Hello Opera 10.60

May 10, 2012 (approximate) · by Bruce Lawson

We're very pleased to release Opera 10.60 for all platforms. Linux users will notice that we're skipping 10.5x Final, as we want to get all platforms in step again.

Features

I don't know about you, but I like having some new things to play with! We've got some speed, some HTML5 and some "HTML5" for you.

Speed

Peacekeeper benchmark comparison, showing Opera 10.60 in the lead: Opera 10.60 - 6844; Opera 10.50 - 4056; Opera 10.10 - 1924; Chrome 5.0.375.86 - 6173; Safari 5.0 - 4021; Firefox 3.6.6 - 2890. Tests carrried out on Windows Vista / Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz 3GB

When it was released back in March, Opera 10.50 was the fastest browser on the planet — now with Opera 10.60, we've cranked the dials up to 11 and set the controls for the heart of the sun, increasing our JavaScript engine's performance to make it up to 50% faster than the previous version.

Geolocation

Allowing sites access to your location can enhance their usability and utility, and this feature comes to Opera 10.60. As an example, we've created this live download map of Opera 10.60. For a closer look at this technology see Shwetank's article How to use the W3C Geolocation API.

A note on privacy: when a site requests Geolocation information, the browser will alert you and ask for permission. You can grant it or deny it, and optionally have the browser remember your choice for that site on subsequent visits.

Geolocation works best on desktop computers using WiFi. This is because the location services provider (Google, in the case of Opera 10.60) compares the information about WiFi networks near you with its central database of WiFi hotspots and locations to find out where you are. Opera 10.60 has an option to periodically send such information to our service provider; this is off by default in Opera 10.60 in order to protect your privacy and conserve your bandwidth. If you wish to enable it and help improve the database, turn on the Collect location data in background option in opera:config#Geolocation.

You might also be interested in Privacy of Geolocation Implementations, a position paper by Marcos Caceres for the W3C Workshop on Privacy for Advanced Web APIs.

HTML5 AppCache for Offline Applications

HTML5 allows developers to code offline applications: in-browser applications so that they continue working when an internet connection is unavailable. This is as useful for a London businesswoman working on a train as it goes through a tunnel as for an Indian student working on a laptop during a power outage. Read our tutorial Running your web applications offline with HTML5 AppCache.

AppCache further blurs the difference between Web and desktop applications, and at Opera we're very excited about this. Our developer environment Opera Dragonfly uses of AppCache so it can work offline too. (Read more about Opera Dragonfly using HTML5 AppCache.)

WebM video

Opera 10.60 is the first browser to ship with support for WebM video, the new video codec open-sourced by Google as a very high quality codec for delivering video content over the Web (including streaming video) without the royalties than encumber its competitors. YouTube is converting all its videos to WebM. It's the future of video over the Web; as Håkon Wium Lie, our Chief Technology Officer and co-inventor of CSS, said:

WebM will join the list of open and freely usable Web formats, and video will finally become a first-class citizen of the Web.

Web Workers

We've begun our work to support Web Workers. Web Workers allow your JavaScript to delegate tasks to other processes that run in parallel, so your main script can do the exciting stuff while the Web Worker sits in the corner doing heavy computations without slowing the main script down. Our very own Daniel Davis has written a fun tutorial Web Workers rise up!

You might not notice significant differences in timings in Opera with Web Workers running (check our Web Workers speed test in Opera 10.60 and other browsers). This is because we've long built our JavaScript engine so that it doesn't slow down too much even while doing heavy lifting (which is why we have the fastest JavaScript engine in the world). Opera is a single-threaded application currently, so Web Workers don't speed it up that much. As we develop a multithreaded version of Opera (for platforms that can support that—not every platform can) you'll notice greater speed differences between apps that use Workers and those that don't.

Vendor Prefixed CSS

Opera 10.60 supports a small number of CSS properties with vendor prefixes. See -o- vendor prefixed CSS supported in Opera 10.50 and 10.60.

Bugs

We sincerely hope there aren't any, but it's almost certain that there are so, if you find a bug please help us squash it using our bug reporting wizard.

Readers' comments 50

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

docчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 6:21:33
Davidчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 7:43:28
Great News!
So what will be the next step? WebGL would be really awesome...
Unregistered userчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 8:07:38
Аноним writes: Still no scroll marker back
DamirLukinaчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 9:38:55
Like!
Unregistered userчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 9:45:49
Modo writes: Opera grows up! :)
berend ytsmaчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 9:46:41
Where are you guys http://www.opera.com/portal/geo/
Unregistered userчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 9:47:24
Mike writes: Great web browser fast stable!!! Keep up the good work. :-)
Kamen Naydenovчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 9:59:55
When it will be available from Opera DEB repository at http://deb.opera.com/?
Unregistered userчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 10:00:29
Anonymous writes: Uday writes : Go Opera !!!!
Matthew Wilcoxsonчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 10:05:01
Great work.

