Opera (web browser)

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{{Infobox Software |name = Opera |logo = Image:OperaLogo.png |screenshot = Image:Opera 8.50-Windows XP.png |caption = Opera 8.5 under Windows XP showing the Wikipedia Main page. |developer = Opera Software |latest_release_version = 8.54 |latest_release_date = April 4, 2006 |operating_system = Cross-platform |genre = Internet suite |website = Opera.com }} Opera is an Internet suite which handles common internet-related tasks, including visiting web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, and online chat.

Opera is developed by Opera Software, based in Oslo, Norway. It runs on a variety of operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD and GNU/Linux systems. It has gained a leading role for use in mobile phones, smartphones and Personal Digital Assistants, and is also used in interactive televisions. Technology from Opera is also licensed by other companies for use in such products as Adobe Creative Suite.

Desktop versions of Opera are available free of charge.

Contents

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History

Image:Opera 3.62.png Opera began in 1994 as a research project at Telenor, the largest Norwegian telecommunications company. In 1995 it branched out into an independent company named Opera Software ASA.<ref>About Opera, URL accessed on 21 April, 2006</ref>

The Opera browser was, until version 2.0, called MultiTorg Opera and was not available to the public — although online documents show it at The Third International WWW Conference in 1995.<ref>MultiTorg Opera, retrieved on November 5, 2005</ref> It was known for its multiple document interface (MDI) and 'hotlist' (sidebar), which made browsing several pages at once much easier, as well as being the first browser to completely focus on adhering to the W3C standards.

  • 1998: Opera 3 was released for multiple operating systems. This version introduced Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to the browser.
  • 28 June 2000: Opera 4 for Windows was released, introducing a new cross-platform core, and a new integrated e-mail client.
  • August 2004: Opera 7.6 began limited alpha testing. It had more advanced standards support, and introduced voice support for Opera, as well as support for Voice XML. Opera also announced a new browser for Interactive Television, which included a fit to width option Opera 8 introduced. Fit to Width is a technology that initially utilized the power of CSS, but it is now internal Opera technology. Pages are dynamically resized by making images and/or text smaller, and even removing images with specific dimensions to make it fit on any screen width, improving the experience on smaller screens dramatically. Opera 7.6 was never officially released as a final version.
  • 20 September 2005. With the release of Opera 8.50, Opera announced that their browser would be available free of charge and without advertisements from then onwards, although the company still sells support contracts.<ref>Feel Free: Opera Eliminates Ad Banner and Licensing Fee, retrieved on October 25, 2005</ref> Enhancements included: automatic client-side fixing of web sites that did not render correctly, and a number of security fixes.
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Features

In addition to the web browser, the other main component in the Opera suite is the Opera Mail client, previously known as M2. Opera Mail supports regular POP and SMTP mail as well as IMAP. It also has an Address book. Opera Mail also features a newsreader and a newsfeed reader for RSS and Atom, as well as an IRC client for online chat. The forthcoming Opera 9 will also feature widgets as well as further BitTorrent functionality.

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Accessibility

Opera was designed to run on low-end and small computers, and with a commitment to computer accessibility for users who may have visual or mobility impairments.

  • It is possible to control nearly every aspect of the browser using only the keyboard, and the default keyboard shortcuts can be modified to suit the user. Opera also supports the use of access keys. Opera was also one of the first browsers to support mouse gestures,<ref>Building a better computer mouse, Evan Hansen, October , 2002, retrieved on October 30, 2005</ref> allowing patterns of mouse movement to trigger browser actions, such as "back" or "refresh".
  • Page zooming allows text, images and other content such as Macromedia Flash, Java and Scalable Vector Graphics to be increased or decreased in size to help those with impaired vision. User stylesheets may also be used to do this and to enable high contrast coloured fonts.
  • Voice control, codeveloped with IBM, allows control of the browser without the use of a keyboard or mouse. It can also read aloud pages and marked text. IBM has a browser[?] based on Opera<ref>IBM article on multimodal technology, retrieved on October 25, 2005</ref>.
  • A "Fit to Window" feature that relies on technology similar to Opera Mini's Small Screen Rendering (SSR), allowing websites to fit within a smaller screen without the need for horizontal scrolling.
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Sessions

Opera allows the user to save a collection of open pages as a session. This set of pages can then be opened later in a new Opera window, or inserted into the current one. Opera can also be set up to start with the pages that were open when the browser was last closed. A saved session includes the independent history of each page and the settings each page had, such as scrolling position, images on/off, etc.

