Download Opera 12 Alpha

By | October 13, 2011 | 29 Comments

Download Opera 12 Alpha

This is it folks, the alpha version of Opera 12 has been just released, bringing performance improvements and other goodies.

According to the official report, Opera 12 includes hardware acceleration support, which currently uses OpenGL backend. However, DirectX support is coming as well.

Thanks to WebGL, you can now enjoy high quality graphics and games straight from your web browser, see the following demo for a glimpse.

What else is new?

New HTML5 engine, you can read more about it here
Reduced memory usage by up to 35%
Up to 40% faster load time for secure web sites
Lightweight themes

New address bar, offering quick functionality and search suggestions

Download Opera 12 Alpha

… and a lot of fixes

Download Opera 12 Alpha.

[Thanks, Shane Bundy]


About (Author Profile)


Vygantas is a former web designer whose projects are used by companies such as AMD, NVIDIA and departed Westood Studios. Being passionate about software, Vygantas began his journalism carrier back in 2007 when he founded FavBrowser.com. Having said that, he is also an adrenaline junkie who enjoys good books, fitness activities and Forex trading.

  • http://martin.suchan.id.email.cz/ Martin Suchan

    New Opera 12 alpha scores 346+9 points in HTML5test, and 8 seconds in Speed reading – WOW

    • Mikah

      Only scores 336 default its 346 with web sockets enabled

      • http://my.opera.com/rafaelluik Rafael

        So what?

  • Anonymous

    Damn. Doesnt work on Windows 8. I forced it nothing. Probally because the drivers. Though IE and chrome seem to work.

    • http://www.favbrowser.com Vygantas Lipskas

      The whole browser or HA only?

    • Swapnil

      It won’t. This Opera 12 Alpha only supports OpenGL. Since Microsoft does not support OpenGL by default in Windows, OpenGL support in Windows relies on graphic drivers only. Since there are no graphic drivers for Windows 8, your PC with Windows 8 cannot have OpenGL 1.5 and above support (Microsoft includes OpenGL 1.4 support by default). IE works as it uses DirectX only, while Chrome works as it includes Google’s ANGLE which allows you to use WebGL and possibly HWA via DirectX on systems that do not support OpenGL ES 2.0.

      • Mikah

        set Enable Hardware Acceleration to 0 in opera:config

        • greg

          should i set mines to 0 too? i have windows 7

          • Swapnil

            No. Unless you experience major bugs that totally interfere with your browsing.

    • Anonymous

      -HWA

      @d33423b167716329132affbe85fd4ea3:disqus Thank you for clarifying to everyone.

      - Setting to 0 disables it. 1 is auto and 2 is forced.

  • Greg

    bout damn time!!!!

    • http://twitter.com/bricky149 Shane Bundy

      Amen to that.

  • Armin

    I really want multi process browsing…

    • Anonymous

      I don’t.   Duplicating stuff in memory is a REALLY inefficient thing to do.

      Better make a browser that doesn’t crash..   Go tell Google PR men that….

  • Anonymous

    Although it’s great to see HWA and all that cool stuff in this build, it is a very unstable build. I usually use Opera Next as my default browser, but I can’t use this build as my default browser because it locks up so much and has a couple annoying bugs.

    • http://my.opera.com/swapnil99pro Swapnil Rustagi

      Stabilization in progress. Opera is collecting feedback. Opera mentions that it knows HWA and WebGL. However it is looking for users to report problems with HWA that do not exist with the Vega software backed.

      • http://my.opera.com/swapnil99pro Swapnil Rustagi

        EDIT: Missed a line: Opera mentions that it knows HWA and WebGL ARE BUGGY.

  • Anonymous

    I like how Opera ripped of personas

    https://addons.opera.com/themes/

    • http://www.favbrowser.com Vygantas Lipskas

      Shh, you might offend someone! :P

      • Armin

        Opera’s gotta do some ripping after all they’ve been ripped of, right? :P

    • Mikah

      Very poor copy so far. I much prefer Opera’s skins to personas 

    • http://my.opera.com/rafaelluik Rafael

      I also like how they ripped it! hahahaha really!

    • Anonymous

      This has always been in.  It was renamed themes, but used to be called Skins….

      • http://twitter.com/Astrophizz Dillon Kuehner

        Skins are still there, this is slightly different.

      • Anonymous

        Sorry mr clown but I do not agree.

        Opera has themes

        Firefox brought out personas to quickly change the look of the browser without changing things like icons etc.

        Chrome based most of it’s skins in this form

        Now Opera is joining the party.

        Remember how they refused to incorporated extensions? They said their browser could do anything others did with extensions. Now they are eating those words.

  • Anonymous

    The best feature is the return of the bookmark star users have been asking about for years.

    Firefox ripped off Opera, so why not quid pro quo ?

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