opera χA ɐɹǝdo

This is first and foremost the result of research done by Rafal aka d.i.z., who was probably the first to distribute an easy to apply patch that was generic in such a way, that you could apply it to various versions (builds) of Opera 9 thru 10. Please read his interesting report on his studies in his blog.

New builds of Opera arrived and the patch stopped working, as the binaries had changed too much. You could introduce new patch patterns into the Rafal's patchscript, but the script got more and more confusing. Thus I re-structured the script to make it easier to introduce new patch patterns into it.

The Patch

You find the more-or-less-carefree all inclusive package, consisting of a patch appliance batch-script for Windows (and 4NT/TakeCommand/TCC), the upx un-/packer and a rudimentary perl binary distribution as helper tools, and a (probably outdated) patchscript as a download here:

The standalone perl patchscript is behind the following link. It is possibly a more recent version than the one embedded in the all inclusive package; you can use this standalone script to update your install of the all inclusive package:

Installation and Usage

Perhaps you need admin-credentials to perform some or all of the following steps!

• Option A → post-installation patch of opera.dll in Opera's program folder

  Extract the all inclusive pack into Opera's binary installation folder (ie probably ”%PROGRAMFILES%\opera\“ on Windows systems). The standalone perl script should be placed into that folder as well.

  Now make sure, Opera is not currently running! If it is, though, shut it down and wait long enough for the (sometimes painfully slow) shut down sequence to finish.

  To apply the patch you either double click the xa-nocta.bat batch script in the Explorer or you start it from the console. If you prefer to solely use the perl patch script (and do the eventual unpacking and backing up parts yourself), run something like ”perl xa-nocta.pl opera.dll“ from a console command line.

→ give it a try! ☺

• Option B → pre-installation patch of Opera's installer (v11+)

  For Opera 11+ there is another means to apply the patch being tested. Drag and drop the NewInstaller 7Ziped executable onto the batch script called xa-nocta-the_installer.bat or call that script from the command line passing the path to the installer as an argument. The script will extract the opera.dll binary, apply the patch to it and re-implant it to a copy of the installer. All what's left to do is installing Opera using that modified installer (it will carry a suffix _xanocta) – no need to shut down Opera after the forced (installer-induced) start in order to apply the xaNoCTA patch no more. ☺

Notes

Applying any patch, including the patches included in this package, may or may not be legal, may or may not work. You do it in your very own responsibility. You won't hold anyone responsible for any mishap or disaster than you very self!

This following copyright and license should apply to the files making up the xa-nocta-package, as far as applicable and as far as not contradicting any other existing rights covering those:
Copyright © by XA, 2010-2012. Licensed under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 Unported License.
Works (including, but not limited to, new patch byte patterns) that merely extend or make use of the Package, do not, by themselves, cause the Package to be a Derivative. In addition, such works are not considered parts of the Package itself, and are not subject to the terms of the granted license. As far as applicable, the included patch byte patterns shall be considered licensed under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license.
Based on work by Rafal / d.i.z and multiple contributors on the MyOpera forums.

Creating plugins

Have a look at the sample plugin xa-nocta-plugin-00-SilentHTTPSUserJS.pl.txt, included in the Zip-Package, to get a clue. ;) xaNoCTA scans automatically for plugins, finding them stored in the same folder as the main script and matching the filename pattern xa-nocta-plugin-*.pl; that means, you'll have to rename the sample plugins distributed in the all-inclusive-package, changing the double extension .pl.txt into a simple single .pl!

Creating new patch patterns

Besides on this page here, you can find the latest source in a Mercurial repository at Bitbucket.

Look into the xa-nocta.pl patch script. Between lines of ”###…##“ you find the array describing all the implemented possible patches. This is pretty self explanatory. (There is a priority scheme implemented, thus the patches are organized in a two-level-array structure. This is not used up to now.) A patch is resembled by an instruction record like

{
	desc =>   'Opera 11.00 [1045, 1060]',
	assert => undef,
	test =>   qr/\x66\xBA\x2C\x00\xE8(.{4})\xF7\xD8\x1B\xC0\xB0\x01/s,
	match =>  qr/\x66\xBA\x2C\x00\xE8(.{4})\xF7\xD8\x1B\xC0\xF7\xD8/s,
	replace => '"\x66\xBA\x2C\x00\xE8$1\xF7\xD8\x1B\xC0\xB0\x01"'
},

Pay attention to the right use of quotes in the replace part!