Each session is saved in a file that can be transferred to another computer via mail or otherwise.

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MDI and Tabs

Image:Opera browser cascade.png Opera supports tabbed browsing and has a true multiple document interface. This means multiple Web pages can be opened within the same application window and resized, moved, tiled and cascaded like normal application windows in the operating system.

In subsequent years the default settings have changed from MDI to the simpler concept of tabs. With version 6.0, Opera offered users the choice of three modes: Tabs, MDI, and SDI (No tabs).

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Pop-up blocking

Opera lets the user control whether Web sites can open pop up windows. By default Opera blocks all unrequested popups, but can work in a variety of different ways, such as opening a pop-up as a background window, or only blocking pop-ups when they do not result from a user action like clicking on a link. Windows that have been blocked may be later opened at the user's discretion.

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Download manager

Opera allows the user to list, pause, resume or restart the downloading of files. It also keeps history of recently downloaded files and allows opening them from within the browser. It can also be used with external download managers.

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Search facilities

Opera provides a number of features to allow quick and easy use of a variety of search engines and commerce sites, such as Google, Amazon.com, Ebay. It also allows a user to translate a paragraph or look for meaning of a word directly by a right mouse click.

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User Defined Themes

Image:Opera browser theme.png Opera supports customized user interfaces themes, allowing users to change the location and style of toolbars, buttons and menus. A Drag and Drop functionality allows placing links and buttons on toolbars with ease. Many user-created themes, ranging from colour changes to OS adaptations can be downloaded and installed with a few clicks thanks to the built-in automatic installer.

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Standards

Since version 3.5, Opera has supported CSS, and one of the inventors of CSS is an employee at Opera.<ref>CSS: If not now, when?, Eric Meyer, June 1999, retrieved on October 25, 2005</ref> Up to 6.0 Opera supported most common web standards, Netscape plugins and some other recent standards such as WAP and WML for wireless devices, but its implementation of advanced ECMAScript (better known as "JavaScript") and the HTML Document Object Model was poor.

Version 7.0 introduced the faster and more powerful Presto layout engine. Opera introduced a completely new browser, which supports the standards of the older Elektra layout engine and has almost full support for the HTML DOM.

Version 8.0 introduced support for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 Tiny. This marked the first major web browser to natively support some form of SVG.Template:Fact Opera has a presentation mode called Opera Show, which allows the use of a single HTML or XML document for large-screen presentations, and web browsing. The appearance of the web-page in full screen is changed with CSS when specific code for media="projection" is in place.

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Mobile devices

Image:Opera85 WinCE.png

Opera can dynamically reformat any webpage for narrow tall viewports, such as smartphones and PDA displays. This can also be used with Panels. The technology in itself is proprietary, but authors can affect how webpages look in SSR by using Cascading Style Sheets for the media "handheld". Mobile Versions of Opera which utilize this technology are available on a number of smartphones and PDAs, including those produced by Nokia, BenQ, Sony Ericsson, Sharp Corporation, Sendo, Kyocera, Motorola, and Psion.

Template:Seedetails

Opera Mini is a free compact browser for mobile phones and other devices that have Java ME installed. It uses Opera's servers to render and compress pages before sending the binary data to a small display program run by the phone. The method makes many pages mobile-compatible.

On January 1 2006 Opera announced that Google will be its default partner for its mobile browser. <ref> Reuters: Opera Software chooses Google as search partner, URL accessed on 15 April, 2006</ref>

On February 15 2006, Opera announced that they had developed a web browser for the Nintendo DS. <ref>Giving gamers two windows to the Web: The Opera Browser for Nintendo DS, URL accessed 15 April, 2006</ref>

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Compatibility

Common compatibility problems are caused by websites not following standards, or using outdated methods for detecting the browser being used. Websites are sometimes tested only with Internet Explorer, and fail to work correctly with other browsers.

