Opera 10.20 Alpha Revealed

By | November 25, 2009 | 46 Comments

Opera 10.20 Alpha Revealed

Now that’s a pleasant surprise. Today, Opera Software has released first alpha build of Opera 10.20 web browser.

While 10.10 focused on Opera Unite, this version aims to improve Opera Widgets, as one of its new features allows running them beyond the web browser. As for now, they have not yet added any “non-wdiget” features.

For some more details and download links, please visit the following page.

[digg-reddit-me]


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.

  • Golden Boy

    Bloatware

    • Thoe

      Actually, they are separating widgets from the browser. Widgets are already there, only integrated. Now they won’t interfere with the browser anymore.

      How does changing the way it’s done make it “bloatware”?

      • nobody

        widgets cannot be run without opera installed on your computer.

        after installing, opera executable is copied into a widget (creating enormous bloatware monster that has mail, unite, irc, torrent etc features, because it is the same EXE) creating ‘self containing application’.. this is so unelegant, and so many things can go wrong with this setup, that i really will wait in anticipation for how it unfolds. badly.

        and i really want to see, how these ‘separate’ widgets live through opera updates and multiple installs. it might be amazing.

        • george

          It’s true that it creates another opera.exe with the widget name, but you’re mistaken when talking that it containse mail, torrent etc. the file itself is about 800KB, and memory footprint is also significantly llower. Opera isn’t a one-file app

          • nobody

            if you remove all traces of ‘opera.dll’ from the system, will widgets still run?

            if not, then standalone widget is still runing and using opera full feature set :/

            that isnt really very important, but – even i only had few years of software architecture experience – solution opera took is one of the ugliest hacks ever. and it can really backfire badly.

          • Thoe

            Backfire? How?

        • Thoe

          Oh My God!

          When you install Ultraedit, Ultraedit.exe is copied to your system. BLOATTWARE!

          Never mind the fact that no one is forcing you to install widgets. Or Ultraedit.

          So where is the bloat exactly?

          Did you just make up a new concept, POSSIBLE BLOAT? :D

          • ben2talk

            Wow, you all sound like you use Windows. I’m running Opera (amongst other browsers) and can say it shows no signs of bloat on my system. I get more problems from Firefox than I do from Opera.

            Let me suggest that you stop being so damned childish and simply choose not to install a widget.

            Problem solved!

            Now go and argue about something else.

  • http://opera.com Daniel H.

    Yeah, hope for more features. No comment for Goldenboy.

  • Nick

    If to be truly honest, I’m disappointed with this build. I was hoping to see Presto 2.4 in action with VEGA activated. It take pretty much resources to finally launch Unite, who knows how long Opera will be dealing with widgets.

    • http://www.pneumatig.com.pl pneumatyka

      We’re all waiting for Presto, Vega, Carakan. But let’s give them time to finish and polish it. I was also hoping for them to come in 10.2, but I guess its not time for them yet.
      External widgets also have a lot of potential IMHO. We’ll see. For now I recommend Opera Unite to anyone who’s not using it yet. Its really awesome thing, and what we have seen until now is still a tip of an iceberg of possibilities. Again it might be like Opera just precedes its times.

      • nobody

        what potential external widgets have?

        opera cant handle real world code of current popular webapps like gmail, so you cant make widgets like applications in chromeOS, because opera cant handle them.

        at the same time, noone will make widget for opera, that has similar functionality, because noone needs simple widgets, and it is impossible to create serious widget/webapp without developer tools.

        and it seems, that developers are the group opera cares the least. NOTHING opera did last year made opera move from the position of THE WORST browser for developer. NOTHING. enormous effort on opera’ side. tools are as useless as they were in alpha 1. meanwhile safari webinspector and ie8 dev tools envolved from nothing to worthy firebug contender. opera is pathethig.

        they want to convince people to code for opera with initiatives like ‘open the web’, while they cannot f.. create developer tools? why? because it is ‘good’? so they want to earn money because someone will make something for free for them? sorry, your market share of idiots (3%) youve already filled..

        mails askind for opera compatiblitity were immediately deleted, i’d let opera do their job first, they have so much money and time to develop widgets, so they must have time and money to develop essentials.

        • Thoe

          what potential external widgets have?

          You’ll have to ask one of Opera’s many customers paying millions of dollars to license Opera’s widgets engine :D

          at the same time, noone will make widget for opera, that has similar functionality, because noone needs simple widgets

          Their goal (along with giants like Vodafone, etc.) is to make widgets more than simple applications. Read what they are saying about it. There’s even an upcoming standard for widgets, so you can write your widget once, and then run it in any browser on any platform.

