updates Meet the browser: Opera Next

[Steve Gosselin]

Build 635 Released | Opera 9.20 //Unix build only!

hotfix

By csant. Friday, 6. April 2007, 06:30:03

After updating to new X libs on some Linux distros, Opera stopped working. We are looking into the issue, and in the meantime we have a hotfix ready for you.

Happy Easter! :)

If you do not want to install a weekly release but continue running version 9.1, you can change the "DefaultDepth" option to 16 in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, as this will also work around the problem.

+

hotfix 2

By csant. Saturday, 7. April 2007, 07:30:15

It's Easter time - but we are busy…

Yesterday we issued a hotfix for a crash on startup caused by a recent update on several Linux distros of libX11, to patch CVE-2007-1667. A few users reported some sideeffects - we have a better fix for you now.

Thanks for all the quick feedback - enjoy the new build, and Happy Easter! :)

Official changelog

Changelog for Opera 9.20 beta for Windows

Changelog for Opera 9.20 beta for Mac

Changelog for Opera 9.20 beta for UNIX

Download links

Unix

Source // Desktop Team

libX11 // libX11 @ csant's log

Notice: Don't forget this from builds 598 (unix builds) and + >> Upgrading will now attempt to merge the default searches with your own. Look out for bugs! Make a backup!

[Steve Gosselin]

Build 636 Released | Opera 9.20 //Unix build only!

all good things…

By csant. Sunday, 8. April 2007, 09:39:05

…come by three, they say :D

The new UNIX build should now fix the crashers several people were still seeing after updating libX11 and running the last hotfix.

Hope this is it, for this busy Easter "vacation" :) - and thanks again for all the feedback!

Official changelog

Changelog for Opera 9.20 beta for Windows

Changelog for Opera 9.20 beta for Mac

Changelog for Opera 9.20 beta for UNIX

Download link

Unix

Source // Desktop Team

libX11 // libX11 @ csant's log

Notice: Don't forget this from builds 598 (unix builds) and + >> Upgrading will now attempt to merge the default searches with your own. Look out for bugs! Make a backup!

[Steve Gosselin]

Opera 9.20 Final is out! :)

[Steve Gosselin]

Opera 9.20 [Ogg Theora experimental version]

A call for video on the web

Posted on April 17, 2007

by H?kon Wium Lie

It's time to make video a first-class citizen of the web. We, the users, have video cameras in our pockets and the bandwidth to tranfer more clips and streams than we can watch. What's missing is a an easy way to integrate video into web pages, and native support for video in browsers. We, the web community, should address this by adding a video element to HTML:

<video src="demo.ogg">

In addition to giving video an HTML element, we must also agree on a baseline video format that will be universally supported, just like the GIF, JPEG and PNG image format are universally supported. It's important that the video format we choose can be supported by a wide range of devices an that it's royalty-free (RF). RF is a well-establish principle for W3C standards.

The Ogg Theora format is a promising candidate which has been chosen by Wikipedia.

At Opera, we have built an experimental version that has native support for Ogg Theora. For now, it is only available on Windows. NOTE! Do not choose to start Opera in the installation process. After installing, exit the installation process and start the the experimental build manually.

Here are some pages using the video element:

opacity

simple

three

hiof

hiof

Download link>

Windows only!

Source // Opera Labs

More infos + feedbacks // Try Opera with native Theora video support @ Haavard's log

[halcyoncmdr]

Very interesting, but I think I'll pass on this until it is in the regular weekly builds :) We all know it will be eventually :)

[halcyoncmdr]

Current work

By olli. Friday, 20. April 2007, 07:48:27

Hi guys

We are currently working on Kestrel. There will be some cool new features, but also a lot of bug fixing. We won't have a weekly here for a little while, but when we have something to present you guys will be the first to know ;)

Sadly, no new build, but its good to see Kestrel is coming along :)

[Steve Gosselin]

Kestrel is coming along :)

Build number? Hummmm, I predict... Opera 9.5 :D

[halcyoncmdr]

Build number? Hummmm, I predict... Opera 9.5 :D

Maybe... Hope it only take one week though, I'd love to see what's cookin' over there :)

[Crazysah]

I'd love to see what's cooking there.

[halcyoncmdr]

Well, we might find out on Friday... here's to hoping :beer: :)

[Steve Gosselin]

New features:

- Some shadows of Kestrel //Some shadows of Kestrel

- More CSS 3 selectors //The Rendering Engine for the Wii >>

These changes are just a preview of what you can expect from Kestrel. Current internal builds of Kestrel fix the text-shadow problems, implement even more CSS Selectors, and fix even more bugs. There are plenty more nice additions, too.

