The Video Demo of Opera 11 Alpha

By | October 14, 2010


Here is a sneak peak of what is coming from Opera Software.

So far, it looks more like implementation of Widgets. Let’s just wait for an actual release before making any final judgments.


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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 career 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.

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  1. Opera 11 to have extensions | October 15, 2010
  1. aavv says:

    This looks like very good
    long live opera

  2. everybody says:

    Chillout man, those are only simple examples…

    • nobody says:

      thats the exact same thing people said when opera released unite. these sample unite apps – sharing ones – are the only useful  ones (aside from userjs manager – that should be buildin option anyway)
       
      im affraid that with these chromeless widgets it will be the same story – they will be made so non-functional without real ability to EXTEND the browser that people will do what they did with unite and previous widgets – ignore the flops

      • everybody says:

        Haha, it that’s what I call desperation. Write some new posts quickly, you might have only few days before they release first alpha.

      • nvm says:

        Widgets, a flop? Oh, that must be why they are bringing in huge amounts of cash.

  3. nvm says:

    Oh look, it’s Chrome… wait a minute…

    • Ichann says:

      So what?
       
      I really prefer the chrome implementation.
       
      If it is alright for others to have the same thing opera had a long time ago, then it is more than right for Opera to do the same.
       
      This copied this and that copied that! Live with it.

  4. nvm says:

    Uhh…

    So far, it looks more like implementation of Widgets.

    You do know that widgets are supposed to be separate applications and are nothing like extensions, right?
    How is this an “implementation of widgets”?

    • He meant that those extensions looks like embedded widgets,  which is true. But it doesn’t mean anything – previous widgets technology (inside a browser) is a good starting point for extensions. I guess they will integrate more with the browser, and will get access to UI elements (like tabs).
      For a second I was afraid that real widgets will be “moved back”. Thankfully they won’t.

  5. Ichann says:

    Wow the interviewer is a jackass.
     
    It is good the representative said (in essence) “Well we do not source basic functionality to third party members.”
     
    Let’s see
     
     

    • nobody says:

      i had a feeling that his english wasnt up to the job at some points of the interview
       
      and the way he dodged the ‘how many extensions will there be on day one?’ was telling to say the least
       
      oh, and btw they definately SHOULD let 3rd party develop functionalities opera decided to abandon years ago. opera will not upgrade bittorent, cookie manager, bookmarks menu etc.. and  these definately need polish, work and lot of bugfixing
       
      but stubborness will prevail once more and opera will not work on these features, and also prevent others from doing so. for reasons that do not hold water

      • nvm says:

        Apparently it will be really easy to port Chrome and Jetpack extensions. And they already have some “professional” extensions, such as WOT on board.

      • Ichann says:

        Ichann

        I suggest a plugin system.

        Users can enable disable modules : mail, torrents etc with a tick (also download new modules and enable them at will)

        If any of you have used Agnitum Outpost Pro, you would know what I mean.

  6. neko says:

    Quite descriptive that I cannot type this comment via Opera…
    Yes, at last Opera will get extensions, I hope we get something better than widgets are.

    • Ichann says:

      Well if you watch the video carefully, at one point the rep says: “Widgets are for the long tail market”
       
      Extensions are:”For the Long, long, long tail market” –
       
      Maybe they are finally admitting widgets are not a viable market for the desktop.

      • nvm says:

        Admitting? They admitted no such thing. You clearly don’t understand what Opera is doing with widgets.

        • Ichann says:

          Widgets are a complete fail on the desktop.

          Only good ones are the unite media player and ebook reader.

          That is the directions widgets should go.

          Not some novelty fish tank.

          And I said: Maybe. I didn’t say they are definitely admitting.

          (Don’t worry. Thanks to Vygantas I cannot edit the previous post so no chance of adding the word later onwards.)

          • nvm says:

            Widgets did not fail on the desktop. It was a huge success to Opera because they got people to make widgets, and they can then use those widgets on devices.