          True cross-platform development.

          Why do you think engines like Carakan and Nitro are being made?

          mails askind for opera compatiblitity were immediately deleted

          Mails? LOL. You are clearly very ignorant on the subject. Educate yourself, then try “mailing” :-D

          • nobody

            “You’ll have to ask one of Opera’s many customers paying millions of dollars to license Opera’s widgets engine :D”

            and you know the deals details?

            “Their goal (along with giants like Vodafone, etc.) is to make widgets more than simple applications”

            and you know the deals details? share where vodafone shared this information that you are pulling out of your behind.

            and tell me, how is anyone going to be bothered, if making webapps for opera is impossible now because of no tools? so opera will hire next 100s programmers to make these widgets themselves? because given ENORMOUS success of current widgets platform i dont think that anyone is going to do this for free.

            “There’s even an upcoming standard for widgets, so you can write your widget once, and then run it in any browser on any platform.”

            that one that opera proposed and noone looked on it afterwards or you are talking about completely something different? who else is working on it? mozilla has prism, chrome has chromeOS – noone besides opera cares about widgets.

            “Mails? LOL. You are clearly very ignorant on the subject. Educate yourself, then try “mailing” :-D”

            i know what i ordered to be ignored, you cant even understand the basics of economy that stand behind this decision. developing for opera is costly, opera does NOTHING to support its own product. i let them simply enjoy consequences. this site alone is influential enough, that lack of compatiblitity make more people drop opera than vice versa. pure business. if they can make it on b2b deals – fine, it is their decision, but i really doubt that any business will buy a browser with no web site compatibility, and this is the direction opera is heading.

          • Thoe

            and you know the deals details?

            Opera reports such deals to the market. Just look them up. The other day they reported yet another deal with a “leading semiconductor company” which licensed, among other things, widgets.

            and tell me, how is anyone going to be bothered, if making webapps for opera is impossible now because of no tools?

            They have already been making them, and are still making them.

            because given ENORMOUS success of current widgets platform i dont think that anyone is going to do this for free.

            Considering all the business deals Opera has for widgets, I’d say they are a huge success for the company.

            that one that opera proposed and noone looked on it afterwards or you are talking about completely something different?

            Yeah, “no ones” like Nokia and Vodafone? LOL. Your ignorance is amazing.

            this site alone is influential enough, that lack of compatiblitity make more people drop opera than vice versa. pure business.

            What site?

            You wouldn’t know business if it punched you in the face.

            if they can make it on b2b deals – fine, it is their decision, but i really doubt that any business will buy a browser with no web site compatibility, and this is the direction opera is heading.

            Funny then how Opera is constantly pulling in new deals, including AT&T recently.

            Looks like you don’t quite know how the world works :D

  • tst

    They are going upstream. Against the market, against their users. Currently out of 60 comments on Opera blog (from dedicated and open-minded users) almost 50 are negative.

    If there is any user that *just* likes Opera, and he discovers that he is *forced* to bloat his OS with various Widget’ directories/add/remove entries, that will make him drop Opera.
    I for sure will not install this, this is too aggressive, it spreads around system without much control.

    I really hope, that for one year Opera will stop innovating and do their homework, catch-up with others in areas like real-compatibility, speed, user-experience, extensions, soon HW acceleration etc. Not mentioning developer tools, that are not here still. Who is going to write these Widgets, while there are no tools?

    • Thoe

      They are going upstream. Against the market, against their users.

      Wrong. Opera has giants like Vodafone behind them. They are aiming to turn widgets intu full applications.

      Once again Opera is so far ahead of everyone else that people like you just don’t get it. LOL.

      Currently out of 60 comments on Opera blog (from dedicated and open-minded users) almost 50 are negative.

      Yeah, and when Opera started making mobile browsers everyone laughed at them. Just because 50 out of 60 people don’t get it doesn’t mean that these people are right. They are too narrow-minded. Also, most of the complaints are that it wasn’t Presto 2.4 and Carakan.

      If there is any user that *just* likes Opera, and he discovers that he is *forced* to bloat his OS with various Widget’ directories/add/remove entries, that will make him drop Opera.

      No one is forcing you to install widgets. Duh.

      I for sure will not install this, this is too aggressive, it spreads around system without much control.

      So you never install applications on your computer? Since they spread around the system without much control…

      I really hope, that for one year Opera will stop innovating and do their homework, catch-up with others in areas like real-atibility, speed, user-experience, extensions, soon HW acceleration etc.

      Opera is already the fastest on real sites, has the best user experience, and allegedly Presto 2.4 is faster with software rendering than Firefox 3.7 is with hardware acceleration!

