Opera (web browser)
Encyclopedia
Opera is a web browser
and Internet suite
developed by Opera Software
with over 200 million users worldwide. The browser handles common Internet
-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail
messages, managing contacts, chatting
on IRC
, downloading files via BitTorrent, and reading web feed
s. Opera is offered free of charge for personal computer
s and mobile phone
s.
Opera does not come packaged with any desktop
operating system
. However, it is the most popular desktop browser in some countries, such as Ukraine
. Opera Mini
, which is the most popular mobile web browser as of May 2011, has been chosen as the default integrated web browser in several mobile handsets
by their respective manufacturers.
Features include tabbed browsing, page zooming
, mouse gesture
s, and an integrated download manager
. Its security features include built-in phishing
and malware
protection, SSL/TLS
encryption
when browsing HTTPS
websites, and the ability to easily delete private data such as HTTP cookie
s.
Opera is known for originating many features later adopted by other web browsers.
Opera runs on a variety of personal computer operating system
s, including Microsoft Windows
, Mac OS X
, Linux
, and FreeBSD
. Editions of Opera are available for devices using the Maemo
, BlackBerry
, Symbian
, Windows Mobile
, Android, and iOS
operating systems, as well as Java ME-enabled devices. Approximately 120 million mobile phones have been shipped with Opera. Opera is the only commercial web browser available for the Nintendo DS
and Wii
gaming systems. Some television set-top box
es use Opera. Adobe Systems
has licensed Opera technology for use in the Adobe Creative Suite
.
Opera began in 1994 as a research project at Telenor
, the largest Norwegian telecommunications company. In 1995, it branched out into a separate company named Opera Software
ASA
. Opera was first released publicly with version 2.0 in 1996, which only ran on Microsoft Windows
. In an attempt to capitalize on the emerging market for Internet-connected handheld devices, a project to port Opera to mobile device platforms
was started in 1998. Opera 4.0, released in 2000, included a new cross-platform core that facilitated creation of editions of Opera for multiple operating system
s and platforms
.
Up to this point, Opera was trialware and had to be purchased after the trial period ended. Version 5.0 (released in 2000) saw the end of this requirement. Instead, Opera became ad-sponsored
, displaying advertisements to users who had not paid for it. Later versions of Opera gave the user the choice of seeing banner ads or targeted text advertisements from Google
. With version 8.5 (released in 2005) the advertisements were removed entirely and primary financial support for the browser came through revenue from Google (which is by contract Opera's default search engine).
Among the new features introduced in version 9.1 (released in 2006) was fraud protection using technology from GeoTrust
, a digital certificate provider, and PhishTank
, an organization that tracks known phishing
web sites.
This feature was further improved and expanded in version 9.5, when GeoTrust was replaced with Netcraft
, and malware protection from Haute Secure
was added.
Also in 2006, editions of Opera were made and released for Nintendo's DS
and Wii
gaming systems. Opera for the Wii, called the Internet Channel, was free to download from its release on 12 April 2007 until 30 June 2007. After that date, Wii users had to pay 500 Wii Points
(about US$5) to download it. As of 2 September 2009, it is again free to download. Users who previously paid to download are offered a NES game of their choice of the same value.
The Nintendo DS Browser is not free; it is sold as a physical DS game cartridge. The DSi
has an Internet Channel that can be downloaded for free from the DSi shop.
A new JavaScript engine called Carakan, after the Javanese script
, was introduced with version 10.50. According to Opera Software, Carakan is more than seven times faster in SunSpider
than Opera 10.10 with Futhark on Windows, which has since been more or less confirmed by other sources after its official pre-alpha release in December 2009. Also introduced was Opera's vector graphics library, Vega, which handles all of the browser's rendering. This allows platform specific rendering code to be replaced with code for Vega, which makes it easier to deploy across platforms
; aids Opera's implementation
of some advanced CSS3 properties, such as backgrounds and borders; and also allows hardware acceleration with optional OpenGL
and Direct3D
backends.
The initial release of Opera 10.50 was for Windows only, in order to allow the development team to focus on a timed release with the EU browser ballot
offered to European Economic Area
users of Microsoft Windows
. The Mac version reached final status with version 10.52 and the release of Opera 10.60 brought Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD back into sync for the first time since Opera 10.10.
On December 16, 2010, Opera 11 was released, featuring extensions, tab stacking, visual mouse gestures, and changes to the address field. The new address field hides some of the whole URL, such as the protocol and query strings, but this can be turned off. Within the first 24 hours of release, Opera 11 was downloaded 6.7 million times.
library, which together significantly increase Opera's overall rendering speed.
Opera includes built-in tabbed browsing, ad blocking
, fraud protection, a download manager
and BitTorrent client, a search bar, and a web feed
aggregator. Opera also comes with an e-mail
client called Opera Mail and an IRC chat
client built in.
Opera includes a "Speed Dial" feature, which allows the user to add up to 25 links (or more, by editing the speeddial.ini file) shown in thumbnail form in a page displayed when a new tab is opened. Thumbnail
s of the linked pages are automatically generated and used for visual recognition on the Speed Dial page or can be modified using Opera Image Dial Generator. Once set up, this feature allows the user to more easily navigate to the selected web pages.
Opera supports Opera Widgets, small web applications that start from within Opera. Alongside Widgets, "User JavaScript" may be used to add custom JavaScript to web pages. Greasemonkey
support is limited, and there is no interface to manage scripts or toggle 'Greasemonkey-on' functionality.
Opera is extensible in a third way via plug-ins, relatively small programs that add specific functions to the browser, and as of Opera 11, third-party extensions. However, Opera limits what plug-ins can do.
Opera was designed with a commitment to computer accessibility
for users who have visual or motor impairments. As a multimodal browser
, it also caters to a wide variety of personal preferences in the user interface.
It is possible to control nearly every aspect of the browser using only the keyboard
, and the default keyboard shortcut
s can be modified to suit the user. It is the only major browser to include support for spatial navigation
. Opera also includes support for mouse gesture
s, patterns of mouse movement that trigger browser actions such as "back" or "refresh".
Page zooming
allows text, image
s and other content such as Adobe Flash Player
, Java platform and Scalable Vector Graphics
to be increased or decreased in size (20% to 1,000%) to help those with impaired vision. The user may also specify the fonts and colors for web pages, and even override the page's CSS
styling as well. This can be useful for making sites appear in high contrast
or in more readable fonts.
Voice control, co-developed with IBM
, allows control of the browser without the use of a keyboard or mouse. It can also read aloud pages and marked text.
