The Opera Thread!

I've been a long time user of opera, yet i still learn something new everytime i read a thread like this.

I used to have a very useful web link, and if i find it i'll post it, of opera buttons etc for the toolbars, very useful items they were too.

 

So when does the final version of Opera 12 come out? And will they get rid of the ugly silver logo?

Using Safari at the moment in OS X, and I like the UI but I enjoyed Opera a lot more back then (2004ish), I used the current version out right now without hardware acceleration and performance is terrible.

 

Going by the Opera Desktop Blog, Opera 12.00 Final is coming very soon, with out-of-process plug-ins and hardware acceleration. They're ironing out the remaining issues at the moment, and have been releasing frequent updates for user input.

 

Opera 12.00 Release Candidate is out, with more stability and performance fixes! The final should be released any day now

 

Alright, i'll update once the final version comes out.

 

Opera 12.00 Final has been released! Download it here. Note that under More Options, you can select to download the 64-bit version (which still does support 32-bit plugins).

A nice compilation of 12 Under-the-hood Improvements can be found here.

I've made a few minor modifications to this thread, but will have to go through it with a fine-tooth-comb later and make the necessary modifications for Opera 12.

 

Downloading the 64-bit client now. I suppose that i can't use the update included in opera if i want 64-bit. Now i'm wondering if i should uninstall the 32-bit version or not.

 

Yeah, I'm still stuck on the 32-bit version even though I do have the 64-bit installed. Might make the move when I have some more time and get around to it

 

I don't feel like configuring everything again, so if i can't migrate my settings...

I could try the 64-bit ver on my comp that is running windows 8 and stick to 32-bit on my main work machine.

32-bit seems to be working just fine so far.

 

did they ever fix the 2 bugs that stopped-me-out:
1. Loses credentials [login/passwords to sites]
2. Bookmark imports that fail

those 2 haunted every successive release. inexcusable.

currently, FF "Nightly" 64-bit is king of the hill imo

 

1.- Never had that problem before, so I can't say. Opera's password manager has been much better than Chrome/IE/FF's in my experience. Did it lose all your credentials, or just to certain sites? Mac, Windows, or *nix?

2.- Never had that either. Are you importing from file, or directly from another browser?

 

Been using version 12.00 in Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and I gotta say I'm impressed. Lots of good features, it's fast, and much improved Flash performance over previous Opera makes it worthwhile.

Only complaint I have is that compared to Safari, with tabs open, Opera takes up slightly more vertical space.

 

@TSE: Have you tried this? Not sure if it works the same on the Mac, but worth a shot!

 

I haven't re-googled these, but previously there were hundreds of threads on the credentials problem, with the answer even from hardcore Opera heads being "we live with it.... I'm amazed they haven't addressed it".
the bookmark thing as I recall was that it imported bookmarks in an unpredictable way. I tried a couple of tricks people suggested to fix but did not work. i have way too many bookmarks to manually rebuild.

btw.... this is off-topic a hair but WELL worth the few minutes to see/listen. has to do, at the end, with an extension/add-on called "Collusion". have you guys heard of it? basically its about "watching the watchers". give this a shot: Gary Kovacs: Tracking the trackers | Video on TED.com

 

So far, no problems with 32-bit on Windows 7 or 64-bit on windows 8.

 

Found those settings, and changed it, but no apparent difference.

 

Hey all, I have an annoying problem where on Opera 12 (with win7 x64), opera always stays on top as the top window and won't go into the background unless I minimize it. As far I know theres no option to make opera always on-top. Any idea how to fix this?

Thanks!

 

That is very strange. Couldn't be any Windows setting?

 

I'm not aware of any windows setting that controls programs being on top, are you?

 

Neither do I.

This is strange that it's always on top.

Is this happening all the time, or it's one of those those events where (after a reboot) it runs smoothly until the issue pops up randomly and persists until you've reboot?

OT:
when i saw your specs in your sig, and saw the Defiant, all I could think of is...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFxGPI1Uvlg

 

I do hibernate often and 1 time I restarted when the problem came up and that fixed it but now, even after restart the problem is not fixed.

