ThinkLemon

Category: Opera

Opera Stuff.

  • Opera 9.0 Tech Preview 2

    Logo OperaOpera Labs:

    We’ve released a technology preview of Opera 9, codenamed Merlin, on Opera Labs. There are some very cool features we want you to try:  Widgets, BitTorrent, Customized Search, Content Blocker, Pop-up Blocker, Site Specific Preferences, Tab Thumbnail Preview.

    Robert Accettura’s Fun With Wordage » Blog Archive » Opera 9.0 Tech Preview 2:

    For those interested (if you’re into browsers, you should be): Opera 9.0 Tech Preview 2 is out. The widgets look rather good. Very Apple like in quality, I’ve only looked a the ones by Opera. I assume we’ll see more soon. I really hope XULRunner will be used for such a purpose soon. With the new Cairo backend, <canvas/> and SVG it would be very cool to see what people could come up with.

    If you want to have a go at it, see the O9.0 Tech Preview 2 download site.

    (I think I’m getting the hang of this ‘Deepest Sender’. Much like my own personal Furl/Del.ickio.us. 😉 And after a ‘bookmark’ you just dress up the post with a logo…)

  • Which Browsers matter in 2006?

    BrowsermixIf you are planning to build or rebuild a site this year you may wonder at some point which browsers you should support. If not, you should! Just looking at your new design in IE 6 is no guarantee it works and behaves the same in any other browser.

    Not that long ago the browser shortlist consisted of IE 6, combined with IE 5, IE 4 & Netscape 4. And maybe some other occasional ‘weird’ browser. But times have changed and are changing. IE 4 & Netscape 4 are ancient history, support for IE 5 has been dropped in most cases by Microsoft itself. And there are emerging new browsers, either driven by innovation or security issues.

    So what browsers should you support today and for the upcoming year(s)? Simple question, simple answer: Check your visitor stats and build/optimise for what they use.

    (more…)

  • Firefox: “The choice of criminals”

    If I may quote the ‘Alternative browsers pose challenge for cybersleuths‘ article by C|Net:

    Internet Explorer hides nothing from police and other investigators who examine PCs to discover which sites the user has visited, according to a class held Wednesday at the annual training meeting of the High Tech Crime Investigation Association. Investigators know the location of the IE browser cache, cookie files and history, and they know how to read those files. Also, popular forensics tools can help out.

    But that story changes when it comes to alternative Web browsers such as Firefox and Opera, instructor Glenn Lewis said at the well-attended session. These programs use different structures, files and naming conventions for the data that investigators are after. And files are in a different location on the hard drive, which can cause trouble for examiners. Furthermore, forensics software may not support the Web browsers, he said.

    Where’s a :smilie_hitting_brick_wall: icon when you need one? 🙄

  • Happy Birthday Firefox

    A year ago, to the day, Firefox 1.0 was launched. So I guess a ‘happy birthday’ is in order. 😎

    Logo Firefox 1.0In the past year this little app shook up the browser world. Among some of the things accomplished are, in no particular order:

    • Grab a larger than 10% marketshare. Exceeding the ‘promise’ made at launch.
    • Wake up that other browser development team, in Redmond.
    • Change the way I work on, code and debug my websites/applications.
    • Make companies big or small aware they have to support web-standards a.k.a. not only support IE.
    • Inspire Opera to also deliver a fine browser for free.
    • Setting a few download records. The current score is more than 106 million downloaded copies (spread over 7 iterations).
    • Prove that Feature Creep is bad and Open Source Software doesn’t have to come with a ‘Nerd Alert’.
    • …

    You also may want to take a look at:

    All that is left is the wait for Firefox 1.5 …

    Update: Next part is adult only!!! So if you are not of legal age in your corner of the world, try Disney. For Tarantino afficionados: Kill Bill’s Browser LOL 😀 And for some Firefox Ooh Lala. Firefox, definitely the cutest and sexiest browser in the world! 😉

  • Opera giving away their browser for free

    Opera logoYou could have gotten a free copy of Opera on their 10th birthday already. But if you’ve missed that opportunity there’s some great news from Norway. Opera announced today it will be offering Opera for free! No more ad-banners and licensing fees. They will only charge you money for Premium Support.