            You are also missing the point of widgets. You are thinking of Opera as a desktop browser. But Opera is a cross-platform browser. You can’t isolate desktop and say “this or that is a failure” because that’s not Opera’s strategy. Therefore “widgets are a failure on desktop” doesn’t make sense. Desktop is just one small part of Opera’s strategy.

          • Ichann says:

            So it is a win because they tricked people into making widgets for them?

            Widgets have been a flop. Ask anyone.

            Only connected tv’s can benefit from widgets and even then the question is “For how Long”?

          • nvm says:

            Widgets have been a flop. Ask anyone.

            “Anyone” is generally ignorant, and doesn’t see beyond his own front door. Widgets are making millions for Opera. That’s basically a huge success.

            Only connected tv’s can benefit from widgets and even then the question is “For how Long”?

            You obviously haven’t paid attention to the Wholesale Applications Community, which is an App Store solution created by some of the biggest mobile operators in the world, and which will use standardized widgets to create applications.

            Widgets are cross-platform, and can be run on basically anything. You will see them on mobile phones, TVs, set top boxes, gaming devices, and anything you can imagine.

    • Looks like there are some issues with plugin, try now.

    • nvm says:

      @neko, extensions won’t be “better than widgets.” They will be something completely different.

  7. I hope it will be possible to extend M2 and IRC, that would be awesome.

  8. Dwight Stegall says:

    So far the only good add-ons are for Firefox. If  they want us to use Opera they need to gives us Firefox quality add-ons, a way to stop cookies from being set on our computer with and exceptions panel, replace the ridiculous bookmarks manager, get rid of the awful Widgets, and give us Adblock Plus which not only blocks ads but also blocks 40,000 malicious websites. I can’t remember the last time I saw an ad on a page. :)
    I was cleaning over 300 tracking cookies off of this computer everyday. Now I only allow cookies from the sites where  I have login accounts. And I keep the Flash Cookies folders cleaned out everyday. There is an app called Flash Cookie Remover. It is a trojan. Do not download it.
    I absolutely adore the Cascade and Tile tabs functions. They are great for watching 4 security cameras at-one-time. I also like the colored scrollbars like IE has.
    Sorry, but Opera has a long way to go to be my default browser. I’ll be sticking with Firefox a little bit longer.

    • Geek says:

      And almost nobody uses extensions. Its a nerds myth that casual people like to mess with extensions. They like functionality out of box. So Opera > FF, Chrome, IE.
      Ad blocking is useful i guess for many, but i dont care about them, i can easily isolate true content from ads. If an add is particulary annoying, its very easy to block it in Opera. And its nothing to brag about that you didnt see any ad for a long time – you are making more difficult surviving your beloved sites/blogs.
      And for flash adds – i disable plugins for Opera, so Opera doesnt have to use additional PC resources to filter flash adds.
      Opera has an option to disable/enable accepting cookies globally or per site
      Cascading and tiling functionality i guess was introduced in opera WAY before it appeared in FF
      Colored scrollbars? HELL NO
      Opera Fraud protection is using resources from  Netcraft and PhishTank (more that 500k malicious websites)

      • nobody says:

        nobody uses extensions.. yeah right, that was the main bS spread by opera users – ff had its extensions downloaded 2 BILIONS times!
         
        only one extension – firebug – was downloaded by 25mln people! thats half of opera desktop user base. even if these are ‘nerds’ remember that these nerds and not zealot 13yo fanbois make the web – all of them will create their webpages with firefox/firebug. guess what browser has the best website compatiiblity? firefox. just because of firebug a stupid extension that nobody uses..

        • Dante says:

          “guess what browser has the best website compatiblity?”
          Internet Explorer without Firebug extension.
          “only one extension – firebug – was downloaded by 25mln people! thats half of opera desktop user base”
          Opera 10 and Opera 10.10 has 22 millions downloads in one week.

