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

[nelmat]

Am I missing something

Downloaded the Beta. It takes longer to launch than firefox, safari, chrome, camino and stainless. It takes longer for anything to actually appear on the screen than the aforementioned browsers (you're looking a white while you get a count of elements loaded) and when the page does appear it's no quicker than any of my other browsers - I'm willing to accept that it's beta and there might be something quirky with my set-up, but still - not very exciting and an ugly interface.

 

[iccb]

Hip hey!

Good news to us who use opera!
Going to download when leave from work...

 

[adztaylor]

Meh, I'll stick with Chrome.

 

[knightlie]

I thought it looked nice so i tried it. It's slow and i had crashes within three pages. Not worth trying. I'll stick with (in order) Safari, Camino, Firefox, Chrome.

It's pretty stupid to compare a beta product with the release version of the competition. Compare Opera 10.10 to those browsers, then you can make a legitimate complaint.

It's really telling when some people on this forum blindly bash all things nonApple, especially things done in a nonApple way. Apple isn't always right, one size doesn't fit all.

Sadly there are too few people who think this way, and too many people who automatically dismiss the competition out-of-hand. Dismissing a browser because it's not WebKit is bizarre.

I think Safari sucks, I've always hoped Opera would be a viable replacement as I've always liked it, but it has too many incompatibilities for my use. I'm liking Firefox less and less - all that persona crap smacks of making up features no-one needs - and Chrome is under evaluation. I hope Opera improves once it's out of beta and I can evaluate it properly.

 

[MacBH928]

I don't hate Opera
I tried it over many years,

My conclusion is I hardly see place for another browser. There is no real reason to switch to Opera, just personal preferences.

I found Opera to act different than other browsers, different shortcuts , and slower, and sometimes problems rendering websites.
So I deleted it.
I am not pro Apple, I am glad we have options like Camino and Firefox.

I am amazed to hear that people out there are using Opera, I do not know what is their reason but, if you like it then I guess it should exist.

 

[9822737]

There is no real reason to switch to Opera, just personal preferences.

This is a very good reason to choose a browser isn't it, to me personal preference is what matters.

AnDy

 

[Anghammarad]

I found that. Try it out, you have to know where your bookmarks are stored for each browser.

Compare that to importing bookmarks on Safari, Firefox, or Chrome. It's not nearly as user friendly.

• Open up Safari.

• Select: Export bookmarks

• Save on desktop

• Open Opera and import the bookmarks

I've been using Opera as my default browser for more than 10 years on the PC and the only reason that I haven't used it on my Macs is that it's been a bit slow. This solves that problem. I've used the beta for a couple of hours now and have had zero crashes.

 

[dru`]

Actually (!) just last week (2/16 for example) Webkit Nightly was doing 373.6ms on SunSpider. Today I get 721.2ms.

This week, the String base64 scores have thrown every thing WAY out of whack.

Last week it was 12.8ms, this week 360.4ms for just that single metric, almost as long as it took for the entire benchmark to run just a week ago.

I get in the 400s for the Opera beta which is respectable but not the fastest seen.

 

[HyperZboy]

They are saying that that's only temporary. PPC support is coming.

Thanks for the info, that's good to hear. I will check it out now.

I don't understand why any Mac user would trash continued development of Opera for Macs. The Mac snobbyness problem never ceases to amaze me.

I remember back in the day before Safari & Webkit when Macs were stuck with that crappy version of Internet Explorer and I often used Opera as an alternative because it was so much faster.

 

[*LTD*]

Thanks for the info, that's good to hear. I will check it out now.

I don't understand why any Mac user would trash continued development of Opera for Macs. The Mac snobbyness problem never ceases to amaze me.

I remember back in the day before Safari & Webkit when Macs were stuck with that crappy version of Internet Explorer and I often used Opera as an alternative because it was so much faster.

No one's really outright trashing it. It's just not all that impressive, especially in terms of its interface. Maybe next version . . .

The term is "snobbery", by the way.

 

[ghostlyorb]

the Opera I downloaded last night keeps crashing every 5 seconds.. I'll just stick to Safari!

 

[DennyL]

I'm very fond of Opera

I'm a long-time user of Opera, from my time with PCs, and I have it installed on my Mac and use it a lot. The biggest disadvantage with Opera for the Mac, which I think is generally fast and good, is that it doesn't talk to Keychain, and there are quite a few third-parties that don't cater for it, such as Evernote. If it would talk to Keychain I would use it more. I agree that Firefox does lots of things, but it can get slow when one has several add-ons. For me the big downer of Safari is that one has to edit a binary to change away from Google as the search engine, and I try to resist the Google monopoly and like to use Yahoo for searches, as I can do with Opera, Firefox and Chrome. I shall certainly be installing Opera 10.5 when it gets out of beta.

 

[michael.lauden]

so... what is the easter egg?

 

[brendon2020]

going to give this a try again, love chrome. Only use ff for webdev stuff now and i never use safari.

 

[IntelliUser]

That's just crazy talk. Opera has always been the smallest, fastest browser with the most responsive UI.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaa! I'm really crying from the laughter.

This is ridiculous. Opera has been the slowest browser ever since Safari 3 (well, after IE 6).

This new version looks promising though.

 

[gregorsamsa]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaa! I'm really crying from the laughter.

This is ridiculous. Opera has been the slowest browser ever since Safari 3 (well, after IE 6).

This new version looks promising though.

Well it isn't by any means the slowest on my iMac (2.4 Ghz, 2GB, HD 2600 pro), only not yet as compatible with aspects of OS X as other browsers that I use more often.