Particularly liking HTML5 improvements and geolocation - what a great combination.
NutzShellsчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 10:43:15
Why the so called "drag and drop" HTML5 support is stil not being supported by Opera?
Daniel Ziltenerчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 10:52:59
Wow! I didn't expect that there was still room for so much speed improvement!
Bruce Lawsonчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 10:56:57
NutzShells - if we could support everything, all at once, we would. But we prioritised what customers were asking for. D&D is definitely on the roadmap, though.

Thanks everyone for your good wishes!
Unregistered userчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 10:58:13
1lias3 writes: thank u , greatest browser ever! u re the best!
Mayur S. Khuntчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 11:57:28
Awesome browser!! I even suggested it to my friend, and he really liked it
Charles Schlossчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 12:50:44
tonykusumaчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 13:07:04
wow kren my opra 5 help my seting speed,phone nokia n70
M Haidar Hчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 13:07:15
But could you compare the speed with Chrome 6? not Chrome 5?
berend ytsmaчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 13:09:37
Originally posted by mhaidarhanif:

But could you compare the speed with Chrome 6? not Chrome 5?

Chrome 6 isn't stable yet. Compare stable against stable
M Haidar Hчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 13:13:39
Originally posted by ytsmabeer:

Chrome 6 isn't stable yet. Compare stable against stable

But at least, just for comparison.
Or maybe just put a snippet over there.
Zi Bin Cheahчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 13:23:48
Originally posted by mhaidarhanif:

But could you compare the speed with Chrome 6? not Chrome 5?

We wanted to compare release to release. I believe Chrome 6 is still a dev release.
Charles Schlossчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 13:45:31
Originally posted by zibin:

I believe Chrome 6 is still a dev release.

http://files.myopera.com/Tamil/Smilies/Yes.gif -
Metal Warriorчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 13:47:45
This is what I wanted to try, I dont need to try beta's
Thanks opera,
v-loveчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 14:33:59
I dont need any of the new features - but I hope many of the awful bugs that have been implemented since 10.50 are gone now. one can always dream, right?!
Kai Ockendorfчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 14:44:14
Thanks for this cool version http://files.myopera.com/Tamil/Smilies/Good.gif - !!! Keep up the good work for more...
raisinglightчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 18:09:31
this new version can't view embedded youtube vids.the homepage works fine and i can view embedding on IE8
please fix this because i don't want to use IE8 because it is evil and it kills mongolian babies everytime you click
mlouisчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 19:13:14
Its a shame there remains a lot of bugs with Google web apps...
But still a very good release, thank you for working as well for Linux
IKokeчетверг, 1 июля 2010 г. 22:25:33
Zi Bin Cheahпятница, 2 июля 2010 г. 6:09:16
Originally posted by raisinglight:

this new version can't view embedded youtube vids.

Hi Raisinglight, thanks for bringing this issue up, upon testing it worked for me.

If it still fails for you, it'd be great if you can send a bug report to https://bugs.opera.com/wizard/

Thanks again!
Kimmo Jaskariпятница, 2 июля 2010 г. 8:53:38
Yayy all that HTML5! And... umm... all it cost was having minor stuff break, like Gmail and Google Calendar.
Badtz Maruпятница, 2 июля 2010 г. 10:44:10
This bug is already reported http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=445111 and http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=556661 But it is still in Opera 10.60, clean installation, Windows XP SP3
M Haidar Hпятница, 2 июля 2010 г. 11:09:55
Originally posted by zibin:

We wanted to compare release to release. I believe Chrome 6 is still a dev release.

[I said this at the previous comment] But at least, just for comparison. Or maybe just put a snippet over there.
Ben Tudballсуббота, 3 июля 2010 г. 4:44:24
Bruce, I have tried to receive assistance from Opera's support for Web Workers, but it keeps saying AppCache Offline. Maybe I should -o-transition to a different Geolocation, then hopefully be Pre-fixed to the -o-ut-of-this-world 10.60 Speed! Completely avoiding HTML 5afari lock-in and adhering to the open Web, Mmmmmmm.
z@h3kсуббота, 3 июля 2010 г. 12:14:26
http://files.myopera.com/Tamil/Smilies/Happy.gif -
Mehrdad Archenemyвоскресенье, 4 июля 2010 г. 14:02:00
Christopher Cooksonпонедельник, 5 июля 2010 г. 11:01:13
What a disaster!
My Opera 10.54 auto updated to 10.60 and on restarting I received this message.
"Opera crashed while trying to show the crash dialogue for a previous crash."
I Tried a Windows System Restore, to immediately before the update, but that left me with NO Opera installed at all.
I fixed the problem in the end by downloading 10.54 and installing it as an 'upgrade' over 10.60, but only after a couple of hours of wasted time on Firefox trying to find a solution. I just hope Opera doesn't try to auto update itself again, as I depend on it for work, and can't afford hours of lost productivity, and don't anyone tell me to do a clean install, as last time I did that I spend hours getting everything back to normal so I could work.
Unregistered userпонедельник, 5 июля 2010 г. 11:02:07
Pepen Suprijadi writes: Thats great make Opera be a Top Browser.
Bruce Lawsonпонедельник, 5 июля 2010 г. 16:45:32
Yikes, sorry Christopher.
Cutting Spoonпонедельник, 5 июля 2010 г. 19:59:18
Christopher, you should have gone back two Windows Update steps. Opera creates one entry when uninstalling (or it did until recently...? Haven't checked this one yet), and another when reinstalling.

