Opera 11 with Extensions

By | October 14, 2010 | 39 Comments

Opera 11 with ExtensionsThe world is coming to an end, as Opera Software has just announced its plans to bring extensions to the upcoming Opera 11 web browser.

What? How?

According to Norwegian software company, Opera tried to make it easy for developers to port already existing extensions from other browsers.

Furthermore, you will have a chance to create your own extension by using HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and supported APIs.

Extensions will be based on the W3C Widget specifications and this is being considered for an Open Standard effort.


When?

Opera 11 Alpha will be available “soon”, according to Opera Software. Stay tuned.

For more details, see the following post.


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.

  • aavv

    This what we miss
    long long time ago
    Opera will lead the market after that

  • http://www.sumake.eu narzędzia pneumatyczne

    Good news everybody (and nobody :P)

    • http://Operaner.net Andylee

      I think nobody will find a way to tell us Opera is heading the wrong way :)

      • Somebody

        He has still got Dragonfly to talk about :-).
        But this is great news. I hope Opera 11 also comes with HW acceleration.

  • everybody

    Finally, now it should get interesting. They better not screw it up.

  • asfa

    Finally, great news!

  • Duke Phillips

    Let’s hope they finally fix the problems that have occurred since 10.5 came out.

    • nvm

      What problems? It works fine for most people
      They sure took a long time to add extensions, though. Pretty lame.

  • daddylo

    Long waited ……. but not expected …… but good to see Opera listen to its users ( loyal I must say)  .. btw I saw Opera advertisement on favbrowser , seems like they after more users :).

  • Ichann

    I really do not think that this is going to be an ‘extension’ in the traditional sense.
     
    But we will see.
     
    Kudos to Opera for finally taking the extensions plunge.

  • max1c

    HOLY O_O WOrld is coming to an end O_O

  • nobody

    another attempt to justify enormous spendings on useless widgets? good joke. i know that opera claims that they are earning money on it – maybe they are, but opera also claimed for them to be ‘the greatest thing eva!’ same with unite..
     
    chrome extensions are great, i like their oneclicknes and pace they are developed, but to really extend the browser the ff is better option.
     
    example: opera is clueless about their cookie manager – so lets extend/FIX it with extensions.. or not, because widgets (even repainted as extensions) will not be able to do so. ff extensions allow that. they also allow to do developer tools for ff, something that these extensions would not be able to do, for the same reason fragonfly is developing so slowly and is a such crap
     
    add nth button to the webpage to do amusing tricks with google search – ok, these widgets can do that. however will people really use them?

    • Dante

      “another attempt to justify enormous spendings on useless widgets? ”
      Opera extensions are at first typical Opera userCSS, userJS, buttons, context or actions extensions under new extensions API and with official repository.  Thats mean nothing new but with better compatibility with UI of browser.  No standalone widgets.
      Chrome extensions are great? Can you find me extension with possibility selective block external or internal scripts on page like Opera BlockScript userJS? Can you tell me why simple 30Kb extension in Chrome take 6-8MB  separate process in memory even is for specific page that I am not today visit ?

    • Stve

      You remind me of an Ostrich with his head buried in the sand speaking though its arse.
      Its obvious whatever Opera does it is always going to provoke the same pathetic knee jerk reaction from you.The only thing you have going for you is a very apt username.

      • nobody

        blaa bla bla
         
        opera fanbois just like you just a week before would kill anyone suggesting extensions for opera. the same opera fabois are now going berzerk on anyone saying ‘but it will lower security, cause slowdowns etc.
         
        hypocrisy much?
         
        and if we are on substance – i gave a real and meritoric arguments – where is YOUR contribution other than bla bla?

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

          We need to face extensions are a necessity for the common user that can’t edit .ini files or even add a UserJS, and when they’re based on open standards we can’t complain about it.
          I know the extensions won’t slow Opera, the developers are very good, I trust them. I only hope they can control security someway.

          • nobody

            these are the same developers who insisted, claimed and outright banned people that stated otherwise that ‘if you dont use module X it is not loaded so stfu already’

            and then, few weeks ago, theyve released a profiling build of opera, that allowed each and every one of you to see how much they were lying. with clean opera install MAIL setup takes considerable portion of startup/shutdown time, same as unite, widget crap and other NOT USED FEATURES.

            if these are the developers you trust – sorry

          • Dante

            First start: Widget start time – 0ms, mail start+indexer+root – 150ms, Unite – 0ms.
            Overall Opera first startup sequence (core+ui) – 800ms.

