June 29th, 2011 Opera 11.50 «Swordfish» Stable Release
Stable version of Opera 11.50 «Swordfish» was released on June, 28. Norwegians have long held, but they also had to increase the pace, following the example of competitors. However, the “Swordfish” is markedly different from the “Barracuda”.
Briefly About the Main
The main change in the Opera 11.50 is the new Presto 2.9.168 engine, which increasing productivity browser (it can be seen with the naked eye, especially on older computers), and improves support for Web standards. Service for user data synchronization Opera Link now stores the user passwords for sites. In addition, the user interface has been redesigned seriously – changed window decoration, design of line status, new set of toolbar icons was added, etc. And also, not the most important, but perhaps the most noticeable change – in express panel you can use the extension. A complete list of innovations can be found on Opera official website.
Fun fact: Opera Software decided to borrow PR idea from Mozilla and made interactive counter of program downloads. As is the case with Firefox 4, it runs, even if the computer is disconnected from the network.
New User Interface
The first thing that catches your eye – changed design of the main window and tabs, new icons, new menus, and decoration of status bar.
Expansion of Express-Bar
I have not seen the similar function in other browsers. Many solutions which considered as conventional now have come up in a Norwegian company, starting with the express bar. Not only links to sites, but widgets can be placed now in its cells. Widgets can be created using Opera extensions, which were expanded. In addition, there is a special programming interface (API) to control cells dynamically. However, these details are not particularly interesting for regular users. The number of extensions available has increased significantly since their introduction in the test version – Opera Next.
Password Synchronization
Another interesting change – in Opera Link finally appeared the ability to synchronize passwords. Such a function is in Google Chrome and Firefox 4 / 5 (in older versions of Firefox a special extention should have been installed for synchronization). I can’t say that this is a global innovation, but many users lacked such a possibility in Opera.
First Impression
The truth is, this race of releases annoys, although resulting a quality improvement of programs. So far, the less real change will come in new versions of browsers. Differences of Firefox 5 in comparison with the previous version can be identified only with a microscope. To date the Norwegian company did not release new versions to raise their ratings, but who knows – maybe it will affected by the general trends. Developers are constantly mulling over the best support of new standards, but many of the technologies are not yet official standards. It will take a lot of time when they can be used.