        • cousin333 says:

          I’m glad that you finally recovered from the shock caused by this many Opera news… :)

          ff had its extensions downloaded 2 BILIONS times

          Firefox has around 400 million users worldwide now. That means 5 extensions each assuming that no one downloaded an extension twice in his (or her) whole life. Because it is obviously not the case, this is ridiculously low number considering that Firefox is almost fully based on extensions.

          If many people use Firebug for development, that doesn’t happen because Firebug is an extension, but because it is a good program that is available for a long time.

          guess what browser has the best website compatibility?

          IE6… :P

          • geek says:

            Nobody use logic like Cousin333. Yes extensions are used but only about 5-10% of all FF users. About 90% of FF users have none or a few extensions (and usually those are installed by someone else).
            When I find FF in some casual PC i ask – “why do you use it?” “Because x installed me”. Then I show what you can do with Opera and almost nobody goes back to FF.
            FF will be down to 10% for real geeks and Google haters. Chrome will get most of Opera native features and will have about 30-40% of marketshare. Opera could stay at the same marketshare or slightly better. But i dont care – I use Opera because and it have all feature i want. And no, i dont want insanely costumization for Speed Dial or all NoScript features. ALMOST NOBODY USES THEM. Even those who use extensions, use mainly about top 10 (like Adblock, Firebug, Xmarks, NoScript..). Also there are not so many good quality extensions. Many are not updated and cant be use in newest versions of FF. So you have extension which have feature implementatin better then native Opera but you cant use it in newest FF… I like Opera model. I dont want to outsource essential browser features to third party developers.
            And yes, IE and FF have best website compatability. And why? Because IE have largest marketshare and geeks use FF. but when FF will be down to 5-10% of marketshare, then we’ll see, if companies will want then their web developers would spent time to make website compatible with FF.
            People will hate FF more and more. And if oyu look at the latest news, Mozilla is getting desperate. Thunderbird progress halted, all resources are thrown into fixing FF, but FFv4 shows that the end is near

          • nobody says:

            @cousin333

            1) firefox is NOT based on extensions. it was the concept, chrome is doing it now, over the years firefox gained so much functionality, that it is no longer bare browser.

            2) mozilla discloses how extension usage is tracked (contrary to opera, that only states the number and says ‘trust it, now’.)

            3) best browser support belongs to ff. there is NO mainstream site that breaks in it. NO FUCKING ONE. with IE however it is a different story. ie6 is ignored, ie7 was never adopted, ie8 with its ie7 compat mode is a mess and ie9, first decent one has even problems with facebook (only other browser that fails at facebook is opera)

            4) couldng give a damn about opera news, what was funniest was their CEO. he might be a good manager etc. but he IS NOT a speaker. he was worse than Ballmer, and this is something

            5) “Then I show what you can do with Opera and almost nobody goes back to FF.” and this my friend is an utter bullshit. he WILL back to IE/FF/Chrome after his pages start to fail. facebook, youtube, google instant, amazon, ebay, all ms services, yahoo mail, gmail – all these sites have one thing in common – they do not work properly in opera. and they never will, opera developer relations are crap, just like that sorry piece of crap they insist will beat firebug.

            6) “Many are not updated and cant be use in newest versions of FF. So you have extension which have feature implementatin better then native Opera but you cant use it in newest FF” another fail. list me some popular extensions that arent ready from the day one.

            people will hate ff? why? on tech sites ff has like 60% of traffic, other 30 being ie. it will take some time to change that. and there still is a point: webdevelopers use ff and pages WILL work in FF, for a loooong time.

          • nvm says:

            People hate Firefox because it sucks, of course.

          • cousin333 says:

            @nobody

            1. Yes it does. It is far away from being fully fledged out of the box. But if you want something, they always tell you to search for an extension. It is a basic reaction, and even developers are pushing you to try extension page.

            over the years firefox gained so much functionality, that it is no longer bare browser

            Does that mean, that Firefox’s concept of being modular (basic fast&simple browser + (really the most powerful) extensions that you personally want) is an utter failure? :P

            It seems, that a good browser does need a significant amount of hardwired functions after all… Anyway, many people using Firefox complaining about this direction their browser is heading. And because of that, and because – like I said – many people don’t use extensions at all, they are slowly starting to switch to Chrome because it IS really fast, secure and “just what you need + extensions” – three properties that Firefox is supposed to have.

