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Opera 10.50 Beta for Mac Released, Performs Well in JavaScript Benchmarks

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Apr 12, 2001
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Opera today announced the release of Opera 10.50 Beta for Mac, bringing several new features to the Web browser.
Highlights
- Cocoa
- Unified tool bar
- Growl notifications
- Multi-touch gestures
- Happy Easter! Well almost, but multi-touch users should look out for the egg
Click to expand...
In addition, Opera 10.50 Beta offers stabilization improvements over earlier versions, support for HTML5 video tags, and support for widgets as standalone apps.

Computerworld had a chance to run some quick JavaScript benchmarks on the new version and found that Opera 10.50 is 10% faster than the latest version of Safari and also tops WebKit and Chrome browsers included in the study. According to Opera:
A completely new JavaScript engine makes Opera 10.50 run Web applications more smoothly. Up to 8x faster than its predecessor, the new Carakan engine speeds up even the most demanding Web sites.
Click to expand...
Opera has been pressing forward on bringing its latest offerings to Apple's products, having just last week demoed running an iPhone version of Opera Mini. The application has not yet been submitted to Apple for approval, although Opera is hopeful that the speedy browser will be accepted for inclusion in the App Store.

Article Link: Opera 10.50 Beta for Mac Released, Performs Well in JavaScript Benchmarks
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/02/25/opera-10-50-beta-for-mac-released-performs-well-in-javascript-benchmarks/
I'd actually consider using Opera again now that it uses Cocoa. Whatever you think of it's standards-compliance or extensibility, previous versions of Opera for OS X were just hideous.
 
Sounds cool, I just think Opera faces a huge uphill climb trying to gain traction on Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. But hey, more choices doesn't hurt.
 
Opera 10.50 is 10% faster than the latest version of Safari, making it the fastest WebKit-based browser on the Mac platform
Click to expand...

Since when does Opera use WebKit??
 
I like the previews in the tabs, though I would like a way to turn it off. Seems to take up quite a bit of screen real estate. Maybe you could minimize it to just the titles & show the preview when hovering over it with the mouse?
 
I don't know about all these benchmarks, but with my old fashion timer it takes twice as long to load a page then safari, and loads a page very glitchy

Oh well... atleast i gave it a shot...
 
guzhogi said:
I like the previews in the tabs, though I would like a way to turn it off. Seems to take up quite a bit of screen real estate. Maybe you could minimize it to just the titles & show the preview when hovering over it with the mouse?
Click to expand...

That's exactly how it works. The tab bar can be resized vertically, with normal tabs with text at the minimum, and full buttons with previews at its maximum.

I've been using Opera 10.50 beta on Windows and have been pretty impressed with it so far... Though, it's going to take a lot to supplant Firefox w/AdBlock+ and Flashblock in my normal use.
 
Cocoa! Yes! Finally! I am downloading right now. I have always wanted to like Opera, but just couldn't get past the non-standard behavior.

Edit: Ummm, not all Cocoa at all.
 
Good to see them taking it up a couple notches. Though honestly, from a marketing standpoint, I feel like they shouldreinvent their brand. When I think of Opera, I think of Netscape, old, clunky, inefficient, etc. Maybe something cool and edgy, like XFINITY? Haha ok now that was a joke...stupid Comcast.
 
OK, more choices are good.. buy is there really a need for another MacOS browser? With Safari, Firefox, and Chrome - I am afraid there is simply no room for Opera in the desktop browser market.

If I was Opera, I'd focus on mobile platforms and try to break through into iPhone/iPad, where they can offer some differentiation with Flash support etc.
 
ppc_michael said:
Cocoa! Yes! Finally! I am downloading right now. I have always wanted to like Opera, but just couldn't get past the non-standard behavior.

Edit: Ummm, not all Cocoa at all.
Click to expand...

Cocoa is not a UI, a design, or anything related. Cocoa is a set of premade building blocks for programs. A developer can build essentially anything they want with Cocoa, even "un-mac-like" things.
 
This is the beta version they are talking about. Not the current released version.
 
This article's major problem is...

Opera never has been, is not currently, and probably never will be a Webkit-based browser.

Carakan / Vega / some other Opera proprietary engines are what make this browser sweet on a Windows box, might just have to give it a spin on the Mac now that it's Cocoa :)
 
QEII Student IT said:
If Opera Mini runs flash, that would make the iPhone twice as good
Click to expand...

hitekalex said:
If I was Opera, I'd focus on mobile platforms and try to break through into iPhone/iPad, where they can offer some differentiation with Flash support etc.
Click to expand...

I wish people knew how Flash (and technology in general) worked. Opera Mini won't make any progress in regards to Flash, because the onus is entirely on Adobe to provide a plugin. When browsers encounter the <embed> tag element, it will try to load up the plugin that has registered as responsible for the content type specified in the embed tab and defer rendering of that element to the plugin.

Opera Mini, which renders the HTML page on their servers and sends the static result as an optimized bytecode (so not human readable HTML at all), adds another layer of incompatible complexity for Flash...
 
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