If your patch applies to an yet unsupported version of Opera – and if it works well, then feel free to post the patch instruction record (like the example above) in the comments to this posting! ☺

Latest Changes

• 2012-08-10
  
  • Support 12.01 32bit build 1532, 12.50 32bit builds 1538,1546.
  • Use the /s modifier on RegExps to treat patterns as single line, even if containing some newline char. [Ralf Onat is right, thanks!]
• 2012-07-27
  
  • Support 12.00 32bit builds 1439,1440,1441,1445,1448,1450,1454,1456,1465,1467, 12.01 32bit builds 1473,1486,1491,1517,1520,1528, 12.50 32bit builds 1497,1513.
• 2012-05-30
  
  • New patch strategy (patched params to subroutine have been swapped) supporting 12.00 32bit builds 1359,1360,1372,1380,1383,1385,1386,1387,1406,1413,1417,1422,1424,1429,1431,1433,1438.
  • Support 12.00 build 1301,1306,1312,1317,1325,1328,1351_32bit.
• 2012-02-10
  
  • Support 11.61 build 1250, 11.62 builds 1273,1297, 12.00 builds 1256,1272,1289.
  • Incorporate modification to certain patch pattern to cover 12.00 build 1301 – contributed by BtEO.
• 2012-01-16
  
  • Included another sample plugin (contributed by BtEO and Nibiru); it should patch away the host name highlightning in the address bar.
  • Renamed ”Silent UJS HTTPS“ sample plugin file.
  • Support 11.61 builds 1222,1234,1236, 12.00 1232labs.
• 2011-12-22
  
  • Support 11.61 build 1222.
  • Relaxed matching for ”Silent UJS HTTPS“ sample plugin.
• 2011-12-22
  
  • Embraced contribution by BtEO for a unified patch pattern supporting Opera 12.00 builds 1085,1090,1105,1116,1155,1174,1191,1211,1213], 11.60 builds 1134,1139,1144,1145,1147,1150,1159,1163,1169,1173,1177,1178,1180,1181,1184,1185.
  • Plugin functionality (from pluggable branch) merged into default branch.
• 2011-10-13
  
  • Supports 12.00 build 1085,1090;1105.
  • Modified new 1085/1090-patch-strategy to embrace 1105.
• 2011-10-07
  
  • New patch strategy introduced to support patching Ragnarök-based 12.00 build.
• 2011-09-28
  
  • Supports 11.51 builds 1084,1087, 12.00 builds 1017,1020,1027,1033,1039,1042,1047;1054,1060,1065,1076.
• 2011-06-21
  
  • Adapted latest patch pattern to cover build 1052 of Opera 11.50.
  • Support 11.50 builds 1040,1049;1052.
• 2011-06-10
  
  • Incorporated new patch strategy for builds of later trait of Opera 11.50.
  • Supports 11.50 builds 1024,1027,1031,1035,1036,1037.
• 2011-05-27
  
  • Supports 11.50 builds 1009,1015,1016,1018,1020.
• 2011-05-18
  
  • Supports 11.10 builds 2090,2091,2092 final, 11.11 build 2109 final.
• 2011-04-11
  
  • Supports 11.10 builds 2005,2014,2018,2020,2025,2033,2039,2040,​2042,2045,2047,2048,2053,2064,2067,2076,​2077,2079,2081,2085,2087.
• 2011-01-26
  
  • Supports 11.00 builds 1164,1169,1175,1179,1189,1190.
• 2011-01-07
  
  • Supports 11.00 build 1160.
  • Corrected behavior in case no patch matches.
• 2010-12-17
  
  • Fixes to xa-nocta-the_installer script.
  • Now includes full working copy of 7Zip in all inclusive pack. But that's a lot of bytes. Maybe it'd be better to instruct potential users to get 7Zip elsewhere.
• 2010-12-16
  
  • New auxiliary script allows patching opera.dll virtually in the new Opera 11+ installer prior to the actual installation procedure.
• 2010-12-14
  
  • Supports 11.00 build 1104,1111,1128,1133,1136,1140,1145,1149.
• 2010-11-17
  
  • Supports 11.00 build 1094. Cosmetic changes and one MS compatibility fix to batch script.
• 2010-11-15
  
  • Supports 11.00 build 1085.
• 2010-11-14
  
  • Treated MS cmd compatibility issues in wrapper batch script (which is essentially for 4NT/TC).
• 2010-11-11
  
  • Supports 11.00 build 1060. Add license info for the tools packaged into the happy-pack.
• 2010-11-06
  
  • Supports 11.00 build 1055.
• 2010-11-05
  
  • Sorted out oddities in the naming of original, backup and patched files.
• 2010-11-05
  
  • Implemented possibility of an assertion guard for each patch class and/or patch method. If defined, the assert pattern has to match before applying a patch is considered.
• 2010-11-03
  
  • Initial release covering Opera versions 9.x, 10.x, some 10.50 builds, 11.00 builds 1029 and 1045