In spite of the absence of any major releases, this has been quite an eventful month for Opera Software. As always, I will try to cover all the recent Opera related news and events in this edition of Opera Bytes.
Earlier today, Opera Software released the first update since Opera 10, which was released almost two months ago. Opera 10.01 is a minor update which fixes three security issues along with numerous bugs. It is recommended that you update your Opera installation since one of the patched security vulnerabilities is extremely severe and could allow execution of arbitrary code. The full changelog is available here.
Opera has also been working diligently on Opera 10.10 which would include the much hyped Opera Unite. Opera 10.10 beta with Unite was released earlier this month. Stick with this version if Unite is important to you.
The other big surprise this month was the all new Widgets platform unveiled by Opera. One of the biggest problems with Opera widgets was that, in order to use them you needed to have Opera running. The new Opera Widgets for desktop fixes this problem by making widgets independent of the browser. They will still use Opera’s rendering engine, but will no longer rely on the browser itself. The new widgets have .wgt extension and can be downloaded using any browser. Double clicking the .wgt file will open up the graphical installer which will allow you to install the widget at a location of your choice. Widgets can be uninstalled using the Add/Remove Programs applet. In effect this makes Widgets as good as indipendent application and puts Opera in the same league as other widget engines (Yahoo Widget Engine, Desktop-X etc.).
If you are interested in checking this out, download the Opera Labs release from here.
Opera’s State of the Mobile Web report for September was released earlier in the week. Opera Mini continued its impressive growth and gained 4 million new users in September. Opera Mini users generated nearly 227 million MB of data for operators worldwide in September 2009. Data in Opera Mini is compressed up to 90%, meaning Opera Mini servers processed up to 2.1 petabytes of data this month. Interestingly enough this amounts to a saving of about 8 billion dollars per year. Yes, Opera Mini is actually saving a total of 8 billion dollars every year!
It seems that people are waking up to the benefits of Opera Turbo. Approximately three million unique users tried Turbo at least once since it was released. Not only does Turbo significantly improve browsing speeds on slow internet connections, it also helps users with pay-as-you-go plan save money.
Other Opera News:
Every week Opera Software will be giving away gift certificates and goodie bags to the best Unite application developers.
Last week, Opera Software logo was updated. The new logo seems similar to the new browser icon and is a big improvement over the thoroughly ugly previous logo.
Earlier in this month, Opera Campus Crew at Indian Institute of Information Technology (Allahabad) organised Opera Week. More details about the event is available at the Campus Crew blog.
Chrome, Safari and Opera gained market share in September at the expense of Internet Explorer and Firefox.
Earlier in the month Opera Mini servers were upgraded to 4.13.756. This upgrade fixed multiple rendering issues with Opera Mini.
lack of update, either their browser is truly stable or lack of development happen..
but i think opera is stable without so much major problem in it..
izzat aziz´s last blog ..I read more than 100 blogs per day and its fun.
Thanks for the update. I will update my Opera installs immediately.
I find the Opera twitter widget and the Screen Ruler infinitely useful. They are great widgets.
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