            2. Well, did you mean: “mozilla discloses how extension usage is tracked and says ‘trust it, now’.”? Anyway, this was not an adequate answer at all.

            3. I can agree, Firefox has very good support, mainly because it has a large user base, a good developer tool, and it is a kind of “freedom fighter” among geeks like developers. But Firefox’s page support is not relevant. What is relevant is page support to Firefox. It is not the same amount of task to correct every single page, or the page owners correct it for you individually.

            I can agree, Opera should had a fine developer tool much earlier. They have one now. If it’s not fine, what do you say, they have to do about? Even if it was really good, why do you think developers move away from their tools? Developers still work to get a page running on the most popular browsers, that are IE, Firefox and WebKit-based ones (Safari and Chrome). The proper answer should be standards. And we will see some changes as more and more mobile device show up.

            4. It is pretty hard to imagine how much lines of comment would you write in posts about (and even not about) Opera if you would actually give a damn…

            what was funniest was their CEO. he might be a good manager etc. but he IS NOT a speaker

            Maybe that is why he is CEO, not a spokesman…

            5. Those pages are pretty popular among Opera users as well. So either there is no problem, or not significant, or easily treatable.

            6. Opera has many popular Firefox extensions built-in. They are popular, because there is a need for them. And they are updated pretty fast, but sometimes not fast enough. But extensions meant to give the freedom of choice, the famous “long tail”. That is, if you have a – maybe not so crazy – request, there might be an add-on for that. But these kind of add-ons are not so popular, so there might be some delay before they get an update.

            So here we are: there are popular extensions that are well maintained – and most likely supported by Opera by default. And the small ones whit tiny user base, which might not be updated at all, so the point is still valid. Anyway, that will be the case with Opera extensions as well, but their method of the much simpler extensions written in web languages (just like in Chrome) has a bigger chance to succeed in this question.

            people will hate ff? why?

            I don’t think either that they will hate it. They will just find better alternatives, like Chrome, Opera or IE9(!). But they might not like if Firefox gets slower than everyone else, become slow and bloated or even insecure, and crashes a lot. These could easily push them to the arm of other browsers, mainly because the greater part of the Firefox user base is not so faithful like Opera’s for example. And we turned back to point 2: people might switch from FF, because they find a better alternative, and they are not depend on extensions (as they don’t use them), or they won’t switch, ONLY because the extensions. Both case shows the significance of extensions in Firefox.

          • nvm says:

            The job of a CEO is to manage the company. The previous CEO stepped down because he wanted to do less management (paperwork) and more strategy and evangelism.

        • nvm says:

          LOL, nobbie is getting desperate again. Comparing downloads and active users. Hilarious.

    • Ichann says:

      Can somebody please name these magical extensions for me?

      I only count a dozen good ones (at best). Rest are all shit

      • nvm says:

        What do you mean by magical extensions. The point of extensions is that everyone can get what they want.

        • Ichann says:

          Every Firefox user claims extensions are the seeling point of that browser.

          I was just wondering which of these extensions are installed? Why is it the small subset?

          What’s the point of making others if they do not get downloaded often?

  9. filip007 says:

    This video is blocked for Linux or something, whatever i try it just say soon available?

  10. Why so many people thinks widgets are bad idea? I think they are great. For example (real life – not a game) – I’m developing a widget for my company sales department – something like small CRM. We do allow our customers to leave a phone on our site, and then we are suppose to call back. There is a website interface for managing it, but for people from sales its to troublesome. Browser is not always on, or they don’t have time to always write notes about conversation they’ve had, and because of that nobody knew if certain phone was already answered etc. Besides I’m going to integrate other functionality into it. Everybody are very enthusiastic about it. For such a simple tasks widgets are just awesome.

