Opera is a great browser, it has always been. It’s fast, stable and secure. However, it had a major caveat. It didn’t support extensions. Yes, Opera has always been fairly customisable, but those customisations could never compete with full blown extensions. The good news is that the Norwegians have finally fixed this.
Opera 11 alpha introduces extension support along with several other improvements, which were previewed in the Opera 10.70 snapshots. Opera’s extensions are built upon W3C Widget specifications. They are developed using existing web technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. This is similar to Chrome’s (and even Safari’s) approach to extensions, and different from Firefox’s extensions platform. The upside of this approach is that developing extensions is easier and faster, installing and uninstalling them is quick and hassle free (no restart required), and in general the extensions shouldn’t adversely affect performance.
Opera Software has developed about 15 extensions to help you get started. You can check them out at the official extensions gallery, or refer to my Techie Buzz article for more information. Some of them, like the Translate and Reddited are really handy and useful. More 3rd party extensions should come along soon. Stumble Upon has already released its extension, and LastPass has confirmed that they are working with Opera to bring their wonderful password management application to Opera.
This version of Opera also includes the significant speed and performance improvements achieved in Opera 10.7. As a result, now Opera is faster than any other browser available, including Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox. Other changes include a new Mail Panel for quickly switching between different accounts or RSS feeds, and a new bookmarks par that replaces the personal bar.
Download Opera 11 Alpha
Operating System: Windows, Mac, Unix
License: Freeware
Looks promising.
nice bro…. i like it…
keep writing..
This looks good although I have not touched Opera for quite a long time now. 🙂
it’s interface looks quite simple and decent….will surely give a try on it….its been a long time i haven’t used opera….Nice post…
I didn’t realize this had come out yet? I was waiting for this.
Great to see Opera getting more involved with extensions, makes it even more worth it to switch over to Opera.
Till then,
Jean
[…] in-depth review over at Techie Buzz. Check it out for a quick overview of the major new features in Opera 11.For me the best new feature is support for extensions. In my honest opinion, Opera Software made a […]
One of the coolest features of Opera which I liked was writing notes in a column alongside the browser. However I did face some problems with Opera like websites were opening slow and sometimes didn’t seem to open at all.
Good enhancement in Opera browser in order to make effective UI and add more functionality to webpages such as useful button for easy sharing on Facebook and Twitter. I came across with other enhancements like improved mail panel and browser performance. Thanks for sharing information.