            Next start: Widget start time – 0ms, mail start+indexer+root – 8ms, Unite – 0ms.
            Overall Opera next startup sequence (core+ui) – 300ms

          • nvm

            “these are the same developers who insisted, claimed and outright banned people that stated otherwise that ‘if you dont use module X it is not loaded so stfu already’”

            No, what they said was that there was no noticeable impact. They never said anything about “not loaded.”

            “and then, few weeks ago, theyve released a profiling build of opera, that allowed each and every one of you to see how much they were lying. with clean opera install MAIL setup takes considerable portion of startup/shutdown time, same as unite, widget crap and other NOT USED FEATURES.”

            That’s not what I saw. I saw an extremely trivial amount of startup time, even with lots of mails.

            “if these are the developers you trust – sorry”

            People trust Opera developers. They do not trust your lies about them. Sorry.

          • nobody

            and now change ‘people trust’ to ‘prd3/nvm trusts’ because you speak for yourself not for all.

            and this rhetorics will always give you away prd3/purdi/purdii/nelson etc, a premiere troll from my.opera. paid by opera ofc

            btw another thing you NEVER do is state sources of your bulshits

          • Ichann

            I agree. The people behind Opera are sometimes jerks.

            For a company that refused widgets for the longest time and now for them to turn tail and embrace the technology is just plain sad.

            I am glad that Chrome was introduced as it meant that the folk @ Opera have enough confidence in themselves to create something worth a damn.

            I do not ask much. I just need a central point to manage my blocklist’s and install scripts with ease.

            Thank you Google for showing how it is done.

            Thank you Opera for following suit.

          • nvm

            Google always leads the way, of course.

            But you are simply deluded, Ichann. You should know by now what Opera is doing with widgets.

    • nvm

      I’m not sure if nobbie is trolling or just clueless. My guess is the latter.

      Extensions are not an attempt to justify widgets. Widgets paid for themselves by pulling in major deals. Extensions are evidently a way to let users add features to the browser itself.

      Widgets are not being “repainted as extensions.” They are just using the widget packaging because it’s an open standard, and they want to use open standards as much as possible. Which is also why they suggested that browser extensions are standardized.

      BTW, it’s good to see that you haven’t gotten over your obsession with Opera. I need a laugh every now and then.

      • mikah

        nobody is obviously a clueless troll.

      • Ichann

        Boy. You sure make a lot of dough for giving a tsunami of PR to Opera.

        Yep. Yep

        • nvm

          I aim to educate the ignorant.

  • Toxigene

    This sounds awfully like Firefox Jetpack to me. Anyone remember that?

    • nvm

      It sounds more like Chrome extensions.

  • Grrblt

    What this site really needs is a functionality to hide nobody’s posts. I mean seriously.

    • nobody

      soon youll be able to write an extension for that, if you can ofc

      • Grrblt

        That is actually an excellent point you made there. You should go out and celebrate.

      • Dante

        “soon youll be able to write an extension for that, if you can ofc”
        Why soon? Opera support userJS that`s mean you can block everything before page fully load. In Opera 11 you only simple transform userJS to extension.

  • Somebody

    One more important announcement was missed in all these Opera announcements. Opera have released the API for their Opera Link service. Now Opera Link can be accessed from other browsers too.

    http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/introducing-the-opera-link-api/

    • nobody

      problem is, that noone cares.

      will chrome (with google cloud) and firefox (that does everything to separate itself from opera) use it? never

      IE has azure, so.. WHO CARES?

      it is the same with SCOPE protocol they’ve released for ‘developer tools’.. WHO CARES?

      if somebody gives you shoes, but they are too small and ugly, will you accept them?

  • Babelfish

    Errm, regarding Opera and them making money with their software:

    http://www.opera.com/business/partners/

    To be honest I’m more than happy to read that apparently many FireFox lovers are planning to stick to FireFox (no offense). Why? Easy, they remain happy with what they have and the Opera end user number wouldn’t be growing by much. Why is that good? Well, the more popular a browser is, the more attractive it becomes to target it.

    Regarding the latest announcement, the additional option to enhance Opera’s many ways of customizing it in almost any kind of way, the extensions – let’s hope that they will come up with a solution that will not have negative influence on it’s superior speed, great stability, superb usability and solid security like it could be observed many times in the past happening to other browsers.

    Fingers crossed.

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