      Not mentioning developer tools, that are not here still.

      Dragonfly is there.

      • nobody

        “Dragonfly is there.”

        buaaahahahahaha.. sorry, this isnt a tool, it is a mockup, a sign of total incompetence and lack of any measurable effort put into it. this is useless piece of crap with flawed principles, flawed user interface and failed execution.

        dragonfly is dead. in two years safari and IE (that DREADED MS IE!) got better tools that opera PROMISED to deliver. yet, opera couldnt deliver anything worth a name of developer tools.

        rest of your comments is equaly worthless..

        • Thoe

          Dragonfly works fine here. Sucks to be you, I guess.

          • nobody

            given that all you can do with it is open and then close it, it might ‘work’ for you

            but if anyone had ever had any clues about your level of meritorical knowledge, it should be obvious now, that you know absolutely nothing on this subject, and you reply to these posts denying everything everywhere just because you are paid to do so.

            dragonfly is now THE WORST set of tools available, and the one that hasnt changed since years (new highlight offered few weeks ago was like offence to developers). i do not care if theyve had developer dragonfly into perpetum mobile in their labs, until developers cannot use it – it doesnt exist for them.

            dragonfly hasnt got simpliest features, it is buggy, has fatal design flaws that will never let it grow into mature product and is completely dead for months. look at the forums – he last remnants of developers giving a damn about opera are ignored by opera completly. after they go away, they will NEVER ever make any effort to code for opera.

          • Thoe

            given that all you can do with it is open and then close it, it might ‘work’ for you

            If that’s all you can manage to do, might I suggest replacing your brain with a working one? I can work with Dragonfly just fine. Considering your general ignorance, it is likely that you haven’t even tried it.

  • Nick

    The only widget I have installed is *The colours of the rainbow*(and it was long ago). I have used it couple of times. Currently there are no interesting widgets(at least for me), especially after launch of Unite and attempt of Opera team to stimulate developers to produce more applications. What I’m afraid is that developers’ efforts will be dispensed between unite application, widgets, UJS. Hope I’m wrong.

    • Thoe

      Why do you spend all this time bashing widgets? You clearly don’t understand Opera’s long-term strategy, so why are you commenting at all? Shouldn’t you educate yourself on what they are trying to do before whining?

  • rdsu

    Until when Opera will survive with this kind of development?

    We just need the best browser (compatible, fastest and secure) and not widgets, servers and nonsenses that doesn’t belong to a browser…

    • Thoe

      Opera is making bucketloads of money off of B2B deals because of widgets.

      What you need is irrelevant. Opera needs to follow through on its strategy. Just because you don’t get the strategy doesn’t mean that they should give it up.

      If you bothered to educate yourself about their strategy you would have gotten it by now. But you are too egotistical and narrow-minded. You can’t see beyond your own living room.

      • rdsu

        It seems that you need some education before talking with other people.

  • nobody

    oh joy.. this kind of behaviour (ignoring users) is a domain of monopolists. opera acting against their userbase (given % of users happy with opera’ latest innovation) is a sure way to make opera even more irrelevant on the desktop market.

    lab build reactions were quite clear – it was a great disapointment

    opera knows better, as always. pitty, that this still makes opera the best out of the minor browsers..

    spending as much money on core or compatibility as opera wasted on this concept would be money better spend.

    is opera really that good, so only widgets need improving? given that EACH site out of top 10 sites has some problems in opera, while having 0 issues in other browsers, it is great, that they made compatibility their main priority.. oh, no, wait, that were the widgets.

    have ANYONE seen useful widget?!?

    • Nick

      *lab build reactions were quite clear – it was a great disappointment* – Exactly!!!
      I was laughing through tears when read what they wrote *We have listened to your feedback after the first Labs release.*
      And Im pretty good remember labs build with & support and how community was begging to include it.

      • Nick

        I was talking re build with audio video tags support

      • Thoe

        Exactly!!! I was laughing through tears when read what they wrote *We have listened to your feedback after the first Labs release.*

        Why were you laughing? Amongst all the pointless whining there were quite a few relevant and useful comments for improvint the new widgets.

        You are only laughing because of your own ignorance.

    • Thoe

      oh joy.. this kind of behaviour (ignoring users) is a domain of monopolists. opera acting against their userbase (given % of users happy with opera’ latest innovation) is a sure way to make opera even more irrelevant on the desktop market.

      Just because users don’t get it today doesn’t mean that Opera should give up its long term strategy.