 

Just saw this thread - haven't read through it entirely yet but I've bookmarked it to do so in the future. Glad to see it! Opera's been my main browser for half a decade already. I'm sure I can pick up a few tips. Although it looks like my favorite change from the default settings, enabling single-key shortcuts, isn't mentioned at this point. No quicker way to go backwards and forwards than z/w, or between tabs than 1/2. Preferences -> Advanced -> Shortcuts -> Enable Single-Key Shortcuts.

 

@smood: Strange problem. I've never heard of that happening before, and couldn't find anything similar with Google. If you launch Opera in Safe Mode in Windows, does the same behavior occur?

Yeah, I use the shortcuts on my X120e as well, though not as much on my T500, what with the dedicated back/forward keys anyway. Definitely handy, so it does deserve a mention. I just haven't had the time to go through the thread and make changes and additions though

 

Opera +1.
I have been using Opera since 5.0 or so. It is a great browser.
Most new things that are now common on Firefox, etc. were first introduced in Opera.

Tab browsing, Speed dial, etc

The only minus is the compatibility.

 

I've found compatibility to be much better in the latest releases.

 

Hi to all!
I can't believe I am the first one to ask about this, so I apologize in advance that I was unable to find it!

Every time I start Opera and restore the previous session, all Opera windows start non-maximized. It has been like that since I start using Opera, but it is slowly becoming annoying. I need to maximize each Opera window manually before being able to use the browser. And I do keep many windows opened, so that means maximizing like 5-10 windows every time I need to restart Opera (well the computer).

Any remedy??

 

Hi Gracy, that's strange; it's definitely not default behavior. Have you tried going to Ctrl + F12, Advanced tab, Tabs, Additional tab options..., and choosing Always Maximize?

 

It is default as it is like that on both computers I use and has been like that since forever (reinstalled computer numerous times).

Checked the setting but it is already set this way.

Just to make sure - I am not talking about tabs but about single Opera windows (with or without more than one tab in each). Recovering last session always leads to windows I need to maximize myself.... :-/

 

It only bothers me? Really?

 

Probably more like it only affects you, I do not experience the behavior you described on all my systems which include both Win 7 and 8 as well as the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Opera. Since it never was an issue, it isn't something that I had to look into fixing.

Some are set to speed dial on opening others are set to remember my web pages. I've never seen that behavior, even when restoring a session because I had to hard restart or Opera crashed which almost never happens.

 

I find it extremely hard to believe it is not happening on your machines as it is the same behavior on all I have seen, so I think you are incorrectly understanding the problem:

The only "modification" I have made to Opera is giving it a "-new window" suffix in the shortcut, as otherwise every time I click on the Opera shortcut it opens a new tab in the existing Opera window, which I do not like. I don*t think this is anyhow related but just mentioning it.

When I for some reason terminate Opera (restart computer or any other reason) and then start it again I choose to recover last session. I usually have at least 4-5 Opera windows (not tabs!) opened simultaneously. What happens is that eventually only one of the windows is restored maximized, the rest are restored resized which is bugging me as I need to click on maximize on each one of them to actually restore the original condition.
I can make a screenshot of what I mean but I think it is understood from the description.

I have yet to see a computer which behaves differently when having multiple Opera windows (not tabs!) opened...

 

You were right, I misunderstood your initial post I'll have to try and replicate that behavior then.

 

I've been a firefox user for some time, my brother uses opera and I like the idea of the search functionality in the address bar, is there a keyboard shortcut to go straight there from anywhere in the browser/page?

Also at the moment I run firefox portable on a ram drive which is lightly customised in order to remove writes to my SSD and protect drive health (anal I know but why not!), should be possible with Opera also?

 

Don't see why not? Just need to get a portable Opera package and you should be able to do the same thing!

 

Just hit F8

 

FF and IE use F6. Why Opera has F8 ?

 

I don't know for certain, but if I had to guess, it's probably a legacy shortcut that's just been that way since Opera was created (back in 1994), long before FF even existed.

 

I'm surprised nobody has posted about this.

Opera is moving to WebKit

Here's a press release from the developers.

 

So no more own engine, that is sad. With this step they loosing their uniqueness and not sure why would I use Opera in the future instead Chrome or so...

 

You still have complete customisation of the program. Keyboard shortcuts (the best!), mouse gestures, etc. Dragonfly, too.