[Steve Gosselin]

Bingo >>

The Next Wave: Opera 9.5 (Kestrel) and Opera 10 (Peregrine)

Submitted by Alastor on 4 May, 2007 - 13:58.

Opera Software is quite busy, actually that busy that two versions are coming. And not just on one platform, no the intention is to link many platforms together, meaning the desktop release will simultaneously come with the release for devices and mobiles. Currently Opera 9.5, code named Kestrel, is planned for a golden final release this year, while the first preview of Opera 10, code named Peregrine, will appear at the end of this year.

So what is Kestrel? A falcon. And also a warming up present from Opera Software. But you shouldn't take that too negatively, Kestrel is an in-between release, while Peregrine is the next major release (Opera 10). Kestrel will introduce some of the rendering engine changes from Peregrine which don't have a too high impact yet on the entire release. Peregrine itself, also a falcon, will have major rendering engine changes (of course everything that's in Kestrel), improvements to the user interface, performance enhancements and stunning new features. What we can expect remains to be seen, but I'm betting on an entirely new skin, one that fits Windows Vista and Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), as well as features that, just like Speed Dial, will make the news headlines.

In this article we mainly discuss the upcoming Kestrel release as news on Peregrine is still very limited due to it's early stage.

Rendering engine improvements

Support for CSS3, where especially selectors will get a major addition. One of the most noticable is text-shadow support (multiple shadows, maximum blur limitation) to have, well, text with shadows behind them. Amongst other fixes include correct (not IE compatible) support of document.getElementById(), which should return the id, not the name. Additionally changes are in the house for the rendering of tables and fixes for rounding problems (using ems).

Opera Mail improvements

Kestrel will include at least the first run of changes for Opera's mail client (aka M2), consisting of a new back-end, which should end any freezes when checking mail as well as fixes for corrupted search and indexes. Uncertain is yet if the second run of changes will make it, where a long awaited newsgroup feature is coming (what could it be?). Mail client operability is also important, and Kestrel will have full support (part of it is already in Opera 9.2) for exchanging mails between Apple Mail and Opera Mail. The problem was apparently caused by Apple Mail, which doesn't fully comply with the RFC standards for exchanging messages. One of the annoying Opera Mail bugs will also be fixed where attachements are renamed to .tmp files rather than their original names, due to content-type recognition problems.

User interface fixes

Although no major user interface work is planned for Kestrel there seems to be a little hope that there will be a couple of small, yet wanted, changes. One of the possible changes could be site specific support for the content blocker. The code is already there, but it keeping your hopes up it's stable enough to include in Kestrel. Additionally site specific preferences for opera:about will work correctly in Kestrel. For the Linux platform a fix is included where when the tab bar is disabled (with the window panel on), and tabs are minimized icons are displayed (a remnent from MDI).

And more...

Support for extra security through HttpOnly cookies will be included in Kestrel (as it will be in Firefox 3), which should prevent renegade scripts on a site setting the cookie from reading the cookie. Userjs for https should be working in Kestrel according to Mitchman.

Unconfirmed future features

Support for the <video> tag is already present in an experimental build on Opera Labs. Microsoft Silverlight support, which by the sounds of supporting competition could be included as a default plug-in, just like Flash? For Peregrine we might see HTML 5 support as well as offline web applications (beyond Widgets) following the WHATWG specifications.

As always, please remember this is a rather incomplete article on all the changes that we can expect for Kestrel (Opera 9.5), and especially Peregrine (Opera 10). With the passing of time, and when we get new builds from the Opera Desktop Team, we'll learn more and more of what Opera Software has up its sleaves. With Kestrel this year, and Peregrine probably next year there's a lot of work being done, and a lot coming for all of us to see of the famous Opera Software innovations for the web.

Source //The Next Wave: Opera 9.5 (Kestrel) and Opera 10 (Peregrine)

[Steve Gosselin]

Opera 9.5 (Opera Kestrel) >>

Upcoming SVG support in Opera and a Wii suprise

While it is probably well known within the SVG community (or not judging by the number of SVG sites that block Opera, and tell the user to download Firefox), there is maybe a lack of awareness in the web design community at large about just how many strides Opera has made in its SVG 1.1 support. As this test from Jeff Schiller states:

In roughly a year, the Opera browser went from being one of the least usable SVG implementations (no scripting/DOM support) to the best native implementation and achieved a higher score than the famed Adobe SVG Viewer