To cope with outdated detection methods or poorly built websites, Opera enables users to change the information that is sent to websites to identify what kind of browser is being used -- known as the user-agent. In previous years, Opera came preconfigured to partially "cloak" itself as Internet Explorer, but still included the word "Opera" in the user-agent information allowing the browser to be counted in web statistics. The practice was eventually abandoned as problematic websites became less common, and Opera began to use its own identification by default.Template:Fact

Later versions of Opera offer more advanced methods of cloaking, such as the ua.ini file. The ua.ini file does not allow the user to write arbitrary user-agent strings, but rather it allows selections from a pre-defined range including Mozilla and Internet Explorer. It can, if requested, completely remove "Opera" from the identification to cope with sites that strictly enforce the use of particular browsers.Template:Fact

Version 8 of Opera introduced a further provision for dealing with faulting coding, by providing a set of scripts that can rewrite known broken pages as they are being opened. The closely-related UserJS (similar to Mozilla's Greasemonkey), allows users to run their own code at various times in the processing of a page. These techniques have allowed many popular but incompatible sites to be used fully with Opera. <ref>UserJS site</ref>

Opera periodically updates itself with the latest version of BrowserJS and ua.ini.

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Web-based e-mail

For a period Opera users could not empty their Hotmail trash can, due to buggy server-side browser sniffing<ref>Javascript error in MSN Hotmail, May 3, 2004, retrieved on October 25, 2005</ref>. In recent versions Opera introduced a feature called ua.ini, which allows Opera to identify itself as a different browser to websites which are known to have broken browser sniffing.

When Google released Gmail in April 2004, Opera was not supported. Gmail employs the use of XMLHttpRequest, a non-standard protocol implemented in some web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. Opera 8, released a year (April 18, 2005) after the initial Gmail launch, now almost fully supports Gmail. There are still some problems with Opera and Gmail, though, such as the rich-text editor built into the compose form which cannot be used in versions prior to the version 9 preview 2 (in which it is still buggy but generally usable) due to the lack of rich-text editing capabilities in Opera.<ref>document.designMode is here!, retrieved on October 25, 2005 Preview releases of version 9 include a rich text editing capability.</ref>

There have been numerous problems with Yahoo! Mail, the first of which was the broken "Move" button (caused by browser sniffing). After Yahoo Mail upgraded to a newer look, those problems vanished, but the "Move" button was a lot bigger than in other browsers. Other problems have included what is arguably a bad presentation, and has been attributed to the different style sheet Opera receives. Yahoo also uses rich text editing, causing similar problems for Opera users as Gmail.

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MSN

The Microsoft-owned MSN website has caused several problems for Opera users:

In October 2001, the MSN web page was altered shortly after the launch of Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6 to exclude other browsers, including Opera and Mozilla. Users were told to upgrade to Internet Explorer 6 in order to view the page. When asked why Opera was excluded, Microsoft claimed it was because Opera did not support the latest XHTML standard. Opera responded that their browser did indeed support the standard, and following the controversy MSN made their page accessible to all browsers.<ref>MSN.com shuts out non-Microsoft browsers, October 25, 2001, retrieved on October 25, 2005</ref> <ref>MSN, Opera, and Web Standards by Hakon Wium Lie November 9, 2001, retrieved on October 25, 2005</ref>

In February 2003, Opera Software employees discovered that the MSN home page sent a different style sheet to Opera users than it sent to Internet Explorer. The two most popular browsers, Internet Explorer and Netscape each got a style sheet tailor made to them. Opera on the other hand was served a generic style sheet that worked only in older Netscape browsers. Because Opera did not have the same coding, the page did not appear correctly.

