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Raising eyebrows

February 4, 2010 · by Espen André Øverdahl

Good news, everybody! A Lifehacker article posted yesterday is all over Opera 10.50's skinning capabilities. Reader t.click's desktop sports an amazing, totally transparent skin for the Opera browser that uses Aero Glass to render virtually the entire interface.

Lifehacker is now looking for more awesome desktop customization trick or fully-tweaked desktop configurations. Post it over in the Lifehacker Desktop Show and Tell Flickr Group or the Productive Geek featured desktops forum with a description of the programs and tweaks you used (and preferably links as well!), and they just might feature Opera again! :cool:

Also, betanews.com are reporting of obscene Opera 10.50 test results:

"And although it's not what anyone can call a complete Web browser (to do that, you really should avoid crashing randomly), the latest build of Opera's "pre-alpha" of version 10.5 continues to send signals that it will keep the afterburners fired up while it puts together a real contender."

The beta is just around the corner. Are you as excited as we are?

Readers' comments 50

Left under the original article, as archived; 1 page of comments could not be recovered.

  • Yoan Blanc4. February 2010, 13:46

    […] = “And although it's not what anyone can call a complete Web browser (to do that, you really should avoid crashing randomly),”

  • Kyle Baker4. February 2010, 13:47

    yes...I'm just as excited. :wink:

  • Tandder Lima4. February 2010, 13:47

    Perfeito! :love:

  • Serola4. February 2010, 13:50

    Originally posted by EspenAO:

    The beta is just around the corner. Are you as excited as we are?


    Yes, I am!

  • jacobian4. February 2010, 13:51

    very beautiful and inspiring. :-)

  • Aleksander Aas4. February 2010, 13:52

    Originally posted by betanews:

    Safari should be the leader here, with the preview build scoring 33.40 and the stable build posting 29.18 -- this compared to 29.11 for Chrome 4 and 26.34 for Chrome 5. Opera's score here is a mind-blowing 66.45; and this is a test that is so above-board that there's really ...



    Best quote ever :smile:

  • Charles Schloss4. February 2010, 13:57

    Originally posted by EspenAO:

    The beta is just around the corner. Are you as excited as we are?


    o yea

    Originally posted by Aleksander:

    Originally posted by betanews:


    Safari should be the leader here, with the preview build scoring 33.40 and the stable build posting 29.18 -- this compared to 29.11 for Chrome 4 and 26.34 for Chrome 5. Opera's score here is a mind-blowing 66.45; and this is a test that is so above-board that there's really ...



    Best quote ever +1

  • Sridhar Oruganti4. February 2010, 13:59

    Aha You bet!

  • Nico4. February 2010, 14:01

    Of course I'm excited. What else should I be? Opera 10.50 is so far the best release of Opera ever. I still miss a few things, but hope they'll make it into Opera 10.50 final.

  • Kimmo Jaskari4. February 2010, 14:11

    The new UI isn't a total hit with me honestly, so I'm more cautiously optimistic than excited at this point. The speed is great, but I'm just hoping I won't find myself experiencing too much culture shock with the new browser. The pre-alpha didn't entirely wow me, hoping that's just due to it being so highly unfinished.

  • Daniele Pellegrini4. February 2010, 14:11

    Originally posted by HellbillyDeluxe:

    The beta is just around the corner




    Wohoooooo!!!!!!

  • Abhinav4. February 2010, 14:24

    can't wait for it !!
    great job as ever Opera team !!
    :cheers:

  • Rafael Luik4. February 2010, 14:27

    You are really conquering the territory!
    First I thought everything were about 10.5 speed but now I see that the skin improvements are focused together with it and giving results!
    10.5 final will be perfect*!

    *You do still with a worse search engine customization (no up and down / restore defaults options) than Firefox does.
    *I'd preffer 10.5 doesn't integrates everything of the OS (buttons is an example, I think 10.10 button element are prettier).

  • zoquete4. February 2010, 14:38

    Nice, but .....
    1) Vista / windows 7-only
    2) no usability, no really value
    3) creating problems with readability: color-x on background-color-x
    4) it will look good only if you find a nice desktop image
    5) you will have to disable desktop shortcuts
    6) Try to look at it the whole day or even more days, I expect you will get tired
    ____
    I use xp, hope I was no wrong in some point

  • Hanseas4. February 2010, 14:38

    :° i like it°!!!

    Esta salvaje!

  • Rafael Luik4. February 2010, 14:49

    Originally posted by zoquete:

    I use xp


    That's is the point where you are wrong. Common it's time to switch for a newer OS!

    Originally posted by zoquete:

    Try to look at it the whole day or even more days, I expect you will get tired


    I guess more skins will be coming soon.

    I appreciate the skins avaiable but I really like the one that comes by default in Opera (9.64 and 10.10 / 10.5), I never got tired of it.