Opera Turbo is a feature intended for slower internet
connections; when enabled, Opera's server
s act as a proxy
which compresses the requested web page by up to 80% before sending it to the user. This process reduces the total size of the data being sent, and thus shortens the amount of time necessary for the page to load. This technique is also used in Opera Mini.
s, the browsing history, and the cache
, with the click of a button. This lets users erase personal data after browsing from a shared computer.
When visiting a secure web site, Opera encrypts data using either SSL 3 or TLS
, both of which are highly secure encryption protocols. It then adds information about the site's security to the address bar. It will also check the web site that is being visited against blacklists for phishing
and malware
, and warn if it matches any of these lists. This behavior is enabled by default, but the user may opt to not make such checks automatically. If this check is disabled, the user can still check sites individually by opening a Page Info dialog.
The user can protect every saved password stored in Opera with a master password. This prevents malware from accessing those passwords unless the master password is known. To catch security flaws and other software bug
s before they are exploited or become a serious problem, the Opera Software company maintains a public web form where users can submit bug reports. According to Secunia
, a computer security service provider, the mean average of unpatched vulnerabilities in the last 365 days is 0.01. This stands in contrast to Internet Explorer
(38.3), Firefox (5.77), and Safari
(1.54).
In January 2007, Asa Dotzler
of the competing Mozilla Corporation
accused the Opera Software company of downplaying information about security vulnerabilities in Opera that were fixed in December 2006. Dotzler claimed that users were not clearly informed of security vulnerabilities present in the previous version of Opera, and thus they would not realize that they needed to upgrade to the latest version or risk being exploited.
Opera responded to these accusations the next day.
(CSS), now a major building block of web design. Today, Opera supports many web standards
, including CSS 2.1, HTML
4.01, XHTML
1.1, XHTML Basic
, XHTML Mobile Profile
, XHTML+Voice
, WML
2.0, XSLT
, XPath
, XSL-FO, ECMAScript
3 (JavaScript
), DOM
2, XMLHttpRequest
, HTTP 1.1, TLS
1.2, Unicode
, SVG 1.1 Basic, SVG 1.1 Tiny, GIF89a, JPEG
, and full support for PNG, including alpha transparency. Since version 9, Opera passes the Acid2
test, a test of whether or not a browser properly supports certain web standards. Opera was the second or fourth web browser to pass the test (depending on opinions regarding hiding the scrollbar) and the first Windows browser to do so. Opera 10.5+ achieves a score of 100/100 on the Acid3
test which is primarily focused on DOM
and JavaScript
standards compliance.
On Ecma International
's ECMAScript
standards conformance Test 262 (version 0.7.2), Opera version 11.10 scores 3840/10872. Lower scores are better, as the figure represents the number of failed tests out of the total number of tests. A pre-release build of Opera 12 scores 1/10927 on Test 262, the one failed test being invalid.
On the official CSS 2.1 test suite by standardization organization W3C, Opera's rendering engine Presto passes 89,37% (77.44% out of 86.65%) of covered CSS 2.1 tests.
that allows for several web services (referred to as "Applications") to be hosted
from the user's computer, including a web server for hosting a site, file and photo sharing, a chat room, and streaming media. Opera Software has released an API
to create new or improved applications for the Opera Unite Platform, and many have already done so. An Opera Unite user's applications run on a domain associated with their My Opera Community account, and are accessible from any web browser. For these applications to be accessed, the computer and the Opera Browser hosting the applications must both be running.
The included API uses HTML, CSS, client-side
ECMAScript and a new server-side JavaScript
technology with local file access and persistent storage
. Unite Applications are packaged according to the W3C Widgets 1.0 specification. Opera also provides a vetted
facility for developers to upload these user-created applications.
Unite has been included standard since version 10.10. Opera Unite competes with services like Tonido
.
s, there are versions for a variety of devices, all based on the same core, with some variation in the features offered and the user interface.
is an edition of Opera designed for smartphone
s and personal digital assistant
s (PDAs). The first version of Opera Mobile was released in 2000 for the Psion Series 7 and NetBook
, with a port to the Windows Mobile
platform coming in 2004. Today, Opera Mobile is available for a variety of devices that run Android, the Windows Mobile, S60 platform
, or UIQ
operating system
s.
Users may also try Opera Mobile free. Devices that use the UIQ 3 operating system, such as the Sony Ericsson P990
and Motorola RIZR Z8, come pre-installed with Opera Mobile, the former price of Opera Mobile being included in the price of the phone.
One of Opera Mobile's major features is the ability to dynamically reformat web pages to better fit the handheld's display using small screen rendering technology. Alternatively, the user may use page zooming
for a closer or broader look. However, like previous versions of Opera for personal computers, Opera Mobile's user interface
has come under fire for being difficult to use or customize.
Opera Mini, offered free of charge, is designed primarily for mobile phone
s, but also for smartphones and personal digital assistants. Versions up to 4 used the Java ME platform, requiring the mobile device to be capable of running Java ME applications. The browser began as a pilot project in 2005. After limited releases in Europe, it was officially launched worldwide on 24 January 2006.
Opera Mini requests web pages through the Opera Software company's servers, which process and compress them before relaying the pages back to the mobile phone. This compression process reduces bandwidth use by up to 90%, with a consequent speed increase, and the pre-processing smooths compatibility with web pages not designed for mobile phones.
In March 2010, Opera Software launched a new beta version of Opera Mini for mobile phones running on Google's open source Android platform.
From version 5, there is a native version of Opera Mini 5 for Windows Mobile 2003, 5- and 6-based handsets which does not require Java; it implements the same features as the Java version.
On April 13, 2010, Opera Mini
was officially approved as a free download for iPhone
(and iPod Touch
) on Apple's App Store.
, and released with Opera Mini 6 for iOS on May 24, 2011. An Android version of Opera for tablets is coming soon. No dates have yet been announced.
The Nintendo DS Browser is an edition of Opera for the Nintendo DS
handheld gaming system. The Nintendo DS Browser was released in Japan on 24 July 2006, in Europe on 6 October 2006, and in North America on 4 June 2007. It is sold as a physical game cartridge for US$30.
The Nintendo DS Browser includes the same small screen rendering and page zooming technology present in Opera Mobile. It also includes handwriting recognition
software and an on-screen keyboard to enable user input. Additionally, Nintendo
partnered with Astaro Internet Security to provide web filtering for the Nintendo DS Browser. The technology is simply a professionally maintained proxy server
that blocks web sites related to pornography, discrimination, security hacking
, software piracy, violence, gambling, illegal drugs, alcohol, tobacco, dating
, weapons, abortion, and other content that Nintendo deems objectionable. Users can configure the Nintendo DS Browser to receive web pages through this proxy server, and this setting can be password-protected (by a parent, for example) to prevent circumvention.
