Opera 11 will have Extensions

By Espen André ØverdahlEspenAO. Thursday, October 14, 2010 7:29:43 AM

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Good news, everybody! Today, at Up North Web, Opera Extensions was confirmed to be a feature of Opera 11.

What are Opera Extensions?

Extensions in Opera is a way for you to easily add new functionality to your Opera browser experience. Developers can easily create extensions using open standards (HTML5, CSS, JavaScript) and supported APIs.

Extensions will be based on the W3C Widget specifications and this is being considered for an Open Standard effort.

Will Opera Extensions be similar to extensions in other browsers?

Yes, Opera Extensions will be similar in some ways and we have tried to make it easy to port extensions from certain browsers.

We are committed to open web standards and this is an important part of our strategy, so if you find us deviating from other solutions out there, this might be why.

What does an extension look like?

Some extensions have user interface elements, but not all. An extension can for example add a button next to the Google Search field with a popup menu when you click on it. Other extensions don't have user interfaces at all, but run in the background.

How will I install Opera Extensions?

Once you have Opera 11 installed you can click on an extension and a small Install-window will appear. Click 'Install' and you're done. You can also drag and drop an extension onto Opera Desktop if you have an extension stored on your computer.

What kind of APIs will you support?

With the first iteration of Opera Extensions we are focusing on open web standards and 'getting it right'. Our alpha release supports injectable JavaScript, callouts, certain UI items and a basic Tabs and Windows API.

How can I get Opera Extensions?

Opera Extensions is not available yet. Once Opera 11 is out, you will be able to fully enjoy and use Opera Extensions.

Where can I find developer information on extensions?

Once Opera 11 Alpha is out, you will be able to find all the information you need to develop and publish extensions on our developer site Dev Opera.

Where can I find Opera 11?

Opera 11 Alpha will be made available soon at http://www.opera.com/browser/next/.

Opera Mobile for Android coming soonIntroducing the Opera Link API

Comments

IKoke Thursday, October 14, 2010 7:59:57 AM

cheers cheers

Morphdreamer Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:00:00 AM

yikes yikes yikes yikes

Hope that soon means "really soon" p

Andreas Parslowdigmed Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:00:02 AM

Wohoo!

Kyle Bakerkyleabaker Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:02:12 AM

bigsmile

Deme Tamástomzorz Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:03:45 AM

I don't think that this is as good idea as it sounds. Hardware Acceleration: i'm waiting for you!

Tamil Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:03:55 AM

Mika Takalamtakala Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:04:00 AM

fantastic!

kyotocafe Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:06:54 AM

wow! this is a dream come true, now i am just waiting for hardware acceleration as well smile

Marcelo Javierpunkesito Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:07:42 AM

si!!!

ПавелGemorroj Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:07:52 AM

=D

Piotrekkycu Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:08:20 AM

cheers! cheers

z@h3kZAHEK Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:08:32 AM

Phaniphanikumarseelam Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:09:56 AM

This is awesome news. Alongwith Opera Mobile for Android, these news have made my day party

Gaurav Mishramrgaurav Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:11:30 AM

Cheers! Gimme a beer Now :-D

RunninglVlanRedCapShortCut Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:12:08 AM

I still don't understand what extension means. Is it similar to FireFox's add-ons and/or toolbars?

PardusPars Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:12:23 AM

Heyy internet !! We are coming !!!

bandit wizard

Abhinavdecodedthought Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:13:28 AM

yes up
up up
I just hope the extension doesn't use more RAM than it is actually using now o

DillonAstrophizz Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:14:09 AM

YES.
I'm glad this is happening but I think some people won't be because they tout Opera's lack of extensions as a feature.

hunteralpha Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:14:17 AM

yes up

Comwan Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:14:34 AM

#€@$ yeah!

Rizky O-zhoo 64than Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:15:28 AM

CooL...!

Ryandi Sandicoyomoyo Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:15:53 AM

I'm sure more people will eager to try the snapshot now bigsmile

Lucalucaviozzi Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:17:23 AM

will replace widgets?

Krauti Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:18:03 AM

I am very sorry to hear that.
The best thing with Opera was, that it was hard to fool around with it. With Extensions it will become very easy for someone to add a nice little XSS- or phishing button to your browser.
I liked it very much that Opera had all the nice things already build in, where other browsers had to rely on some unknown kiddy to add that functionality through a add on, not knowing if that kiddy even thought about security of the browser.

But we will see how Opera will handle security in that matter.

Lёppaleppa Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:21:42 AM

Will it be possible to write the extension that will save my typing history and will give suggestions when I type in the text filed?

That's the feature I was always missing in Opera and the number of Other fields in personal information in settings was always not enough for me smile

dahulevogyre Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:22:05 AM

I agree with Krauti.

If you want to follow Firefox on something, you'd rather open your source !

NicoHellbillyDeluxe Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:22:34 AM

Man, it's like Christmas today, but even more awesome:
First Opera Mobile for Android, now Opera 11 with Extensions!

What's coming next? wink

PengePenge4 Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:24:18 AM

I hope that won't be too negative impact on performance.