  • mihir4. February 2010, 14:57

    The crashes are really irritating. >_<

  • zoquete4. February 2010, 15:04

    Rafael, mission impossible at my current hardware. I like the way how Opera works on xp. I don't need a shiny "nothing". You are exited really about the fact there is everything missing! :O :O :O

    Great strategy, invisible browser :D

  • hcym4. February 2010, 15:16


    The Things That Excite Me

    :D

  • Rafael Luik4. February 2010, 15:39

    Oh now I understand, the problem with the XP users are the hardware. :/
    I'm not excited with the transparent skin, I'm excited thinking on the people who likes it and the many other beautiful skins avaiable and the ones we'll see with the new 10.5 capabilities...
    I like to use the default but I also like to look others sometimes (I only look, don't touch them). :wink:

  • zoquete4. February 2010, 15:48

    Rafael try my 10.5 skin: http://my.opera.com/community/customize/skins/info/?id=9091

  • Dennis4. February 2010, 15:53

    You guys are going from "pre-alpha" release to beta? Did I miss something? Did I read something wrong, here? :confused:

  • zoquete4. February 2010, 15:55

    I expect beta 2 P:

  • Rafael Luik4. February 2010, 16:21

    Originally posted by zoquete:

    Rafael try my 10.5 skin: http://my.opera.com/community/customize/skins/info/?id=9091


    A skin for fixing the default 10.5 skin?
    No.. I don't use 10.5 as my primary web browser so I'll wait the official fixes. Thanks anyway. :smile:

  • Kai Ockendorf4. February 2010, 16:21

    I just can´t wait to test the beta! Opera 10.5 ROCKS :yes: :hat:

  • Chickengeorge4. February 2010, 16:23

    Geile Sache...... werds mir mal reinziehen. Mal schauen obs mir die wurst vom Teller zieht. Servus zoquete :wink:

  • lilmoder4. February 2010, 16:40

    Beautiful. It's possible to make web pages transparent too.
    http://my.opera.com/lilmoder/blog/2010/02/04/aerochan

  • Kizin4. February 2010, 17:11

    That's why I love Opera, always givin' something extra P: to us! Yeah! this looks great!

  • Purdi4. February 2010, 18:47

    Originally posted by zoquete:

    Nice, but .....


    Why are you ALWAYS so damn negative about Opera? That skin is NOT the default skin, it's just something some guy made. And it looks cool. Why on earth can't you just ignore it if you don't like it instead of raining on everyone else's parade?

  • Purdi4. February 2010, 18:48

    Originally posted by H82typ:

    You guys are going from "pre-alpha" release to beta


    They said that the regular snapshots are pre-alpha? I thought snapshots were alphas.

  • L2D24. February 2010, 19:52

    you really should avoid crashing randomly), the latest build of Opera's "pre-alpha" of version 10.5 continues to send



    IE crashes all the time and Firefox crashes a lot, too, so what does he consider a complete web browser?

  • zoquete4. February 2010, 19:53

    ohhhhh, I did not get it was not the default skin :|

    in this case ..... it's very nice work :smile:

  • GAMES4. February 2010, 20:06

    IF I AM???????????? CAN YOU TELL ME WHEN WILL IT BE RELEASED???

  • ayespy4. February 2010, 20:23

    Originally posted by Purdi:

    They said that the regular snapshots are pre-alpha? I thought snapshots were alphas.


    The first snapshot was expressly "pre-alpha." Devs have refused to characterize the snapshots since then as anything stage-specific. They are "snaphsot" only.

    Even an alpha would be expected to contain the final range of features and capabilities - like Java for instance (which none of the snapshots to date, do).

    That said, it is a non-issue whether an "alpha" is publicly released before a "beta." If the next snapshot is a beta-stage release, that is one that the public can use broadly and safely so that a wider base of feedback enables finishing touches, then it should be called beta and sent out as such. There's no law governing order of release.

  • Zotlan4. February 2010, 20:37

    Originally posted by ayespy:

    Even an alpha would be expected to contain the final range of features and capabilities


    Why? Alpha's are almost never feature complete. Regardless, alpha and beta have become increasingly meaningless labels.

  • Rafael Luik4. February 2010, 20:48

    Why are you caring about naming the development state of the web browser?
    Someday it'll be final, jumping from pre-alpha to release candidate 2 or not. :D

    Originally posted by L2D2:

    IE crashes all the time and Firefox crashes a lot, too, so what does he consider a complete web browser?


    Good one! :smile:

  • Adrian Pizarro4. February 2010, 21:09

    Finally Opera is becoming notorious, as it always deserved.

    Originally posted by zoquete:

    Nice, but .....