In August 2007, the Nintendo DS Browser was quietly discontinued in North America, although it is still available from Nintendo's online store. Instead, Opera is available on the Nintendo DSi
through the DSi Shop, and pre-installed on newer devices.
to provide a web browser for Nintendo's Wii
gaming console. Opera for the Wii, called the Internet Channel, was free to download from its release on 12 April 2007 until 30 June 2007. After that date, Wii users had to pay 500 Wii Points
(US$5) to download it. However, in late August / early September of the year 2009, the Internet Channel was once again available to download for free and those who paid for the service had their Wii Points returned in the form of a free NES virtual console game.
Scott Hedrick, an executive of the Opera Software company, explained that the Wii browser was designed to suit a "living room environment". In contrast to Opera's appearance on computer monitors, fonts are larger and the interface is simplified for easier use. Notwithstanding the changes in design, the Wii browser supports the same web standards as the desktop version of Opera 9, including passing the Acid2
test.
, according to Net Applications
.
The browser has seen more success in Eastern Europe, including about 47% market share in 2009 in Georgia
, 43% in Ukraine
, 36% in Russia
, and 8–11% in Poland
, Latvia
, Lithuania
, and the Czech Republic
.
In July 2011, Opera broke its previous download records when Opera 11.50 was released and was recorded to be downloaded 35 million times during the first week of release.
Since its first release in 1996, the browser has had limited success on personal computers. It has had more success in the area of mobile browsing, with product releases for a variety of platforms. Approximately 40 million mobile phones have shipped with a copy of Opera pre-installed.
It is used on some television set-top box
es as well. In 2005, Adobe Systems
opted to integrate Opera's layout engine
, Presto
, into its Adobe Creative Suite
applications. Opera technology is now found in Adobe GoLive
, Adobe Photoshop
, Adobe Dreamweaver, and other components of the Adobe Creative Suite. Opera's layout engine is also found in Virtual Mechanics SiteSpinner Pro.
Notwithstanding other criticism, when Nintendo chose in 2006 to adopt Opera as the web browser for its Wii and Nintendo DS gaming systems, a Nintendo representative explained:
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
and Internet suite
Internet suite
An Internet suite is an Internet-related software suite. Internet suites usually include a web browser, e-mail client , download manager, HTML editor, and an IRC client....
developed by Opera Software
Opera Software
Opera Software ASA is a Norwegian software company, primarily known for its Opera family of web browsers with over 220 million users worldwide. Opera Software is also involved in promoting Web standards through participation in the W3C. The company has its headquarters in Oslo, Norway and is...
with over 200 million users worldwide. The browser handles common Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
messages, managing contacts, chatting
Online chat
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet, that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages from sender to receiver, hence the delay for visual access to the sent message shall not hamper the flow of communications in any of the directions...
on IRC
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...
, downloading files via BitTorrent, and reading web feed
Web feed
A web feed is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation, which is performed by an aggregator...
s. Opera is offered free of charge for personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s and mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s.
Opera does not come packaged with any desktop
Desktop computer
A desktop computer is a personal computer in a form intended for regular use at a single location, as opposed to a mobile laptop or portable computer. Early desktop computers are designed to lay flat on the desk, while modern towers stand upright...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
. However, it is the most popular desktop browser in some countries, such as Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. Opera Mini
Opera Mini
Opera Mini is a web browser designed primarily for mobile phones, smartphones and personal digital assistants. Until version 4 it used the Java ME platform, requiring the mobile device to run Java ME applications. From version 5 it is also available as a native application for Android, iOS, Symbian...
, which is the most popular mobile web browser as of May 2011, has been chosen as the default integrated web browser in several mobile handsets
by their respective manufacturers.
Features include tabbed browsing, page zooming
Page zooming
In computing, page zooming is the ability to zoom in and out a document or image at page level. It is usually found in applications related to document layout and publishing, e.g...
, mouse gesture
Mouse gesture
In computing, a pointing device gesture or mouse gesture is a way of combining pointing device movements and clicks which the software recognizes as a specific command. Pointing device gestures can provide quick access to common functions of a program. They can also be useful for people who have...
s, and an integrated download manager
Download manager
A download manager is a computer program dedicated to the task of downloading possibly unrelated stand-alone files from the Internet for storage...
. Its security features include built-in phishing
Phishing
Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT...
and malware
Malware
Malware, short for malicious software, consists of programming that is designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, or gain unauthorized access to system resources, or that otherwise exhibits abusive behavior...
protection, SSL/TLS
Transport Layer Security
Transport Layer Security and its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer , are cryptographic protocols that provide communication security over the Internet...
encryption
Encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...
when browsing HTTPS
Https
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure is a combination of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol with SSL/TLS protocol to provide encrypted communication and secure identification of a network web server...
websites, and the ability to easily delete private data such as HTTP cookie
HTTP cookie
A cookie, also known as an HTTP cookie, web cookie, or browser cookie, is used for an origin website to send state information to a user's browser and for the browser to return the state information to the origin site...
s.
Opera is known for originating many features later adopted by other web browsers.
Opera runs on a variety of personal computer operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s, including Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, and FreeBSD
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
. Editions of Opera are available for devices using the Maemo
Maemo
Maemo is a software platform developed by the Maemo community for smartphones and Internet tablets. It is based on the Debian Linux distribution, but has no relation to it...
, BlackBerry
BlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
, Symbian
Symbian
Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user...
, Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
, Android, and iOS
IPhone OS
iOS is Apple's mobile operating system. Originally developed for the iPhone, it has since been extended to support other Apple, Inc. devices such as the iPod Touch, iPad, and Apple TV. Apple, Inc. does not license iOS for installation on third-party hardware...
operating systems, as well as Java ME-enabled devices. Approximately 120 million mobile phones have been shipped with Opera. Opera is the only commercial web browser available for the Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
and Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
gaming systems. Some television set-top box
Set-top box
A set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...
es use Opera. Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
has licensed Opera technology for use in the Adobe Creative Suite
Adobe Creative Suite
Adobe Creative Suite is a collection of graphic design, video editing, and web development applications made by Adobe Systems. The collection consists of Adobe's applications , that are based on various technologies...
.
History
Telenor
Telenor Group is the incumbent telecommunications company in Norway, with headquarters located at Fornebu, close to Oslo. Today, Telenor Group is mostly an international wireless carrier with operations in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Asia, working predominantly under the Telenor brand...