Opera has the best native SVG support of any browser on the market, and is only beat out by Batik 1.7 (great work guys) for the most compliant engine. Things don't stand still however, and I've already blogged previous about support for using <a="http://my.opera.com/dstorey/blog/2007/02/01/using-svg-through-css-to-spice-up-your-d">SVG as a background image and list image in CSS

in internal builds of Opera Kestrel. This is not the only improvements however. Kestrel will also support:

Support for using SVG files in the image element

SVG Tiny 1.2 vector-effect [spec]

SVG Tiny 1.2 navigation [spec]

SVG Tiny 1.2 handler [spec]

Speed improvements and optimisations

Many general bug fixes of our support of animations, text, SVG DOM methods and filters

Not only that, but Kestrel is still in active development, and there will be further support for SVG added before it goes final. But for much of this one doesn't have to wait until Kestrel goes into public beta. This is because The Internet Channel for Wii includes some of the modules from the Kestrel branch of our core rendering engine. This means that some of our improvements, both to CSS3 selectors and SVG 1.1 are already out there, sitting next to your TV, ready to be checked out. Bare in mind that the Wii is limited to two fonts, so visual results may vary. Go check it out and see what you think…

New to SVG, or want to check out some techniques? Go check out our tutorials on Dev.Opera.

Source //Upcoming SVG support in Opera and a Wii suprise

[Dogan]

Opera 9.21 build

Hi

I know you all are awaiting 9.50 to play with, but in the meanwhile we will have a update on Merlin.

We have kept the fix rate at a minimal here so the few fixes we have here are the high pri ones

Changelog

*Setting font style in the UI now works again

*Larger search field in speed dial, looked a bit chunky on smaller resolutions

*Added Yahoo Answers to built in search

*A number of crashes fixed and memory leaks plugged

*Proxy PAC files now read from system on Windows and Mac

*Windows media player 11 NP version now works without crashing. Get it here

Mac specific

*Added support for Smart Crash Reports

Download:

Windows MSI

Windows Classic

Macintosh

Unix

I guess we have to wait some more, until we can test 9.5 (Kestrel) :)

[nXqd]

Great, still wait for Opera 9.5 :)

nXqd

[Screeny]

Yet another merlin build

I know ya'll are awaiting Kestrel builds, but we are not yet there. We do though have a few stability fixes in the pipeline for 9.22

Changelog

*A lot of improvements to Bittorrent. Downloading large files should now work a lot better.

*Bolding of fonts in toolbars and dialogs should now work

*The Silverlight plugin should now work

UNIX

*Turned off shared memory by default. Manually enable it by setting the variable OPERA_NUM_XSHM to a suitable value.

Download:

Windows MSI

Windows Classic

Macintosh

Unix

*Screeny waits patiently for a Kestrel build

[Screeny]

For some reason I'm not able to edit my previous post:

Windows Classic Installer removed

We've taken down the Classic installer due to the extra files it was installing.

[Steve Gosselin]

*Screeny waits patiently for a Kestrel build

+1000 :shifty:

[Screeny]

Another Merlin build (9.22 Build 8800):

More stability and speed

We're in a bittorrent bugfix mode right now, so this new build is both faster with high speed peers, and more stable.

Remember to break this "weekly"

Download:

Windows MSI

Windows Classic

Macintosh

UNIX

[AimLXJ]

Opera 9.22 Build 8801

Sorry no log

ftp://ftp.opera.com/pub/opera/win/922/

[Steve Gosselin]

Opera 9.22 Build 8801

Sorry no log

ftp://ftp.opera.com/pub/opera/win/922/

Opera 9.22 Build 8801 Final

[AimLXJ]

:|, thats features, not logs.

[Steve Gosselin]

Opera 9.22 Build 8801 Final

>> Posted by Mihai Asmanow on 18 July 2007 :)

//Changelog > Changelog for Opera 9.22 for Windows | Changelog for Opera 9.22 for Mac | Changelog for Opera 9.22 for Linux

[Screeny]

Hooray, the Magician's still not dead:

Fun with the fuzzer

Yesterday Mozilla released their jsfunfuzz tool at the Blackhat convention in Las Vegas. The tool is very useful for stress-testing the javascript engine and its stability. While running the tool, we found four crashers - one of which might have some security implications.

Here is a build that should address all of the issues: test it, give it a spin with the tool - and please report any crashers you might find with the fuzzer, and most importantly: send us a crashlog along with it!

Have fuzz fun! And many thanks to Mozilla for sharing their tool.

Download:

Windows MSI

Windows Classic

Macintosh

Unix

[Steve Gosselin]

Hooray, the Magician's still not dead...

:laugh:

...still wait for Opera 9.5