    1) Vista / windows 7-only

    2) no usability, no really value

    3) creating problems with readability: color-x on background-color-x

    4) it will look good only if you find a nice desktop image

    5) you will have to disable desktop shortcuts

    6) Try to look at it the whole day or even more days, I expect you will get tired

    ____

    I use xp, hope I was no wrong in some point



    Why are you so negative about it? The fact that you are currently using WindowsXP is not a good reason to despise whatever new capabilities appear in newer OSes using modern hardware. Of course, nobody can blame you if you can't pay for a more modern computer, but you have to understand that if a more modern OS allows a more sophisticated set of graphic effects, if those aren't detrimental in performance, why not use them?

    We are talking about Opera after all, so much customizable: if you don't like it you can change it. It's not that it's gonna be the default skin or something. :wink:

    Originally posted by Betanews:

    And in graphics rendering, the 10.5 preview is posting obscene numbers in the Canvas object test. Safari should be the leader here, with the preview build scoring 33.40 and the stable build posting 29.18 -- this compared to 29.11 for Chrome 4 and 26.34 for Chrome 5. Opera's score here is a mind-blowing 66.45; and this is a test that is so above-board that there's really no way to cheat. It's that fast.


    And the funny part is that:
    1. <Canvas>was created by Apple, so for a fact Opera wins on their own ground. :D
    2. Up to this moment Vega is still working on "software acceleration" mode. I just can think that in the moment Opera devs enable hardware acceleration then Opera will become so fast it will render contents right from tomorrow.

  • Rafael Luik4. February 2010, 21:12

    Originally posted by Keldian:

    And the funny part is that:


    1. <Canvas>was created by Apple, so for a fact Opera wins on their own ground. :D


    2. Up to this moment Vega is still working on "software acceleration" mode. I just can think that in the moment Opera devs enable hardware acceleration then Opera will become so fast it will render contents right from tomorrow.

    :eyes: :yikes: :yes: :yes:

  • z@h3k4. February 2010, 21:30

    Very cool.

  • Daniel James Hendrycks4. February 2010, 21:44

    Originally posted by chooseopera:

    The beta is just around the corner. Are you as excited as we are?


    So no alpha?

  • zoquete4. February 2010, 21:56

    I tried to speak generally for Vista / Win-7 users :|

  • Daniel James Hendrycks4. February 2010, 22:19

    Originally posted by Purdi:

    I thought snapshots were alphas.


    They're not.

  • Cutting Spoon4. February 2010, 23:25

    _ -
    -_O

    Quirked.

  • Purdi5. February 2010, 00:27

    Originally posted by ayespy:

    The first snapshot was expressly "pre-alpha."


    That wasn't a snapshot. That was an OperaLabs release, remember?

    Even an alpha would be expected to contain the final range of features and capabilities - like Java for instance (which none of the snapshots to date, do).


    Nope. An alpha does NOT have to be feature-complete. In fact, not even Opera betas have been feature-complete.

  • Purdi5. February 2010, 00:28

    Originally posted by DanielHendrycks:

    They're not.


    Says who?

  • Cutting Spoon5. February 2010, 00:35

    Typically, expected features are frozen when a product reaches RC. If all goes well, the RC will rapidly make final. If not, another RC is released.

    Pre-alpha is typically a dev-only, pre-public-testing build. Alpha is where they look for "showstoppers" as they clean up the new code. Beta is where the fun begins, more testers and more tweaks as they work to complete to offering. I would hope Java may be back by this point. And hey, if they say "beta coming soon" it may mean they've tracked down and fixed some of the last major issues.

  • Daniel James Hendrycks5. February 2010, 01:07

    Originally posted by Purdi:

    Originally posted by DanielHendrycks:
    They're not.

    Says who?


    http://snapshot.opera.com/faq.html#what-snapshot

    Originally posted by Desktop Team:

    ... pre-alpha quality...

  • Abdiahmed5. February 2010, 01:11

    Hi

  • Dennis5. February 2010, 01:44

    hi Abdiahmed! Welcome to Opera! What do you think so far? :D

    :hat: :cheers: Woo-hoo, Danny! You got him! :up:

  • FreeBrain5. February 2010, 01:45

    So funny!

    Seems , the lack of serious bugs bug have people discussing a subjective name tag to describe unfinished versions !!!

    Labs, Snapshots, Alphas, Beta, Pre -alpha , Phi Epsilon Chi, Lambda, Gamma , Delta , whatever...
    :lol:

    Hmmm... I am curious...
    Do Alpha's have to include JAVA or will the world end if it does not?

    Who knows???... :lol:

About this article

Published inChoose Opera
DateFebruary 4, 2010
AuthorEspen André Øverdahl
TagsOpera 10.5, lifehacker, betanews, article, beta, browser, campus crew, choose, choose opera, chooseopera, community, contest
OriginalInternet Archive

The Red O » Developers » Choose Opera » Raising eyebrows

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