You did not indicate which Windows, SP level, or CPU and GPU.

You did not indicate whether you have any custom userjs or usercss, or any custom certificates.

It is difficult to help someone when they do not provide much-needed information.
Christopher Cooksonпонедельник, 5 июля 2010 г. 22:01:07
I'm Running XP SP3, Athlon II X2 255, Onboard Nvidia GeForce 6150SE. - OS version makes sense, but whether a browser works or not depends on CPU model sounds a bit dubious to me.

I didn't see an uninstall restore point, only an upgrade restore point, and going back immediately before that Opera was gone.

As far as customisations go, I use a custom theme, and not really a customisation, but an installation option, I have Opera installed to use European Portuguese.

I did track down and run Google Translate on some comments in a Russian forum about the error message I received - incidentally it seemed to have occurred with an earlier upgrade, and they claimed it was related to locales. I tried to look at the settings they suggested, and didn't make any difference.
Cutting Spoonпонедельник, 5 июля 2010 г. 22:30:27
Alright, thank you. That is much more informative. I mostly use 10.60 on XP-SP3, Atom N280, Intel GMA/950(underclocked). I auto-updated from a clean install of 10.53 to 10.54, then again from 10.54 to 10.60 without incident.

I have found one crasher in recent Opera, which occurs when using Facebook chat with multiple Facebook windows open. There are a few on ChromeExperiments but those should not count.

I have personally noticed that recent versions of Opera are more often reported to crash on AMD CPUs...? May be that some unique architectural quirk in the Athlon is messing with JIT. Beyond that, I must confess great surprise that you had such trouble on XP. I will set up a VM later, and try to set up Opera in a portuguese environment.
drunkrockersвторник, 6 июля 2010 г. 0:29:27
what happened to the Search Field on the SPEED DIAL page?
i cant find a way to put it back
berthoвторник, 6 июля 2010 г. 1:42:50
Now how about making it easy to change the background of menus to, oh, say, the system default. Right now I have grey text on a grey background.
floppyearsвторник, 6 июля 2010 г. 2:34:19
This is an awesome browser. It is much smoother in mac os x than the previous version
Dmitry Simonchikвторник, 6 июля 2010 г. 9:05:30
I have never seen so many bugs in Opera's stable release. It is very disappointing I have to say. If it continues in next version I will have to think about switching to a different browser
Witold Barylukвторник, 6 июля 2010 г. 18:48:29
Sorry, but Opera IS NOT single threaed application!
```
$:/proc$ grep opera `pidof opera`/task/*/cmdline   | wc -l
9
```
At least 9 threads here! + pluginwrappers.

Maybe you mean that single tab/web page is serviced by no more than single thread? And as such, Web Workers will not use multiple cores on single web page?
Unregistered userсреда, 7 июля 2010 г. 3:04:17
Anonymous writes: I do not like the new version 10.60 compare to previous version because the new version will always reload the page when I click BACK button. I work as web programmer and I find Opera nice to use for troubleshooting purpose where I always click BACK button to do debug and other testing tasks. But I notice the new version 10.60 no longer work like previously. Feel bad...
mryanmarkryanсреда, 7 июля 2010 г. 13:52:18
What I would really like (in addition to all the good features you guys have put in), is some kinda link between sessions and speed dial. The speed dial feature is totally useful. I can just open it and see all the sites I want to go to right up. The sessions is useful because I can save the results of hours of research. Be nice to have a speed dial that lets me organize my favorites visually. I could have a speed dial for finances for example. Just finances.. Another that corresponds to a session. Another for Social, So on..Please give me some feedback on this idea even if you don't think it flys for some reason..
Cutting Spoonсреда, 7 июля 2010 г. 18:19:00
Originally posted by movax:

Maybe you mean that single tab/web page is serviced by no more than single thread? And as such, Web Workers will not use multiple cores on single web page?

The whole of the Opera browser does not use multiple cores. Threads are inline, not parallel, and most of them spend their time idle.
Unregistered userсреда, 7 июля 2010 г. 18:59:41
ekkant writes: This browser has slowed my system , and i am unable to load facebook , games ect. it is continuely locking up . how do i unistall. also adobe flashplayer will not install.