Opera 10 beta: Gets faster, riffs on Safari’s Top Sites
If you were thinking that the browser wars were over, then you might want to think again. Yes, it is true that Internet Explorer is dying, ingloriously, but the battle over the corpse is just getting started.
Plug—Opera 10 beta benchmarks show Turbo modetames public wi-fi slowdowns
In fact, with Safari, iCab, Firefox, Camino and Stainless all delivering fresh, innovative features, a virtuous cycle of embrace and extend (ie real artists steal), and one upping the competition is making the browser space one of the most interesting segments of the tech biz—it’s getting really cool.
Thereupon, Opera 10 beta 8.4MB (Intel only, there is also a universal version) is available and brings some interesting new riffs to the table:
Opera Turbo for fast browsing on slow connections New visual tabs and sleek design Customize your “Speed Dial” (ie Top Sites) with 4 to 25 favorite sites for quick access with each new tab Resizable search field 40% faster engine and cutting-edge Web standards support Inline spell-check See also:
— Speedy Opera 10 beta reconfigures as Web suite (News.com)
— Safari 4 beta leaves data, privacy trail in its wake (Blorge)
— iCab Mobile 1.5: The best iPhone, touch browser gets better
— How to: Edit, manage Safari 4’s Top Sites (Blorge)
Opera 10 beta is fast, though not smooth. Speed Dial is a play on Safari’s Tops Sites feature, or vice versa, which is something I nevertheless turned off a few weeks back.
If you are a fan of Opera, this release brings it up-to-scratch (search, inline spellcheck, etc) with the competition and pushes the bar a little higher vis-a-vis the features the WebKit crowd is working on, though there’s still no mention by our favorite Norwegians of multithreading (a hot trend elsewhere).
All-in-all some nice stuff…
What’s your take?
Speed Dial isn’t new to Opera 10. I know it was present in 9.64; it was in Opera before it was in Safari.
[...] I took a quick, cursory look at Opera 10 beta, which is faster both on fast connections and slow. The latter feature, called Opera Turbo, uses [...]
[...] • Opera 9.6.4 ( free, 7.9MB) — Includes an integrated mail client and support for the company’s own web widgets — Opera 10 beta: Gets faster, riffs on Safari’s Top Sites [...]