The code to blame for the faulty rendering (which is a hack to fix an old Netscape bug) is this: 

ul {list-style-position: outside; margin: -2px 0px 0px -30px;}<ref>Why doesn't MSN work with Opera? by Hakon Wium Lie, February 2003, retrieved on October 25, 2005</ref><ref>Opera cries foul against MSN--again, February 5, 2005, retrieved on October 25, 2005</ref>

Testing showed that Opera was served with this old style sheet only when it was possible to discern that it was Opera being used to fetch the page. If one used a user agent like oprah, one would get a more up to date stylesheet. Opera claimed that this was a deliberate action to discredit the browser. Microsoft denied the claims, blamed it on a coding error, and fixed it.Template:Fact

Regardless of Microsoft's claims, Opera went public with the story, and created a "Bork" edition of their browser, which garbled www.msn.com into the speech of the Swedish Chef. Opera says that this was a joke to show how easily a web-page can be changed if one actually wants. In the press-release, they reiterated its mantra that the web should be open to all.<ref>Opera releases "Bork" edition, February 14, 2003, retrieved on October 25, 2005</ref>

Yet another incident occurred in May 2003, when MSN's servers caused users who had altered their preferred languages for websites to get a "server error" message. Although the error also affected users of Internet Explorer, Opera makes it easier for users to change languages, so Opera users were more likely to be affected. Opera supporters once again claimed that it was an attempt by Microsoft to discredit Opera. <ref>Opera wails about MSN problem, May 21, 2003, retrieved on October 25, 2005</ref>

Opera Software have used the above incidents to claim that Microsoft has an anti-competitive agenda because Opera Software, as publishers of the Opera web browser, are a competitor to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

In May 2004, an unknown entity made a 12.75 USD million payment to Opera Software. Opera CTO Håkon Wium Lie said the settlement "Resolved an issue close to his heart", but no admission was made regarding who paid this money, or why. Many speculate that it was Microsoft paying to avoid embarrassment in court over the MSN issues.<ref>Microsoft behind $12 million payment to Opera, CNET, May 24, 2004, retrieved on October 25, 2005</ref>

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Market adoption

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Usage share

Statistics reference: Usage share of web browsers

As of January 2006, usage data gives Opera's overall global share of the browser market as being between 0.5% and 0.9%, although Opera's usage share is much higher in certain European countries (e.g. over 6% in Poland <ref>Ranking.pl, URL accessed on 15 April, 2006</ref> and over 5% in Lithuania <ref>Ranking.lt, URL accessed on 15 April, 2006).</ref>

Since its first release in 1996, the browser has had limited success on desktop computers in the face of competitors including Safari, Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla Application Suite and Mozilla Firefox. Opera Software has had more success in the area of mobile browsing, with product releases for a variety of platforms. There is not currently any substantial data on mobile browsing statistics (perhaps due to the tiny proportion of browsing that occurs on equipment other than desktop or laptop computers). Opera's availability on many platforms has given users access to a highly functional browser where this choice did not previously exist.

Novell distributes the Linux version of Opera (based on the Qt Library) with its SUSE Linux distribution. Prior to version 3, Xandros included Opera in its Open Circulation Edition as the default browser, but now distributes Firefox.

The Nintendo DS will use an Opera card that fits into the DS slot. This will allow the Nintendo DS to access the internet.

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Versions

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Latest release versions

Note: The latest version number may differ between languages; these numbers are for the original English (US) version.

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Preview versions

Image:Opera Browser.png Beta releases for the desktop platforms (Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) are tested by a selected group of beta testers. Announcements of technical preview versions are posted on Opera's newsgroup, forums,<ref>Opera Beta forum, retrieved on October 29, 2005</ref> and the mailing-list, so the public can test and discuss new features.

On February 7, 2006, Opera started Opera Labs, <ref>A behind-the-scenes look at the latest technology and products from Opera Software</ref> where any preview/beta versions will be posted.

On 20 April, 2006, a beta version of Opera v9 was released, including such features as a BitTorrent client and improved content blocking. <ref>Widgets, BitTorrent, content blocking: Introducing Opera 9 Beta</ref>

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Weekly versions

Since February 13, 2006, Opera has been releasing a new build every friday. Usually builds for Microsoft Windows, Mac, and Unix variants (Linux or FreeBSD) are available each week, but some days they may leave out one of the platforms. These weekly builds are available at the Desktop Team blog. <ref>The Desktop Team blog</ref> They are more experimental than Technical Preview builds, in many cases, and should only be used for testing purposes.

Since the weekly build 8265, released on March 10, 2006, Opera passes the Acid2 standards test.Template:Fact

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Notes and references

<references />

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See also

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External links

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Official links

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Unofficial links

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