, the largest Norwegian telecommunications company. In 1995, it branched out into a separate company named Opera Software
Opera Software
Opera Software ASA is a Norwegian software company, primarily known for its Opera family of web browsers with over 220 million users worldwide. Opera Software is also involved in promoting Web standards through participation in the W3C. The company has its headquarters in Oslo, Norway and is...
ASA
Allmennaksjeselskap
Allmennaksjeselskap , or ASA, is the Norwegian term for a public limited company. "ASA" or "asa" is added to the company name of all Norwegian companies registered as Allmennaksjeselskap....
. Opera was first released publicly with version 2.0 in 1996, which only ran on Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. In an attempt to capitalize on the emerging market for Internet-connected handheld devices, a project to port Opera to mobile device platforms
Platform (computing)
A computing platform includes some sort of hardware architecture and a software framework , where the combination allows software, particularly application software, to run...
was started in 1998. Opera 4.0, released in 2000, included a new cross-platform core that facilitated creation of editions of Opera for multiple operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s and platforms
Platform (computing)
A computing platform includes some sort of hardware architecture and a software framework , where the combination allows software, particularly application software, to run...
.
Up to this point, Opera was trialware and had to be purchased after the trial period ended. Version 5.0 (released in 2000) saw the end of this requirement. Instead, Opera became ad-sponsored
Adware
Adware, or advertising-supported software, is any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertisements to a computer. These advertisements can be in the form of a pop-up. They may also be in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the user during...
, displaying advertisements to users who had not paid for it. Later versions of Opera gave the user the choice of seeing banner ads or targeted text advertisements from Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
. With version 8.5 (released in 2005) the advertisements were removed entirely and primary financial support for the browser came through revenue from Google (which is by contract Opera's default search engine).
Among the new features introduced in version 9.1 (released in 2006) was fraud protection using technology from GeoTrust
GeoTrust
GeoTrust is a large digital certificate provider.GeoTrust was a restarted company in 2001 that acquired the security business of Equifax. The Equifax business was the basis of its fast growth. The founders of the restarted company were CEO Neal Creighton, CTO Chris Bailey and Principal Engineer...
, a digital certificate provider, and PhishTank
PhishTank
PhishTank is an anti-phishing site.PhishTank was launched in October 2006 by entrepreneur David Ulevitch as an offshoot of OpenDNS. The company offers a community-based phish verification system where users submit suspected phishes and other users "vote" if it is a phish or not.PhishTank is used...
, an organization that tracks known phishing
Phishing
Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT...
web sites.
This feature was further improved and expanded in version 9.5, when GeoTrust was replaced with Netcraft
Netcraft
Netcraft is an Internet services company based in Bath, England.Netcraft provides web server and web hosting market-share analysis, including web server and operating system detection...
, and malware protection from Haute Secure
Haute Secure
Haute Secure is a computer security vendor of website reputation ratings, malware protection, content scanning, and site monitoring. The company announced that the Opera version 9.5 blocks sites reported by a community of users using Haute Secure. Partners providing "protection lists" include...
was added.
Also in 2006, editions of Opera were made and released for Nintendo's DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
and Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
gaming systems. Opera for the Wii, called the Internet Channel, was free to download from its release on 12 April 2007 until 30 June 2007. After that date, Wii users had to pay 500 Wii Points
Wii Points
Nintendo Points are a currency that Nintendo uses for its Wii and Nintendo DSi systems through the Wii Shop Channel and Nintendo DSi Shop respectively...
(about US$5) to download it. As of 2 September 2009, it is again free to download. Users who previously paid to download are offered a NES game of their choice of the same value.
The Nintendo DS Browser is not free; it is sold as a physical DS game cartridge. The DSi
DSI
DSI is an initialism for the following companies:* Dave Smith Instruments, an American synthesizer company* Delphi Schools, Inc.* Delphine Software International, a now bankrupt software company* Destination Software, Inc., a video game company...
has an Internet Channel that can be downloaded for free from the DSi shop.
A new JavaScript engine called Carakan, after the Javanese script
Javanese script
The Javanese alphabet, natively known as Hanacaraka or Carakan , known by the Sundanese people as Cacarakan is the pre-colonial script used to write the Javanese language....
, was introduced with version 10.50. According to Opera Software, Carakan is more than seven times faster in SunSpider
Sunspider
Sunspider can stand for:* SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, a system to benchmark the speed of JavaScript engines.* Solifugae an order of Arachnid , commonly called sun spiders....
than Opera 10.10 with Futhark on Windows, which has since been more or less confirmed by other sources after its official pre-alpha release in December 2009. Also introduced was Opera's vector graphics library, Vega, which handles all of the browser's rendering. This allows platform specific rendering code to be replaced with code for Vega, which makes it easier to deploy across platforms
Cross-platform
In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...
; aids Opera's implementation
Implementation
Implementation is the realization of an application, or execution of a plan, idea, model, design, specification, standard, algorithm, or policy.-Computer Science:...
of some advanced CSS3 properties, such as backgrounds and borders; and also allows hardware acceleration with optional OpenGL
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
and Direct3D
Direct3D
Direct3D is part of Microsoft's DirectX application programming interface . Direct3D is available for Microsoft Windows operating systems , and for other platforms through the open source software Wine. It is the base for the graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems...
backends.
The initial release of Opera 10.50 was for Windows only, in order to allow the development team to focus on a timed release with the EU browser ballot
BrowserChoice.eu
BrowserChoice.eu is a website that was created in March 2010 as the result of the European Union Microsoft competition case which involved legal proceedings by the EU against Microsoft that found that, via market dominance of the operating system market with Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer's...
offered to European Economic Area
European Economic Area
The European Economic Area was established on 1 January 1994 following an agreement between the member states of the European Free Trade Association and the European Community, later the European Union . Specifically, it allows Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway to participate in the EU's Internal...
users of Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. The Mac version reached final status with version 10.52 and the release of Opera 10.60 brought Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD back into sync for the first time since Opera 10.10.
On December 16, 2010, Opera 11 was released, featuring extensions, tab stacking, visual mouse gestures, and changes to the address field. The new address field hides some of the whole URL, such as the protocol and query strings, but this can be turned off. Within the first 24 hours of release, Opera 11 was downloaded 6.7 million times.
Features
As of version 10.5, Opera features a new JavaScript engine, as well as a new vector graphicsVector graphics
Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon, which are all based on mathematical expressions, to represent images in computer graphics...
library, which together significantly increase Opera's overall rendering speed.