  11. nvm says:

    Why is the troll allowed to hijack all posts about Opera?

    • max1c says:

      exactly ! I ask same question!
      I did ask Vygantas Lipskas about this and he said he would try to find some plug-in for hiding comments but apparently he couldn’t find a nice one :(
      Vygantas Lipskas If u read this please give us hide comments ability !@
      :D

    • Ichann says:

      Leave Trolls alone! Leave ’em alone!

      Pleeaasse

      • Ichann says:

        I never quite understood the meaning of a troll.

        People mainly call others trolls if they do not agree or contradict others in a way.

        But you people are forgetting one thing.

        Vygantas is getting traffic due to people with a little controversy. It is a win for him.

        Also it is a win for us as he puts in effort to feed such trolls.

        Why don’t we all go trolling?

        • nvm says:

          Nobbie is a troll because he constantly spams Opera discussions with obvious attempts to bait others. And he succeeds. Indeed, I am too weak to resist making fun of him when he makes a fool of himself.

          • Ichann says:

            I really do not see him as a troll.

            Maybe my Troll tolerance is more than the average internet
            personnel.

    • nobody says:

      it is funny who says aout trolls.. difference between you and me is that you say two things: ‘ff sucks’ and’ everything you say is rubbish’.

      hardly on topic, isnt it?

      • everybody says:

        Shut up.

      • geek says:

        Look at the statistics of IT blogs – Chrome is taking over FF. So why???? We all know that FF has better extensions. Why Chrome is growing??? Because people dont care about extensions or they need only several esseantial ones. Ignorant geeks like you pushed FF with agressive marketing and now eyes for many users just opened up. And they jump to Chrome ship because now they have the best agressive marketing (among geeks too).
        So its not about quality or features. Geeks hate Opera because it chosen different path. They wanted browsers to follow their wishes and look now at FF – IT SUCKS. slow, unresponsive, many essential browsers features are not even native, so with extensions itwill be more slowed down.
        Geeks cried when it was clear that Chrome extensions is not as powerful as FF. Geeks cried that Chrome is spyware. But eventually even among geeks Chrome is getting more and more popular – blazing fast, minimalistic, more needed features then FF. Google dont listen to geeks how to build Chrome, they have their vision. And they prevail and FF will be forgotten

        • nobody says:

          problem is, that i use firefox just because it gave me some functions long time ago and it just settled with me. i was an opera man till version 8.x but then theyve made too many blunders and i simply decided to not bet on a dying player. and opera is still in limbo with 3% marketshare and no website compatiblity. like 5 years ago

          my prefered browser is safari i simply like it, nothing technical and this is a browser i use at work (chrome is explicitly banned corporate-wide, same as opera – first is a spyware, opera simply does not work with corpo network (socks proxy, ntlm auth etc))

          it is strange, that people immediately jump to conclusions that im ff fanboi, i simply have a lot of fun watching opera blunder and then blame others for their own failures and really couldnt give a damn about ff/chrome or anything else

          btw. ff will not be forgotten, webpages have to be written, and firebug is still THE tool to make it, and as such pages will always work in ff 100%

          • nvm says:

            LOL, “Opera blunder.” Clueless as always.

            “Chrome spyware”? Clueless again.

            Firefox fanboyism strikes again.

          • cousin333 says:

            i was an opera man till version 8.x but then theyve made too many blunders

            Man, you’ve almost made me cry… So that’s when you become an Opera hater.

            i simply decided to not bet on a dying player. and opera is still in limbo with 3% marketshare and no website compatiblity. like 5 years ago

            5 years, Opera is an absolute shit, and still not dead, what’s more, it is better and stronger than ever. Now I see why you’re upset, this should be really frustrating… :)

            my prefered browser is safari i simply like it, nothing technical and this is a browser i use at work

            It is even more confusing: you using a browser simply because you LIKE it (and you should use it anyway)? Man, it doesn’t even have a proper Firebug!