    “Today we invite the entire Internet community to use Opera and experience Web browsing as it should be,” said Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “Removing the ad banner and licensing fee will encourage many new users to discover the speed, security and unmatched usability of the Opera browser.”

    Cutting through the marketing bull: its free now and it’s marketshare will probably rise as it is another good alternative to Internet Explorer. Which is rapidly becoming archaic. I encourage people to at least try it once (or take a look at firefox ;-)).

    Get your free copy of Opera now.

    (more…)

  • Firefox & BitTorrent

    Opera supports it already. And now it seems it may be incorporated in Firefox as an extension. The FirePuddle extension is currently under development and it will be some time before a version for the general public will be available. Probably somewhere around the release of the next Firefox installment?

  • Get your free copy of Opera

    It seems you can get a free, registered copy of Opera 8.02 today. They’re probably giving away free copies because the browser is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

    Opera logoNote: For one day only, you can get an ad-free version of Opera. Simply e-mail registerme@opera.com to obtain a click here to get a free registration code. This offer is valid from 12 a.m. Tuesday, August 30 to 12 a.m. Wednesday, August 31 2005 (PDT).

    As stated at Download.com.

    Update: Never mind sending an email. Their inbox probably exploded. Instead the nice people of Opera put up an online registration form over here. I’m now surfing without the ad-banners, thanks Opera.

  • Migrate apps from Internet Explorer to Mozilla

    IBM has published a lengthy article explaining how you can make your IE only site work in e.g. Firefox, Opera or Safari.
    The article handles browser, DOM, JavaScript, CSS, Event and XML differences. It even touches Quirks vs. Standards mode and Rich Text Editing.

    Ever have trouble getting your Internet Explorer-specific Web applications to work with Mozilla? This article covers common issues associated with migrating applications to the open source Mozilla-based browser. You’ll first learn basic cross-browser development techniques, and then develop strategies for overcoming the differences between Mozilla and Internet Explorer.

    Read the full article.

  • IE’s dead, hail the new King!

    … and the new king is ‘Longhorn‘!

    Well, not exactly, it’s RSS!

    I’ve watched the video, scanned Technorati, clicked on TechCrunch, taken a look at the IE Blog, re-visited C|Net, shivered at the Creative Commons Blog, read the last Gnomedex’r story, …

    What’s left? I say, Redmond got the idea late in the game. But as usual they took a run with it. Not in a bad sense! It’s just… too overwhelming.

    The team formerly known as the IE team apparently renamed itself The RSS team. And they’re considering promoting RSS to be the main glue in the new upcoming Windows. … I’ve got to let this sink in. Amazon wishlists, sorting feeds, OS handling of feeds, RSS aware applications OS, all application use ‘Common Feed List’, Microsoft doing a Creative Commons Share Alike, …

    Let’s not forget, it’ll be available officially in 2007. So what does it mean now? I don’t know. What I’m sure of. I got to take a different look at RSS and enclosures.

  • The end of IE 5

    IE LogoI’ve given up on IE 4 and Netscape 4 a while ago. Meaning I won’t do anything extra for them anymore. They’ll just have to take the page as-is, no unnecessary or fatal script errors though, but that’s where it ends. If it doesn’t work or looks horrible, too bad.

    So how about IE 5? Will I say goodbye to that one too? Well, as long as there is a substantial public I will support it. But a quick scan of some statistics is showing a decline. Take a look at the W3Schools stats, which states a 2.8% audience of IE 5 in June. Looking at my own stats, I have to look hard to find any record of IE 5. But this will differ from site to site, so I haven’t written it off yet. So give it another half year or so?

    Microsoft itself has a helping hand in the decline by pushing IE 6 with it’s Windowsupdate service, pulling support for Windows 2000, pushing XP and Server 2003. There is even the upcoming IE 7. And more importantly it doesn’t support IE 5 no longer (or at least will do so very, very soon).

    Gervase Markham has a nice post about the IE 5 decline. He even invites us, web developers, to drop support for it already. I wouldn’t go that far, yet. Although with so many alternatives available I wonder why anyone will want to keep hanging on to IE 5.

    If you’re still using IE 5, please take a look at IE 6, Firefox or maybe Opera. Oh and for those on a Mac. There’s Safari, Firefox or Camino.