's plenty of java jobs, more than C# / .NET. When that changes (and the change might not be .NET but something completely new (e.g. an aspect-oriented language built fresh from ground up), THEN we'll learn it.

Besides, and much more importantly - the language itself is a very small part of what today's development is. It's all about the entire platform - extra APIs, technologies and libraries, all about ease of modelling and configuration and integration. Spring, Hibernate, Eclipse, Servlets, Web Services, JNDI etc. It's all about speed of development of complex applications, and the adaptability of existing code to new requirements without much new coding. Everything else is just amateur projects. Nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't pay.

So does C# *really* blow away Java? From what I hear, with its myriad of 3rd party options, Java platform matches everyting .NET offers. And Java has adopted some things that C# pioneered as well, some in base language, some via 3rd party extras. So in the end, even if C# is better, it better be *plenty* better to justify switch - the cost of re-learning the entire platform is way too high, and when you consider you can't even expense books and software (.NET isn't free, is it, unless you count MONO) you'd use to learn it (let alone the time!) - you can see how an established programmer just won't bother with it. If my job pays for it, then maybe. If the market requires it, maybe (unless it is just cheaper to change professions).

And yes, enough with the friggin' Microsoft. Microsoft OS, microsoft browser, microsoft hardware, microsoft games, microsoft DRM, microsoft consoles, microsoft database, microsoft search engine, microsoft programming language, microsoft programming platform, microsoft IDE, microsoft standards for everything, microsoft interpretations of standards for everything, microsoft media player, microsoft media center... Jeez, ENOUGH already with it.


RE: Not too shabby.
By TomZ on 6/20/2006 6:16:38 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Why *would* someone who knows Java learn C#?

Only if you (a) are programming on Microsoft platforms, and (b) you want higher productivity. Obviously, if you are doing a client application with a GUI, C#/.NET will be much better than Java. If you need platform portability, Java's the best choice.

Your argument for not learning new languages doesn't hold water, IMO. Newer technologies typically take hold because they provide benefits like greater productivity. If you always stay 1 generation back in techology, then you (and your company) are missing these marginal benefits multiplied across time.

I program both in Java and C#/.NET, so I think I have a good perspective on the relative merits of the two. I was just surprised, given all the hype of Java and the wide industry support, that it really doesn't measure up to C#/.NET. I previously programmed in C++ for many years and now have learned C# and Java. It's been interesting.


RE: Not too shabby.
By saratoga on 6/20/2006 8:56:52 PM , Rating: 2
c# is really, really nice. I only used it for a little while, but going back to Java was a little painful afterwards. Granted this was in the Net 1.1 and Java 1.4 days, and much has changed, but c# is a really nice lanaguage.

If you are windows only, or don't mind Mono, I'd definately recommend it over Java.

Also, I used Azureus for over a year, but recently I tried uTorrent. It really is a better client.


RE: Not too shabby.
By TomZ on 6/20/2006 11:14:02 PM , Rating: 2
Yea, with C#/.NET 2.0 they've increased their lead over Java 1.5/5.0. Generics came out much better in C#, since they exist at runtime, whereas in Java, they only exist until compile time. And what the heck is up with enumerations in Java - somebody must have really be smoking something when they designed those - what a mess! The C# enum is nice and simple, as it should be.


RE: Not too shabby.
By masher2 (blog) on 6/21/2006 7:53:43 AM , Rating: 2
> "Why *would* someone...learn C#? Investment in knowledge nowdays needs to be justified...

Yep, one wouldn't want to waste the 45 minutes it actually takes to learn C#, would you? Hard to justify that on the bottom line.


RE: Not too shabby.
By TomZ on 6/21/2006 10:09:35 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Yep, one wouldn't want to waste the 45 minutes it actually takes to learn C#, would you? Hard to justify that on the bottom line.

Wow, you must be a fast learner. :o)

But seriously, you need to count not just the time to learn the language, but also the runtime. The .NET runtime is pretty significant. It probably only takes a few hours to get started, but several months to be running at full productivity.

I think it is a reasonable investment, and it is short-sighted in my view to only make the investment if your employer is willing to foot the bill. There is no reason you can't learn new skills on your own time if necessary. It only serves to increase your value to your current and possible future employer(s).