          • nvm says:

            @cousin333

            Nobbie is out of his mind. Opera’s actual market share i 7% (140+ million users out of 2 billion online in total). Not to mention Opera’s dominance in the mobile browsing market.

            And claiming that Opera is dying when it’s profitable and even buying up other companies, well, you can probably tell how silly that sounds.

            Nobbie bet on Opera dying. It didn’t. In fact, it thrived. Is that why he hates it and spends most of his life bashing it?

          • Ichann says:

            @Nvm

            Spyware does not have to be malicious to be classified as “spyware”

            Google sends anonymous usage statistics no?

            Ergo it is spying on your browsing habits.

            Since people trust it and tracking is probably apart of the EULA. It can be said that Chrome is the ultimate type of Spyware.

            I humbly request a nitpick

          • nvm says:

            Google sends anonymous usage statistics no?

            What kind of statistics are you referring to, and what is your source?

          • Ichann says:

            There were many sites reporting this fiasco. I am not your search engine but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#Usage_tracking

            I’m sure you can find more

        • nvm says:

          People do want extensions.

          The reason why Chrome is crushing Firefox is that Firefox sucks, while Chrome is great. Also, Google is promoting Chrome all over the web. You didn’t think Google was going to let that advertising dominance lie dormant, did you?

          Chrome’s growth has less to do with extensions, and more to do with marketing and a kickass product.

          • geek says:

            Yes, but FF has a better extensions. So? FF was not and are not better than Opera, and only because of aggresive marketing FF is more popular and also because of myths, like FF is the most secure browser. Maybe people do want extensions, but most casual people just dont want to mess with PC, they use programs like they are out of box. Yes, maybe Opera is broken on some sites, on Gmail and etc. But i dont use advanced featues of Gmail, like most of casual people, so i just dont see those incompatibilities.
            Look at IT blogs how many people cry that Opera Mini breaks pages but i never ever heard that from casual people.
            Safari is allowed in corporate enviroment being such a security mess and resource hog? This only show competence of IT department.
            FF success is similar to IE success. IE is preinstalled on PC by MS and FF is (pre)installed on PC by your friends geeks. Bowsers ballot fail for the same reason. People are using what they have out of box. Period.

          • nvm says:

            Eh, Firefox became a success because Google funded it and gave it free advertising.

          • Ichann says:

            You know my favourite browser was Netscape.

            How I miss the days of the humble tag [being used everywhere.]

            The successor is just to weird to fill that void I had for Netscape.

      • nvm says:

        The difference between you and I, nobbie, is that I know what I’m talking about, while you are constantly being busted for talking nonsense.

  12. hungary says:

    Another Techcrunch video, this time it’s interview with father of CSS, Håkon Wium Lie – http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/16/html5-css-css3-tctv/

  13. Babelfish says:

    A few thoughts:

    @FireFox lovers: Please stick to your browser of choice. The smaller the number of end users using Opera, the better for those enjoying Opera. It’s easy to understand: the more popular a browser is, the more attractive it becomes to target it.

    @Chrome lovers: Apparently you don’t seem to care much about privacy, but should you do, why not have the same browser, just without all the extra Google payload?! Go ahead and try SRWare Iron. Add NotScript and maybe AdBlock and you’d be having something good to start with.

    @IE lovers: Hope dies last ?! :)

    @Opera lovers: Let’s hope they present us & the market a more secure, stable, less problem causing way of having this _additional_ way of extending and customizing this great browser.

    Other approaches in the past have more than once shown, that their concept could hardly be described as rock solid; incompatibilities, security issues … you name it.

    But in the end all that matters is that you are content with the browser which you are using. As so much in this regard is so highly subjective, it leads to pointless discussions like e. g. so many sports fans are having over certain sports teams, as one could observe here. It’s ridiculous.