 

[darkblu]

since somebody asked: i have been using opera for the past 10 years, across 6 platforms (beos, osx, windows, wii, ds, smartphones (opera mini)). reasons: its fast html rendering, minimalistic RAM (and FS) footprint, usually at a faction of the competition (if there's any competition on the plaform, that is), innovative features (where do you think your favorite tabs originated from?). simple fact is, no other browser vendor on earth has opera's wide platform support & impressive track record when it comes to browsers. today opera 10 is my daily browser @ xp, osx 10.4 & 10.5. will check the stable release for ppc the moment it's available for download.

 

[bkap16]

Its called "Fanboy Attack". Unless Jobs blesses Opera it will be damned for ever in doom.
Opera is more than a browser and faster(even in beta) than every other browser with this new edition. These are facts, not opinions.

Actually, I found that the dev version of Chrome beat the Opera beta on Sunspider, but it was only by about 5% (20ms on my early 2008 Macbook Pro). But I'm not one of those people who cares that much about a small increase and unlike some people on here, I actually think Opera looks good with the Cocoa rendering. I think the stability problems are because it wasn't quite ready for beta, but they had already released two betas for Windows and the few Mac Opera users were getting annoyed.

 

[iphoneftw]

tried the beta crashed really fast
ill stick with safari/chrome/firefox
but i did download opera 10.10 just to see how a normal stable release of opera is

 

[dance2noise002]

Doesn't seem to have those Google login problems like Opera 10.10. Worked pretty smoothly and fast until I went to Apple's support page and then it just crashed and vanished so fast!

I'll stick with Safari 4 for now ... Good effort though!

 

[brendon2020]

i remember why i don't use opera, no 1password support.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

So I assume you'll be using Opera as your default browser.

Yes, it has been for the past couple days (not this beta, the stable release). I used to solely use Opera, but then I thought I'd get involved in the FireFox community for a bit. Now that that's over I'm back to Opera. It's easily the most innovative browser (everyone steals from Opera, the only other somewhat original browser is firefox).

No one's really outright trashing it. It's just not all that impressive, especially in terms of its interface. Maybe next version . .

I believe you were bashing it, because it's not running on webkit. Not that webkit is important in any way... Not that you even know anything about webkit.

 

[*LTD*]

Yes, it has been for the past couple days (not this beta, the stable release). I used to solely use Opera, but then I thought I'd get involved in the FireFox community for a bit. Now that that's over I'm back to Opera. It's easily the most innovative browser (everyone steals from Opera, the only other somewhat original browser is firefox).



I believe you were bashing it, because it's not running on webkit. Not that webkit is important in any way... Not that you even know anything about webkit.

It's a layout engine. Google uses it. Safari uses it - Android obviously, and very soon RIM as well. It's got an incredibly strong development base and it's open-source. That's all I need to know.

Opera's interface sucks, it's always had compatibility issues, and it introduces a different layout engine that really isn't necessary. To top it off, this beta seems to be more of an alpha release, than anything else.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

It's a layout engine. Google uses it. Safari uses it - Android obviously, and very soon RIM as well. It's got an incredibly strong development base and it's open-source. That's all I need to know.

Opera's interface sucks, it's always had compatibility issues, and it introduces a different layout engine that really isn't necessary. To top it off, this beta seems to be more of an alpha release, than anything else.

Oh yes, obviously you're very presto savvy. It's not like you drink everything Apple.

LTD, it's fine if you don't use Opera, but if you don't know anything about anything software-wise then just stay silent.

Presto and Webkit are about the same age anyway, so to say introducing a new layout engine isn't necessary is ridiculous. What's wrong with choice? It's not like every document editor uses the same backend as Pages.

 

[iPrep]

My conclusion is I hardly see place for another browser. There is no real reason to switch to Opera, just personal preferences.

You don't see a place for Opera at all just because you personally prefer a different browser? That's a bogus argument if I ever saw one.

The fact is that Opera has been around for longer than both Safari, Chrome and Firefox. It is not "another browser". Chrome is the "another browser" of the current "major browsers". It's the newcomer. Opera is a veteran.

The fact is that Opera is growing its user base all the time. The revenue from the desktop version is increasing. How is there not a place for Opera when it's actually growing and bringing in more and more money to its makers?

I found Opera to act different than other browsers, different shortcuts , and slower, and sometimes problems rendering websites.

The latest version of Opera is the fastest, at least according to many tests.

I am amazed to hear that people out there are using Opera, I do not know what is their reason but, if you like it then I guess it should exist.

You are amazed that not everyone is exactly like you, and that you personally can't dictate people's taste in browsers? Wow.

I'm assuming that you are amazed to hear that people out there are using Macs as well. I mean, seeing as Mac is a minority platform and all that. And your logic seems to be that minority platforms don't deserve to exist at all!

This is ridiculous. Opera has been the slowest browser ever since Safari 3 (well, after IE 6).

I disagree. Opera has always been snappier. But ignoring that for a moment, are you saying that if another browser happens to be faster, Opera suddenly and magically slows down to be slower than it used to?

Heh.

Opera's interface sucks, it's always had compatibility issues, and it introduces a different layout engine that really isn't necessary.

Sorry to have to break it to you, but Opera's engine is one of the oldest in existence. It's older than Gecko, and certainly older than WebKit. If there is any engine that was "introduced", it was WebKit. If anything wasn't necessary, it must have been the most recent one, which is WebKit.

As for compatibility issues, I find it interesting that even Chrome fails with Google services at times. In fact, I seem to run into quite a few compatibility issues with WebKit browsers. Gecko is much better there.

You also failed to address this:

It's interesting that Mac users are whining about Opera not being needed. Is Apple not needed either because Macs have such an abysmal market share?