Opera includes built-in tabbed browsing, ad blocking
Ad filtering
Ad filtering or ad blocking is removing or altering advertising content in a webpage. Advertising can exist in a variety of forms including pictures, animations, text, or pop-up windows. More advanced filters allow fine-grained control of advertisements through features such as blacklists,...
, fraud protection, a download manager
Download manager
A download manager is a computer program dedicated to the task of downloading possibly unrelated stand-alone files from the Internet for storage...
and BitTorrent client, a search bar, and a web feed
Web feed
A web feed is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation, which is performed by an aggregator...
aggregator. Opera also comes with an e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
client called Opera Mail and an IRC chat
Online chat
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet, that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages from sender to receiver, hence the delay for visual access to the sent message shall not hamper the flow of communications in any of the directions...
client built in.
Opera includes a "Speed Dial" feature, which allows the user to add up to 25 links (or more, by editing the speeddial.ini file) shown in thumbnail form in a page displayed when a new tab is opened. Thumbnail
Thumbnail
Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words...
s of the linked pages are automatically generated and used for visual recognition on the Speed Dial page or can be modified using Opera Image Dial Generator. Once set up, this feature allows the user to more easily navigate to the selected web pages.
Opera supports Opera Widgets, small web applications that start from within Opera. Alongside Widgets, "User JavaScript" may be used to add custom JavaScript to web pages. Greasemonkey
Greasemonkey
Greasemonkey is a Mozilla Firefox extension that allows users to install scripts that make on-the-fly changes to HTML web page content on the DOMContentLoaded event, which happens immediately after it is loaded in the browser .As Greasemonkey scripts are persistent, the changes made to the web...
support is limited, and there is no interface to manage scripts or toggle 'Greasemonkey-on' functionality.
Opera is extensible in a third way via plug-ins, relatively small programs that add specific functions to the browser, and as of Opera 11, third-party extensions. However, Opera limits what plug-ins can do.
Usability and accessibility
| Sample mouse gestures in Opera | |
|---|---|
 |
Back: hold down right mouse button, move mouse left, and release. Alternative: hold the right button down and click the left button |
| Forward: hold down right mouse button, move mouse right, and release. Alternative: hold the left button down and click the right button |
|
| New tab: hold down right mouse button, move mouse down, and release. Clicking a link with the middle mouse button produces a similar effect, but the new tab is opened in the background instead of becoming the active tab. |
Opera was designed with a commitment to computer accessibility
Computer accessibility
In human-computer interaction, computer accessibility refers to the accessibility of a computer system to all people, regardless of disability or severity of impairment...
for users who have visual or motor impairments. As a multimodal browser
Multimodal browser
A multimodal browser is one which allows multimodal interaction for input and/or output - for example, keyboard and voice interfaces. Examples include Opera and NetFront....
, it also caters to a wide variety of personal preferences in the user interface.
It is possible to control nearly every aspect of the browser using only the keyboard
Computer keyboard
In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches...
, and the default keyboard shortcut
Keyboard shortcut
In computing, a keyboard shortcut is a finite set of one or more keys that invoke a software or operating system operation when triggered by the user. A meaning of term "keyboard shortcut" can vary depending on software manufacturer...
s can be modified to suit the user. It is the only major browser to include support for spatial navigation
Spatial navigation
In computing, spatial navigation is the ability to navigate between focusable elements, such as hyperlinks and form controls, within a structured document or user interface according to the spatial location....
. Opera also includes support for mouse gesture
Mouse gesture
In computing, a pointing device gesture or mouse gesture is a way of combining pointing device movements and clicks which the software recognizes as a specific command. Pointing device gestures can provide quick access to common functions of a program. They can also be useful for people who have...
s, patterns of mouse movement that trigger browser actions such as "back" or "refresh".
Page zooming
Page zooming
In computing, page zooming is the ability to zoom in and out a document or image at page level. It is usually found in applications related to document layout and publishing, e.g...
allows text, image
Image
An image is an artifact, for example a two-dimensional picture, that has a similar appearance to some subject—usually a physical object or a person.-Characteristics:...
s and other content such as Adobe Flash Player
Adobe Flash Player
The Adobe Flash Player is software for viewing multimedia, Rich Internet Applications and streaming video and audio, on a computer web browser or on supported mobile devices. Flash Player runs SWF files that can be created by the Adobe Flash authoring tool, by Adobe Flex or by a number of other...
, Java platform and Scalable Vector Graphics
Scalable Vector Graphics
Scalable Vector Graphics is a family of specifications of an XML-based file format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and dynamic . The SVG specification is an open standard that has been under development by the World Wide Web Consortium since 1999.SVG images and their...
to be increased or decreased in size (20% to 1,000%) to help those with impaired vision. The user may also specify the fonts and colors for web pages, and even override the page's CSS
CSS
-Computing:*Cascading Style Sheets, a language used to describe the style of document presentations in web development*Central Structure Store in the PHIGS 3D API*Closed source software, software that is not distributed with source code...
styling as well. This can be useful for making sites appear in high contrast
High Contrast
Lincoln Barrett, better known by the stage name High Contrast , is a Welsh drum and bass DJ and producer.-History:...
or in more readable fonts.
Voice control, co-developed with IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, allows control of the browser without the use of a keyboard or mouse. It can also read aloud pages and marked text.
Opera Turbo is a feature intended for slower internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
connections; when enabled, Opera's server
Server (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
s act as a proxy
Proxy server
In computer networks, a proxy server is a server that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, such as a file, connection, web page, or other resource available from a different server...
which compresses the requested web page by up to 80% before sending it to the user. This process reduces the total size of the data being sent, and thus shortens the amount of time necessary for the page to load. This technique is also used in Opera Mini.
Privacy and security
Opera has several security features visible to the end user. One is the option to delete private data, such as HTTP cookieHTTP cookie
A cookie, also known as an HTTP cookie, web cookie, or browser cookie, is used for an origin website to send state information to a user's browser and for the browser to return the state information to the origin site...
s, the browsing history, and the cache
Cache
In computer engineering, a cache is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere...
, with the click of a button. This lets users erase personal data after browsing from a shared computer.
When visiting a secure web site, Opera encrypts data using either SSL 3 or TLS
Transport Layer Security
Transport Layer Security and its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer , are cryptographic protocols that provide communication security over the Internet...
, both of which are highly secure encryption protocols. It then adds information about the site's security to the address bar. It will also check the web site that is being visited against blacklists for phishing
Phishing
Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT...
and malware
Malware
Malware, short for malicious software, consists of programming that is designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, or gain unauthorized access to system resources, or that otherwise exhibits abusive behavior...