RE: Not too shabby.
By Homerboy on 6/20/2006 5:35:46 PM , Rating: 2
lighten the fuck up.


RE: Not too shabby.
By soybeast on 6/20/2006 7:24:53 PM , Rating: 2
I've tried a bunch of different bittorrent clients and utorrent is simply amazing in its leaness. Even the older versions didn't require an installer, just a stand alone application and weighed in less than a MB

Even someone as open-source crazed as you should be able to appreciate how well written it is. It definitely wow'd me much more than azureus, bitcomet, abc, and some other torrent apps.


RE: Not too shabby.
By Xenoid on 6/20/2006 9:17:11 PM , Rating: 2
Agreed with everything but the last line. I haven't had to reformat due to a faulty install or bad performance for a few years.


RE: Not too shabby.
By Ringold on 6/21/2006 4:22:28 PM , Rating: 2
Wow, someone really shit in your Linux cereal this morning, didn't they? ;)

First off, just 'cause you didn't personally have problems with Azureus doesn't mean thousands of the rest of us didn't either.

Yes, I'll take a 155kb fully featured faster than light client that takes virtually no RAM and almost no CPU time but is closed source over an open source mountain of eye-candy that sucks RAM, and CPU time (more then uTorrent). C++, C#, Java? Why would I care if uTorrent was portable to Linux easily or not? Why would 95% of the market care? Something linux & open source people don't get is that people that enjoy using a PC for performance and getting things done don't care about if the source code, which might as well be written in latin, is available or not. It works astoundingly well, uses the mainline DHT (which I appreciate compared to Azureus snobbery), and compared to the resource and HD footprint of all other forms of clients, its revolutionary. Everything in 1 file.

Just 'cause deep down you wish Linux brought the simplicity, comptability and ease of use to your life as Windows does doesn't mean you have to be all shitty with people that have lives and non-IT professions and therefore don't give two shits about open source or not. :P


RE: Not too shabby.
By Razor Crusade on 6/20/2006 12:02:57 PM , Rating: 2
firefox rules
By lucyfek on 6/20/2006 6:18:35 PM , Rating: 2
untill opera and ie scales pictures together with text (web pages look like s... if ones increases text size), i can't see myself using them unless for a special purpose (and very limited time). i've got beta installed on my pc and the advertized torrent download manager didn't work. other issue - in both ie and o9 to close a tab one has to aim for a "x button" on the tab - i prefer ff way - one "x" kills them all (one at a time) - this way i can go through tabs without paying attention to unneccessary things (i know someone will teach me to use keyboard) one of the alfa version ff switched to the ie/o way of closing tabs and didn't stay for long on my system.
anyway - the bigest thing is the resizing of the text and graphics at the same time, when they fix this issue (or place an easy to find option to change this behaviour to ones liking) i can consider using opera, for now - firefox rules




RE: firefox rules
By Johnmcl7 on 6/20/2006 9:09:35 PM , Rating: 2
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by scaling pictures with text?

If I understand your other query thought it is easily sorted - in the preference menu untick "Show close box on each tab" and you will get a single set of of minimise, maximise and close buttons on the top right below the same buttons for Opera overall.

John


RE: firefox rules
By saiyan on 6/21/2006 3:14:01 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
untill opera and ie scales pictures together with text (web pages look like s... if ones increases text size), i can't see myself using them unless for a special purpose (and very limited time)


Are you sure you are complaining about the zoom behavior of Opera and not Firefox?

Let's review some facts:
The zoom function in Firefox (1.5) *only* resizes text. On the other hand, the zoom function in Opera resizes *both* text and images perfectly.

As for closing tabs in Opera (and Firefox), just use the middle click button of your mouse. I don't know anyone who actually clicks on the tiny X button of the tab.