      When widgets were introduced people were whining like little crybabies. Today, widgets are downloaded thousands of times a day, and Opera is making millions upon millions off of business deals involving widgets.

      lab build reactions were quite clear – it was a great disapointment

      So what? Narrow-minded, egotistical users always lack the ability to think about the long term and big picture. See above. Users hated widgets, but now Opera is making big money from widgets.

      Users just don’t get it.

      is opera really that good, so only widgets need improving?

      No, Presto 2.4 with software rendering is already faster than Firefox 3.7 with hardware acceleration :D

      given that EACH site out of top 10 sites has some problems in opera, while having 0 issues in other browsers, it is great, that they made compatibility their main priority.. oh, no, wait, that were the widgets.

      Opera has 700 employees. I think they have the ability to work on more than one thing at a time. Duh.

      have ANYONE seen useful widget?!?

      Apparently some have, since they are downloaded thousands of times a day.

      • Ichan

        “Opera has more than 700 employees. I think they are able to work on more than one thing.” – taken from opera desktopteam blog

        I’m guessing you are the infamous Purdi I hear about

        • Eice

          He’s got other aliases here too, all of them spewing the same drivel. See if you can spot them, even though it’s not really much of a challenge to recognize such exceptional retards as him.

          • Thoe

            LOL, Ichan AKA Eice AKA nobody is talking to himself again.

          • Ichan

            It’s quite funny that you speculate who I am. If you were to examine how different all 3 individuals talk I am sure you will realize sooner than later that I am neither of those people you associate me with.

            But all means I might be lying and might be bothered to adopt different tones. So flame on as you wish.

            I used to play ragnarok online on Gatheringro (Im sure you can find me in the forum section). I have had the same Alias since a very long time after watching a anime called angelic layer (one of the professors adopted the alias Ichan-san)that aside I see no reason to speculate.

          • Thoe

            LOL, look at you squirm, nobody :D

  • Crackerflack

    I thought we went through this when Unite was released.

    When Opera started working on mobile browsers, it might have looked like a waste of time because “no one” wanted it. Now mobile browsers are bringing in most of Opera’s revenue.

    When Opera did widgets, a lot of people were complaining about how useless they were. Now widgets are getting tens of thousands of downloads every single day, and widgets are bringing big money to Opera on mobile platforms.

    Opera has been way ahead of everyone else many times before. It has taken up to several years for the reasoning behind some decisions to become apparent to people who are unable to see beyond here and now.

    Do you really think Opera is pushing Unite just for the heck of it? Doubt it. I’m expecting to see some major deals and huge revenues for Opera with Unite. Just wait and see.

    We’ve seen this all before: Opera makes something no one thought of. Some people complain. Opera pushes on. Opera signs huge deals and makes lots of money off of it.

    Do you really think Opera is pushing widgets just for the heck of it? Doubt it. We’ve already seen some major deals for Opera Widgets. Opera’s customers like Vodafone are heavily involved in W3C Widgets as well.

    Opera has a whole business to worry about. Their decisions can’t just be about day to day browsing. They have to ensure that they have a viable business in the long term.

    Hence they do things most people don’t understand and will probably complain about at first. Using the argument that most people are complaining about something doesn’t really work when you know that most people don’t really care about Opera’s long-term viability in practice. They want to be satisfied right now, and will complain if Opera sacrifices short-term features for long-term viability.

  • bingo007

    can we pin the widgets to taskbar?

    • Grrblt

      Haven’t downloaded 10.20 to try, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work and I don’t think there would be much point to standalone widgets if you couldn’t.

    • nobody

      in win7 you can, these widgets are nothing more/less than opera.exe with different name with a widget included inside. a normal program, like any else.

      there is a problem in another direction, you cannot hide it, and if youd like to use more than a few widgets, youll run out of space

  • oprah

    Hey all whining as*holes! Let me put it this way: “now all who wanted widgets separated from the browser are happy. When carkan and vega and presto 2.4 (or even 2.5) is released – you will be happy.
    What’s more important: widgets and unite are important and will be even more in the future IMO. Also opera is not doing widgets and unite ONLY. Presto is still being developed so be prepared for a lot of fun stuff when it’s released like vega, carakan and a lot of css3 and html5 like audio&video transforms, transitions, multiple background, radius border and god and opera knows what more :P

    • JohnD

      What she said!

  • JohnD

    Have you noticed that Opera news always bring the most attention?

    • Golden Boy

      Because Opera fanboys are worst

      • cousin333

        Look who is talking. :)

        Just read again the first comment here… :P

      • somebody

        Opera fanboys are not necessarily the worst, although this site does have an over representation of them. Firefox fanboys could be much worse in many cases and i’ve seen many, although not on this site.

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