, and warn if it matches any of these lists. This behavior is enabled by default, but the user may opt to not make such checks automatically. If this check is disabled, the user can still check sites individually by opening a Page Info dialog.
The user can protect every saved password stored in Opera with a master password. This prevents malware from accessing those passwords unless the master password is known. To catch security flaws and other software bug
Software bug
A software bug is the common term used to describe an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program's...
s before they are exploited or become a serious problem, the Opera Software company maintains a public web form where users can submit bug reports. According to Secunia
Secunia
Secunia is a Danish computer security service provider best known for tracking vulnerabilities in a large variety of software and operating systems.Numbers of "unpatched" vulnerabilities in popular applications are frequently quoted in software comparisons....
, a computer security service provider, the mean average of unpatched vulnerabilities in the last 365 days is 0.01. This stands in contrast to Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
(38.3), Firefox (5.77), and Safari
Safari (web browser)
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the...
(1.54).
In January 2007, Asa Dotzler
Asa Dotzler
Asa Dotzler is an American software developer best known for his work as community coordinator for several Mozilla projects. He was founder of Mozilla's Quality Assurance and Testing Program, which grew under his leadership from just a few contributors when Dotzler joined the project to tens of...
of the competing Mozilla Corporation
Mozilla Corporation
The Mozilla Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet-related applications such as the Mozilla Firefox and SeaMonkey Navigator web browsers and the Mozilla Thunderbird email client by a growing global community of...
accused the Opera Software company of downplaying information about security vulnerabilities in Opera that were fixed in December 2006. Dotzler claimed that users were not clearly informed of security vulnerabilities present in the previous version of Opera, and thus they would not realize that they needed to upgrade to the latest version or risk being exploited.
Opera responded to these accusations the next day.
Standards support
Opera was one of the first browsers to support Cascading Style SheetsCascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
(CSS), now a major building block of web design. Today, Opera supports many web standards
Web standards
Web standards is a general term for the formal standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of standardized best practices for building web sites,...
, including CSS 2.1, HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
4.01, XHTML
XHTML
XHTML is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely-used Hypertext Markup Language , the language in which web pages are written....
1.1, XHTML Basic
XHTML Basic
XHTML Basic is an XML-based structured markup language primarily used for simple user agents, typically mobile devices.XHTML Basic is a subset of XHTML 1.1, defined using XHTML Modularization including a reduced set of modules for document structure, images, forms, basic tables, and object support...
, XHTML Mobile Profile
XHTML Mobile Profile
XHTML Mobile Profile is a hypertextual computer language standard designed specifically for mobile phones and other resource-constrained devices....
, XHTML+Voice
XHTML+Voice
XHTML+Voice is an XML language for describing multimodal user interfaces. The two essential modalities are visual and auditory. Visual interaction is defined like most current web pages via XHTML. Auditory components are defined by a subset of Voice XML...
, WML
Wireless Markup Language
Wireless Markup Language , based on XML, is a markup language intended for devices that implement the Wireless Application Protocol specification, such as mobile phones. It provides navigational support, data input, hyperlinks, text and image presentation, and forms, much like HTML...
2.0, XSLT
XSLT
XSLT is a declarative, XML-based language used for the transformation of XML documents. The original document is not changed; rather, a new document is created based on the content of an existing one. The new document may be serialized by the processor in standard XML syntax or in another format,...
, XPath
XPath
XPath is a language for selecting nodes from an XML document. In addition, XPath may be used to compute values from the content of an XML document...
, XSL-FO, ECMAScript
ECMAScript
ECMAScript is the scripting language standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification and ISO/IEC 16262. The language is widely used for client-side scripting on the web, in the form of several well-known dialects such as JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript.- History :JavaScript...
3 (JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
), DOM
Document Object Model
The Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
2, XMLHttpRequest
XMLHttpRequest
XMLHttpRequest is an API available in web browser scripting languages such as JavaScript. It is used to send HTTP or HTTPS requests directly to a web server and load the server response data directly back into the script. The data might be received from the server as XML text or as plain text...
, HTTP 1.1, TLS
Transport Layer Security
Transport Layer Security and its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer , are cryptographic protocols that provide communication security over the Internet...
1.2, Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
, SVG 1.1 Basic, SVG 1.1 Tiny, GIF89a, JPEG
JPEG
In computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....
, and full support for PNG, including alpha transparency. Since version 9, Opera passes the Acid2
Acid2
Acid2 is a test page published and promoted by the Web Standards Project to expose web page rendering flaws in web browsers and other applications that render HTML. Named after the acid test for gold, it was developed in the spirit of Acid1, a relatively narrow test of compliance with the Cascading...
test, a test of whether or not a browser properly supports certain web standards. Opera was the second or fourth web browser to pass the test (depending on opinions regarding hiding the scrollbar) and the first Windows browser to do so. Opera 10.5+ achieves a score of 100/100 on the Acid3
Acid3
Acid3 test is a web test page from the Web Standards Project that checks a web browser's compliance with elements of various web standards, particularly the Document Object Model and JavaScript....
test which is primarily focused on DOM
Document Object Model
The Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
and JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
standards compliance.
On Ecma International
Ecma International
Ecma International is an international, private non-profit standards organization for information and communication systems. It acquired its name in 1994, when the European Computer Manufacturers Association changed its name to reflect the organization's global reach and activities...
's ECMAScript
ECMAScript
ECMAScript is the scripting language standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification and ISO/IEC 16262. The language is widely used for client-side scripting on the web, in the form of several well-known dialects such as JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript.- History :JavaScript...
standards conformance Test 262 (version 0.7.2), Opera version 11.10 scores 3840/10872. Lower scores are better, as the figure represents the number of failed tests out of the total number of tests. A pre-release build of Opera 12 scores 1/10927 on Test 262, the one failed test being invalid.
On the official CSS 2.1 test suite by standardization organization W3C, Opera's rendering engine Presto passes 89,37% (77.44% out of 86.65%) of covered CSS 2.1 tests.
Opera Unite
Opera Unite is an extensible frameworkSoftware framework
In computer programming, a software framework is an abstraction in which software providing generic functionality can be selectively changed by user code, thus providing application specific software...
that allows for several web services (referred to as "Applications") to be hosted
Host (network)
A network host is a computer connected to a computer network. A network host may offer information resources, services, and applications to users or other nodes on the network. A network host is a network node that is assigned a network layer host address....
from the user's computer, including a web server for hosting a site, file and photo sharing, a chat room, and streaming media. Opera Software has released an API
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
to create new or improved applications for the Opera Unite Platform, and many have already done so. An Opera Unite user's applications run on a domain associated with their My Opera Community account, and are accessible from any web browser. For these applications to be accessed, the computer and the Opera Browser hosting the applications must both be running.