RE: firefox rules
By lucyfek on 6/21/2006 2:39:37 PM , Rating: 2
thanks for the middle button advice, though it happens that my logitech activates zoom with this button and - as i stated - this function is a pain in the opera and ie (because i hate jagged pictures, resized banners(what for?), etc). besides that it's not inconvenient to click a single "x" button (especially in situation of ~20 tabs that you just glance at - no scrolling involved) and i didn't have time/will to read the manual.
found one more crap in the opera9 this morning - some pages load stupid floating flash? ads, one either has to close each with a x button (once again;) or have a adblock (works perfect for ff, and i guess there is something alike for opera). the funny thing is that in opera the "x" closes itself after the click, but not the ad (so one is stuck with this crap over the text) - i don't know if this is only my personal experience or is it common baheviour.


adblock
By Schadenfroh on 6/20/2006 10:39:08 AM , Rating: 2
I used Opera 9's last beta. I was not impressed with their banner ad blocking tool. Have they brought it up to the functionality of the adblock extension for firefox yet?




RE: adblock
By Griswold on 6/20/2006 11:58:12 AM , Rating: 2
Huh? It works 9/10. Easy to use too. The only site it doesnt seem to work is here at DT. :D


RE: adblock
By Schadenfroh on 6/20/2006 2:41:02 PM , Rating: 2
Does it block iframes, java, and flash ads now?


RE: adblock
By Googer on 6/21/2006 2:53:50 AM , Rating: 1
As a long time Opera User (v3.x), I can say that it is one of the best browsers on the market today.

You do have an option to block all images from a server. Also there is a work around to block certain images, but I forgot how to do it. Just google it and it might pop-up some where.


Have they replaced the mail client
By totalcommand on 6/20/2006 10:56:04 AM , Rating: 2
Has the mail client been replaced yet to work with IMAP for real?

Until that happens, no Opera for me.




RE: Have they replaced the mail client
By yitzhaq on 6/20/2006 11:02:08 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
Has the mail client been replaced yet to work with IMAP for real?


Yes, the IMAP backend has been rewritten from scratch for Opera 9. You should give it a spin, it's a huge improvement.

- y


By totalcommand on 6/20/2006 2:33:01 PM , Rating: 2
sweetness. i think i might switch over to opera now. there's just 1 bug in the mail i'm encountering - everytime a send something out i actually get a pop up that i have 1 unread message. hopefully that minor bug'll be fixed.


Changes
By kextyn on 6/20/2006 10:56:45 AM , Rating: 2
I'm going to guess that there are quite a few changes, but won't be apparent at first glance. I tried 2 different beta versions and they had quite a few small things changed between them. They have a pretty good community on the forums for bugs and whatnot.

I'm going to try it out and if it sucks I'll post another message.




RE: Changes
By Johnmcl7 on 6/20/2006 2:14:25 PM , Rating: 2
They've added in some fairly large changes, it now has ad blocking features builtin and it has its own widget system.

John


Firefox is a piece of....
By Clauzii on 6/20/2006 6:33:25 PM , Rating: 1
.... Add Bloated Crap Software that survived LESS THAN ONE MINUTE on my machine: Slow as h..., buggy etc.....

Hope this O9 is better (I know it is!)




RE: Firefox is a piece of....
By TomZ on 6/20/2006 11:14:58 PM , Rating: 1
If you think FireFox is bad, you should try running OpenOffice!


RE: Firefox is a piece of....
By Clauzii on 6/21/2006 7:21:30 PM , Rating: 2
Agree - but OO survived half an hour :)

How come so many use Firefox - I don't get it :(


By mechwarrior1989 on 6/20/2006 10:35:57 AM , Rating: 2
I've had a beta for a while now so are there any differences are or they basically the same except "official" now




By devolutionist on 6/20/2006 7:25:23 PM , Rating: 2
I've been a convert since the early 8's, and haven't looked back. After usinging IE for so long, I felt like I had just graduated from riding a tricycle to a Ducati. Firefox lies somewhere in between - nowhere near as good as Opera, but a hell of a lot better than IE. I still have to use IE and Firefox at work, and I constantly find myself doing mouse gestures on my work PC without thinking about it...




By ForumMaster on 6/21/2006 12:45:12 AM , Rating: 2
i've been using opera since v7. it was always much faster then IE. FF is good too, but i guess i'm lazy and don't want to install extensions manually for built in features in opera. FF is ok, but i'll never give up opera. it's such a good browser that i still don't understand why it's not popular. you can enter any site and not have to worry about the browser (remember that site that will only let you enter if you're using FF? opera can enter that site without a hitch.) i'll never give up opera.




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