It’s a Big Week for Browsers, The Launch of Opera 9.50

Posted on June 21, 2008 by Japanerd

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$What\'s this? A giant O? Shock and horror!$ Shortly before the launch of Firefox 3.0, Opera had a launch of its own. Version 9.50 of the venerable browser signified a turn in Opera’s interface. An almost complete overhaul of Opera’s tab interface, as well as many separate new features of its own.

Being a long time Opera user, (though now throughly devoted to Firefox), it was interesting to see the changes over time. I must admit, version 9.50 continues Opera’s long tradition of pioneering in terms of browser tabs. Their new tab interface is sleek, intuative, and best of all, it works. Adding a new tab button to the right of your open tabs, as well as the ability to recover closed tabs simply by clicking on the trash can icon, Opera proves that, though it may be the little guy, it is still capable of innovation. In addition to the new tab interface, it added a Quick Find Bar, almost identical to Mozilla Firefox’s “Awesome Bar”. The new version also adds a new browser engine, making it twice as fast as Opera version 9.2 when it comes to rendering Javascript and HTML, as well as third party plug-ins. It also considerably accelerates Opera’s start up time, which was not slow to begin with. Likewise the new version added Opera Link, which synchronizes your bookmarks with your Mobile Phone. This allows you to take your bookmarks anywhere. It also revamped the Toolbar system, giving more customization options to the user, and virtually eliminating the accidental opening of the toolbar. (That was a major problem during my use of version 9.2).

All in all, the new version of Opera is fast, sleek, and an overall improvement on an already excellent browser. If you’re a fan of Opera, I whole heartedly encourage you go ahead and download the 9.50. Personally, I’m going to stick to Firefox 3.0.