The included API uses HTML, CSS, client-side
Client-side
Client-side refers to operations that are performed by the client in a client–server relationship in a computer network.Typically, a client is a computer application, such as a web browser, that runs on a user's local computer or workstation and connects to a server as necessary...
ECMAScript and a new server-side JavaScript
Server-side JavaScript
Server-side JavaScript refers to JavaScript that runs on the server-side. This term was coined because the language is predominantly used on the client-side, i.e. client-side JavaScript ....
technology with local file access and persistent storage
Persistence (computer science)
Persistence in computer science refers to the characteristic of state that outlives the process that created it. Without this capability, state would only exist in RAM, and would be lost when this RAM loses power, such as a computer shutdown....
. Unite Applications are packaged according to the W3C Widgets 1.0 specification. Opera also provides a vetted
Vetting
Vetting is a process of examination and evaluation, generally referring to performing a background check on someone before offering him or her employment, conferring an award, etc...
facility for developers to upload these user-created applications.
Unite has been included standard since version 10.10. Opera Unite competes with services like Tonido
Tonido
Tonido is a home server NAS software. Once installed on a computer, Tonido software makes that computer's files available remotely through the browser from the WAN. No port forwarding is required, as data is transmitted through Tonido's servers. Users can switch to not using Tonido's servers by...
.
Other versions
In addition to the versions of Opera for personal computerPersonal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s, there are versions for a variety of devices, all based on the same core, with some variation in the features offered and the user interface.
Portable version
In Opera 11, the installer gives you the option to install the browser as a "Standalone Installation (USB)." There are also 3rd-party portable versions of the browser available for Microsoft Windows.Smartphones and PDAs
Opera MobileOpera Mobile
Opera Mobile is a web browser for smartphones and PDA's developed by the Opera Software company. The first version was released in 2000 for the Psion Series 7 and netBook. Today, it is available for a variety of devices that run on Android, S60, Windows Mobile, Maemo , and MeeGo...
is an edition of Opera designed for smartphone
Smartphone
A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...
s and personal digital assistant
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
s (PDAs). The first version of Opera Mobile was released in 2000 for the Psion Series 7 and NetBook
Psion Netbook
The Psion netBook is a small subnotebook type computer developed by Psion. Released in 1999, it was aimed at the mobile enterprise market.-Description:...
, with a port to the Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
platform coming in 2004. Today, Opera Mobile is available for a variety of devices that run Android, the Windows Mobile, S60 platform
S60 platform
The S60 Platform is a software platform for mobile phones that runs on Symbian OS. It was created by Nokia, who made the platform open source and contributed it to the Symbian Foundation. S60 has been used by mobile device manufacturers including Siemens mobile, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Panasonic...
, or UIQ
UIQ
UIQ by UIQ Technology is a software platform based upon Symbian OS. Essentially this is a graphical user interface layer that provides additional components to the core OS, to enable the development of feature-rich mobile phones that are open to expanded capabilities through third-party...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s.
Users may also try Opera Mobile free. Devices that use the UIQ 3 operating system, such as the Sony Ericsson P990
Sony Ericsson P990
Sony Ericsson P990 is a smartphone and the successor of Sony Ericsson P910. The phone uses the UIQ 3 software platform, which is based upon Symbian OS 9.1. It was released in August 2006. The P990 has a numeric keypad that flips open to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard below the display, on the phone...
and Motorola RIZR Z8, come pre-installed with Opera Mobile, the former price of Opera Mobile being included in the price of the phone.
One of Opera Mobile's major features is the ability to dynamically reformat web pages to better fit the handheld's display using small screen rendering technology. Alternatively, the user may use page zooming
Page zooming
In computing, page zooming is the ability to zoom in and out a document or image at page level. It is usually found in applications related to document layout and publishing, e.g...
for a closer or broader look. However, like previous versions of Opera for personal computers, Opera Mobile's user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
has come under fire for being difficult to use or customize.
Mobile phones
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s, but also for smartphones and personal digital assistants. Versions up to 4 used the Java ME platform, requiring the mobile device to be capable of running Java ME applications. The browser began as a pilot project in 2005. After limited releases in Europe, it was officially launched worldwide on 24 January 2006.
Opera Mini requests web pages through the Opera Software company's servers, which process and compress them before relaying the pages back to the mobile phone. This compression process reduces bandwidth use by up to 90%, with a consequent speed increase, and the pre-processing smooths compatibility with web pages not designed for mobile phones.
In March 2010, Opera Software launched a new beta version of Opera Mini for mobile phones running on Google's open source Android platform.
From version 5, there is a native version of Opera Mini 5 for Windows Mobile 2003, 5- and 6-based handsets which does not require Java; it implements the same features as the Java version.
On April 13, 2010, Opera Mini
Opera Mini
Opera Mini is a web browser designed primarily for mobile phones, smartphones and personal digital assistants. Until version 4 it used the Java ME platform, requiring the mobile device to run Java ME applications. From version 5 it is also available as a native application for Android, iOS, Symbian...
was officially approved as a free download for iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
(and iPod Touch
IPod Touch
The iPod Touch is a portable media player, personal digital assistant, handheld game console, and Wi-Fi mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPod Touch adds the multi-touch graphical user interface to the iPod line...
) on Apple's App Store.
Tablets
An iPad specific version of Opera was demonstrated at Mobile World Congress 2011Mobile World Congress
The GSMA Mobile World Congress is the combination of the world's largest exhibition for the mobile industry and a conference featuring prominent Chief Executives representing mobile operators, device manufacturers, technology providers, vendors and content owners from across the world...
, and released with Opera Mini 6 for iOS on May 24, 2011. An Android version of Opera for tablets is coming soon. No dates have yet been announced.
Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
handheld gaming system. The Nintendo DS Browser was released in Japan on 24 July 2006, in Europe on 6 October 2006, and in North America on 4 June 2007. It is sold as a physical game cartridge for US$30.
