Opera 11.50 Beta "Swordfish" Browser Now Available for Testing
Opera 11.50 Beta "Swordfish" Browser Now Available for Testing
Posted 05/31/2011 at 7:35am
| by Paul Lilly
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If there's a Rodney Dangerfield of browser makers, it has to be Opera Software, the Norwegian browser maker responsible for Opera, the oft overlooked alternative to Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. Opera might not get the same market share respect that the big three receive, but even if the useage numbers don't bear it out, it's a decent overall browser worth checking out. For those who like to live on the bleeding edge, Opera Software just made available Opera 11.50 beta codenamed "Swordfish."
The new beta shakes up Opera's popular Speed Dial feature by adding extensions to the mix. Speed Dial extensions transform what's traditionally been a simple thumbnail bookmark into a dynamic source of information. Using extensions, you can configure Speed Dial to display live, animated content like news feeds, weather, a photo stream, and more.
Opera's other big feature upgrade is password synchronization through Opera Link. Opera Link synchronizes bookmarks and other browser information across multiple computers, and purportedly keeps passwords safe through encryption (you can read more about the security features here).
Those are the two main features of Opera 11.50, which are flanked by improved HTML5 support, improved CSS, better DOM event handling, and a handful of other changes underneath the hood.
Opera 11.50b1 Download
Opera 11.50b1 Changelog
Image Credit: Opera Software
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Ghok
May 31, 2011 at 5:15pm
@biggiebob
Opera has been around for a long time and invented many of the features used in Chrome and Firefox. I think those are great browsers too, but since I've been using Opera for something like ten years, I'm not about to switch.
ShyLinuxGuy
May 31, 2011 at 4:22pm
@biggiebob123456: Don't dis Opera, it's pretty sweet, it's just that there's not enough addons and tweaks like Firefox. If that happens, I may switch.
Chrome is OK, but I personally don't use it because of the potential of privacy or lack thereof (read the ToS and think about the Client ID and the possibility of it being profiled). I am not the conspiracy theorist, but then again I don't want to be profiled if I can avoid that.
Internet Explorer will always be on the bottom of the list until it does these things: becomes independent of Windows, meaning it isn't even shipped with it (not for philosophical, but for security and user preference reasons) *and* it does away with ActiveX, the hand holding and basically its entire code. Not to mention, get more addons going for it. All this may be hard to fulfill on behalf of Microsoft.
MattyMattMatt
May 31, 2011 at 3:40pm
This is pretty great. Not sure about hardware acceleration, but it's not something I need.
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