The rendering engine is using WebKit, but the actual application itself is still going to be Opera. I'm saddened by the surrender to WebKit, but I'm sure the decision makers had good reason to do it.

As long as Opera keeps the application as configurable tomorrow as it is today, I'll keep using it, WebKit or not.

 

Heck, the integrated mail client is enough for me to keep using it as long as the rest doesn't get changed too much, we also got nice features natively first like tab stacking which I find invaluable.

 

Doesn't at least some of Dragonfly integrate with Presto? I liked the aspect that you could hover over certain pieces of the page (in code) and it would show you what it corresponded to on the page with highlighting... that probably is Presto integration, and might not survive the transition. Though of course, there's nothing saying you couldn't keep using the Presto version for awhile for things like that.

I'm disappointed by the WebKit transition as well, although to be fair Opera had been buggier in the 12.x line, and at least some of that is likely Presto-related. Whether that's because Opera was already scaling back Presto development, or if it was a factor in the decision to scale it back, is hard to say. I'd still like for them to at least get some of the current issues (freezing, issues with loading AJAX-y images, etc.) ironed out with Presto since it'll probably be awhile before WebKit. Might have to switch to Firefox in the interval otherwise, since I'm already using older versions of Opera for stability .

The keyboard shortcuts are the one big factor that might make it worth sticking around despite WebKit. I can't believe no other browser comes close in that functionality. Since I started using Opera in 2007, most other unique features (like Speed Dial and Opera Link) have been copied, but not the keyboard shortcuts. Which I suppose is a good thing for Opera.

Configurability... I'd rather have most things working out of the box - that's what I like about Opera. Options are nice, but if I wanted to be able to add almost anything, I'd be using Firefox as my primary browser already.

 

I must be a bit behind the times... just saw these articles:

Opera cuts staff in WebKit-related restructuring | Internet & Media - CNET News

And...

Opera Workforce Down 10% Due To Switch To WebKit

So it appears financials were indeed a significant reason for the switch... not too surprising since the open web always used to be about Presto in Norway.

Although you can't say it's all doom and gloom financially... if my Norwegian (which I've never studied) serves me well enough, it looks like Opera just bought a video compression company for $155 million... Article: Oppkjøp - Opera kjøper opp konkurrenten

So it may be in part a strategic switch. But still sad, and unfortunate for those who are out of a job because of it. More closed-source rendering engines could have saved 90 jobs...

The plurality of the people leaving Opera also corresponded with the time shortly before 12.10, which is about where the stability/bugs started becoming a rather noticeable issue... probably not a coincidence.

 

Does anyone else get an Android download link when they visit opera.com or opera.com/browser on Windows? Seems really strange... I can see if they offer both in an attempt to increase Android installs, but it can't be good for desktop market share if you visit on a PC and don't even get a PC download link on the main page.

The desktop blog is silent since February 5th as well... probably not a good sign. Developer News has info about Opera 14 for Android, but that's the only blog with a recent update. I rather hope they're planning a more stable 12.2 with Presto as a tide-over, but don't really expect it.

 

It varies depending on the mail service you use. Open the menu, click mail and chat accounts and add one, the steps should be mostly self explanatory at that point. The process is similar to how you would configure the account for Thunderbird or Outlook, I use it for my university e-mail. If you use a service like g-mail, you'll have to look for how to configure it for Outlook or Thunderbird and configure it accordingly.

 

Version 12.15 is out, not many changes: Opera 12.15 changelog.

 

That is pretty minor, but at least that means they haven't quite taken the Presto-based browser behind the proverbial barn yet. Though I'd hoped for some stability-type fixes, since that seems to be the major issue with 12.1x. I'm still using 12.00 and 11.52 instead since they're stable, and it doesn't look like 12.15 is worth upgrading to.

My favorite part of this update is that the guy who reported the "moderately severe" bug is named Attila.

 

I think I remember reading somewhere recently that Opera was going to switch to Google's Blink rendering engine instead of webkit.

 

Yep - Opera Confirms It Will Follow Google and Ditch WebKit For Blink - Slashdot

 

oh great, so i guess now is the time to download the latest, before it becomes another google infested clone