The Nintendo DS Browser includes the same small screen rendering and page zooming technology present in Opera Mobile. It also includes handwriting recognition
Handwriting recognition
Handwriting recognition is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and other devices. The image of the written text may be sensed "off line" from a piece of paper by optical scanning or...
software and an on-screen keyboard to enable user input. Additionally, Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
partnered with Astaro Internet Security to provide web filtering for the Nintendo DS Browser. The technology is simply a professionally maintained proxy server
Proxy server
In computer networks, a proxy server is a server that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, such as a file, connection, web page, or other resource available from a different server...
that blocks web sites related to pornography, discrimination, security hacking
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
, software piracy, violence, gambling, illegal drugs, alcohol, tobacco, dating
Dating (activity)
Dating is a form of courtship consisting of social activities done by two persons with the aim of each assessing the other's suitability as a partner in an intimate relationship or as a spouse...
, weapons, abortion, and other content that Nintendo deems objectionable. Users can configure the Nintendo DS Browser to receive web pages through this proxy server, and this setting can be password-protected (by a parent, for example) to prevent circumvention.
In August 2007, the Nintendo DS Browser was quietly discontinued in North America, although it is still available from Nintendo's online store. Instead, Opera is available on the Nintendo DSi
Nintendo DSi
The is a handheld game system created by Nintendo and launched in 2008 and 2009 in Japan, North America, PAL territories, and other regions. It is the third iteration of the Nintendo DS, and its primary market rival is Sony's PlayStation Portable...
through the DSi Shop, and pre-installed on newer devices.
Wii
On 10 May 2006, the Opera Software company announced that it was partnering with NintendoNintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
to provide a web browser for Nintendo's Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
gaming console. Opera for the Wii, called the Internet Channel, was free to download from its release on 12 April 2007 until 30 June 2007. After that date, Wii users had to pay 500 Wii Points
Wii Points
Nintendo Points are a currency that Nintendo uses for its Wii and Nintendo DSi systems through the Wii Shop Channel and Nintendo DSi Shop respectively...
(US$5) to download it. However, in late August / early September of the year 2009, the Internet Channel was once again available to download for free and those who paid for the service had their Wii Points returned in the form of a free NES virtual console game.
Scott Hedrick, an executive of the Opera Software company, explained that the Wii browser was designed to suit a "living room environment". In contrast to Opera's appearance on computer monitors, fonts are larger and the interface is simplified for easier use. Notwithstanding the changes in design, the Wii browser supports the same web standards as the desktop version of Opera 9, including passing the Acid2
Acid2
Acid2 is a test page published and promoted by the Web Standards Project to expose web page rendering flaws in web browsers and other applications that render HTML. Named after the acid test for gold, it was developed in the spirit of Acid1, a relatively narrow test of compliance with the Cascading...
test.
Market adoption
Opera has a 1.65% worldwide usage share of web browsersUsage share of web browsers
The usage share of a web browser is the proportion, often expressed as a percentage, of users of all web browsers who use that particular browser. This figure can only be estimated, typically by determining the proportion of visitors to a group of websites that use a particular web browser...
, according to Net Applications
Net Applications
Net Applications is a web analytics firm. The company is commonly known in the web browser development and technology news communities for its global market share statistics.-Net Applications History:...
.
The browser has seen more success in Eastern Europe, including about 47% market share in 2009 in Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
, 43% in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, 36% in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, and 8–11% in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, and the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
.
In July 2011, Opera broke its previous download records when Opera 11.50 was released and was recorded to be downloaded 35 million times during the first week of release.
Since its first release in 1996, the browser has had limited success on personal computers. It has had more success in the area of mobile browsing, with product releases for a variety of platforms. Approximately 40 million mobile phones have shipped with a copy of Opera pre-installed.
It is used on some television set-top box
Set-top box
A set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...
es as well. In 2005, Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
opted to integrate Opera's layout engine
Layout engine
A web browser engine, , is a software component that takes marked up content and formatting information and displays the formatted content on the screen. It "paints" on the content area of a window, which is displayed on a monitor or a printer...
, Presto
Presto (layout engine)
Presto is the layout engine for later versions of the Opera web browser . After several public betas and technical previews, it was released on January 28, 2003 in Opera 7 for Windows, and as of Opera 11 it is still in use. Presto is dynamic: the page or parts of it can be re-rendered in response...
, into its Adobe Creative Suite
Adobe Creative Suite
Adobe Creative Suite is a collection of graphic design, video editing, and web development applications made by Adobe Systems. The collection consists of Adobe's applications , that are based on various technologies...
applications. Opera technology is now found in Adobe GoLive
Adobe GoLive
Adobe GoLive was a WYSIWYG HTML editor and web site management application from Adobe Systems. It replaced Adobe PageMill as Adobe's primary HTML editor and was itself discontinued in favour of Dreamweaver...
, Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...
, Adobe Dreamweaver, and other components of the Adobe Creative Suite. Opera's layout engine is also found in Virtual Mechanics SiteSpinner Pro.
Reception
Critical reception of Opera has been largely positive, although it has been criticized for website compatibility issues. According to one of Opera's competitors, this is partly because developers do not test web sites with Opera due to its lack of market share, as well as the fact that Opera renders HTML standard compliant code. Because of this issue, Opera 8.01 and higher have included workarounds to help certain popular but problematic web sites display properly, but website compatibility is still perceived by some as a significant issue in more recent versions.Notwithstanding other criticism, when Nintendo chose in 2006 to adopt Opera as the web browser for its Wii and Nintendo DS gaming systems, a Nintendo representative explained:
Awards
Over the years, Opera for personal computers has received several awards. These awards include:- About.comAbout.comAbout.com is an online source for original information and advice. It is written in English, and is aimed primarily at North Americans. It is owned by The New York Times Company....
Best Major Desktop Browser - 2010 - Webware 100 winner, 2009
- Webware 100 winner, 2008
- PC WorldPC World (magazine)PC World is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal-technology products and services...
World Class Award, 2004 and 2005 - Web Host Magazine & Buyer's Guide Editors' Choice
- PC Magazine Testsieger (Test Winner), 2006
- PC Plus Performance Award
- PC World Best Data Product, 2003
- PC World Best i Test, 2003
- Web Attack Editor's Pick, 2003
- ZDNetZDNetZDNet is a business technology news website published by CBS Interactive, along with TechRepublic and SmartPlanet. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991 as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication owned by CNET...
Editor's Pick, 2000 - Tech Cruiser Award 4 Excellence, 1999
See also
- Comparison of browser synchronizers
- Comparison of Usenet newsreadersComparison of Usenet newsreadersThis is a Comparison of Usenet Newsreaders.-External links:*...
- List of pop-up blocking software
External links
- Developer's Corner – development information
- Opera Powered products
- Opera Widgets