64-bit madness straight from the labs!

December 15, 2011 · by Aleksander Aas

I know we said the this year's Christmas present was Opera 11.60, but since we love to spoil you, we decided to do a Opera Labs release as well! This release brings another highly requested feature to Opera: 64-bit support and out of process plug-ins.

"64-bit what?" you might ask. In the good old days, most operating systems ran a 32-bit architecture. Now we are finally able to utilize multi-core, 64-bit systems, providing significant improvements to speed and stability. (If you are on a Linux system, chances are you've already seen these improvements.)

Next up: out of process plug-ins. With the release of this Labs update, third-party plug-ins should not be able to crash Opera anymore. If a plug-in does crash, simply refresh the page and give it another go!

This early preview is available for all platforms. If you are a Mac user on Snow Leopard or later, simply download the build and it will run 64-bit if possible. On Windows and Linux, you have to make the choice yourself. The build is based on Opera 12 and includes most features from the Opera Next snapshots, including Hardware Acceleration. For more information check out Opera Labs!

Readers' comments 21

Left under the original article, as archived.

ChrisThursday, December 15, 2011 4:26:56 PM
Originally posted by Chidonsky:

Whats wrong with Opera Mini share?
What are you talking about?
d4rkn1ghtThursday, December 15, 2011 4:49:35 PM
64-bit!!
Leonardo AlassiaThursday, December 15, 2011 5:13:32 PM
thanks for the build!
but in my opinion 64-bit is not something new... it was implemented 10 years ago in the user market... so I guess this version arrives very late!
ZodiusThursday, December 15, 2011 5:20:38 PM
ZOMG!!!
http://0.tqn.com/d/webtrends/1/0/K/A/-/-/raisins.jpg -
Max stoneThursday, December 15, 2011 5:46:29 PM
Finally we got 64-bit version of opera. Keep up the good work
Roberto Rojas MontecinosThursday, December 15, 2011 7:11:34 PM
awesome news!!
UnrealmirakulixThursday, December 15, 2011 7:17:09 PM
x64! Great! Hoping for even more speed!
Andrew ParryThursday, December 15, 2011 7:49:39 PM
Google Opera is great, how did I not know about it before
Cutting SpoonFriday, December 16, 2011 1:21:37 AM
This is kinda funny. The new 64-bit build ran through several web tests just fine, speed seems okay and everything.

Went to "youtube.com", started scrolling while the page was still loading. CRASH

Will have to investigate. There is a small chance I am ONE release behind current Adobe Flash, but this looked more like a crash when scrolling during a DOM update. This type of issue has popped up several times in previous versions, but always disappears again before the final.
Mağruf ÇolakoğluFriday, December 16, 2011 7:26:01 AM
Paweł PawlakFriday, December 16, 2011 2:46:57 PM
Originally posted by hellspork:

Went to youtube.com, started scrolling while the page was still loading. CRASH
At least I'm not the only one who is experiencing Opera crashes on YouTube...
ZodiusFriday, December 16, 2011 4:24:16 PM
64-bit Opera runs on software acceleration, while it's 32-bit brother is on hardware
shijithpkSaturday, December 17, 2011 7:26:05 AM
Happier about the out-of-process news. No more adobe pdf plugins crashing my browser!
alcor86Monday, December 19, 2011 12:31:26 PM
It's a good news for the users with OS running 64 bit
Cutting SpoonMonday, December 19, 2011 5:31:21 PM
If I had to guess (and I do have to guess), YouTube may be so crash-happy due to this mess with Actionscript communications. When a plugin is actively communicating with scripts on the page, it would seem OOP plugins have a little trouble.

I seem to recall that Linux users have reported Youtube as being a particular nemesis over the years...
Charles SchlossTuesday, December 20, 2011 3:36:36 PM

I know Linux has had the 64 bit for a while
'Rei SteinerTuesday, December 20, 2011 4:14:31 PM
I'm having the same problem as Lewis with the Facebook sharing (Twitter share still works fine). Sorry to bother here, but it's the only mention of it I could find. If you know of a link to throw me where I could find some more info about it/where it'd be more appropriate to ask, I'd be greatly appreciative. Thanks!
vandal7Thursday, December 22, 2011 6:57:15 PM
please make opera operating system witch will work with any driver and any program ...
this windows is killing me ..
Charles SchlossFriday, December 23, 2011 10:27:34 PM
Originally posted by vandal7:

please make opera operating system witch will work with any driver and any program ... this windows is killing me ..

might look at a unix based OS like the many different forms of Linux, you can ask in the forums
vandal7Saturday, December 24, 2011 12:06:38 AM
the bigest problem is the drivers ...
this is so stupid for me
they make windows 7 witch is not accepting drivers for previous versions but can work with older programs ... so you need buy new computer to use 7 ....
devi mencari cintanyaWednesday, December 28, 2011 6:17:20 AM
artinya..