And it would be great if they can access to the M2, IRC chat, etc. so not only simple UserJS with "next-next-finish" interface like in the Chrome.bigsmile

Michał Gawronmgawron Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:25:39 AM

Krauti: no, it won't be easy for someone to add extension to YOUR browser. You will have to do it yourself. ;-)

Dimas Putradimassony Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:27:11 AM

Originally posted by Krauti:

With Extensions it will become very easy for someone to add a nice little XSS- or phishing button to your browser.



Maybe Opera can use sandbox to handle it.

I'm planning make a project with Opera Extension. smile

prd3 Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:29:07 AM

Originally posted by lucaviozzi:

will replace widgets?


What a stupid question. Widgets are NOT supposed to be like (or be replaced by) extensions. Widgets are STANDALONE APPS, extensions ADD TO THE BROWSER ITSELF.

soyasama Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:29:31 AM

Hopefully this will make more people switch to Opera as they usually don't want to leave Firefox because of the so-called extensions bigsmile

danger2002 Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:29:52 AM

I don't think it's an excellent idea, because user likes to play. And once the installed this extensions, because they are awesome useful (in fact they are more fancy than useful) the performance of the browser will fall. (For more information see complaining FF-user.)
Do you mean with "extensions" an easy to install routine for UserJS and UserCSS? Because theese "extensions" are alredy implemented, but the front end is not (yet) available.
So be aware devs, do not let people overload the browser because once it isn't quick - they will be disappointed.
I use now UserCSS-Adblock, personal UserCSS-hacks for some pages and Flashblock as UserJS extension. And spread the word about ready to use urlfilter.inis.

prd3 Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:30:20 AM

Originally posted by Krauti:

The best thing with Opera was, that it was hard to fool around with it. With Extensions it will become very easy for someone to add a nice little XSS- or phishing button to your browser.
I liked it very much that Opera had all the nice things already build in, where other browsers had to rely on some unknown kiddy to add that functionality through a add on, not knowing if that kiddy even thought about security of the browser.


1: Opera already has things like widgets, UserJS and Unite, so this is not the first time Opera is making it possible to make external stuff interact with the browser

2: Does adding extensions mean that Opera will magically lose all its existing features?

idiologic Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:31:05 AM

Awesome! headbang

NicoHellbillyDeluxe Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:31:55 AM

Will it also be possible to synchronize installed Extensions through Opera Link?

Lorenzo CelsiLorenzoCelsi Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:35:10 AM

I like Opera but I don't understand some ideas.
Widgets, useless.
Unite, flop.
Now extensions. Since this is nothing new, here come the usual two questions, WHO will develop those extensions and WHO will review the extension code. Having more lame widgets won't make any difference, having sophisticated extensions poses the same problems as seen in "certain browsers", that is basically you need an huge and strong community of developers and then you need to take care of it, supervising developers on one end and taking care of final users on the other end. Because, whatever people install on Opera they would blame Opera if it is crap.

RastislavRa100x Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:36:05 AM

you've nade my day smile Opera FTW

prd3 Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:44:08 AM

Originally posted by LorenzoCelsi:

I like Opera but I don't understand some ideas.
Widgets, useless.
Unite, flop.


Today's most retarded comment.

Widgets are a huge success. Opera is making tons of money from widgets. Anyone who claims they are "useless" are clearly clueless.

Unite has a lot of users, and gave Opera massive exposure. The only flop here is trolls making useless and ignorant comments based on their own bigotry.

WHO will develop those extensions


Uh, people who want Opera extensions of course. You FAIL. Stop trolling. In fact, stop breathing. You are a waste of air.

Ramkumar Shankarramkumarshankar Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:50:18 AM

Fantastic news! I hope to see something on the browser/next page *real* soon. smile

Swapnilrelaxboy14 Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:50:19 AM

Yo!!!! cant wait to browse on Opera Mobile 11 smile

Lorenzo CelsiLorenzoCelsi Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:52:16 AM

@prd3
I am sorry but I don't care how Opera (the firm) makes money.
To me as user of Opera (the browser) widgets are useless.

Unite is a flop because it did not attract enough developers so basically there aren't applications that make any difference.

The only features that really matters in Opera (the browser) are hardcoded. Moving to "extensions" means you don't use "block content" as hardcoded feature but you use ADBlockPlus as extension on "certain browsers". And then you come to the said above issues, in fact such extensions can easily degrade the browser performance and even open security holes. The more useful the extension is and the more critical its code is. Like I said, this means to have 1. developers, 2. supervising and reviewing.

Example, on Unite Opera's pages there was the webcam application as "recommended", pity it had stopped working several Opera versions before. An user comes, install the application, sees it doesn't work and say "this people at Opera are losers".

In short, you don't know what you are speaking of.

idiologic Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:52:41 AM

Originally posted by prd3:

Uh, people who want Opera extensions of course. You FAIL. Stop trolling. In fact, stop breathing. You are a waste of air.



Wow, someone didn't get enough sleep last night.

RunninglVlanRedCapShortCut Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:53:09 AM

Well, launching extensions will surely attract some FF guys. I only hope, that there will be much more good and really useful extensions, which don't slow your PC and don't make your UI a disaster.

Morphdreamer Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:55:50 AM

Originally posted by LorenzoCelsi:

Widgets, useless.


What a nonsense. Read this:
http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2009/10/16/opera-widgets

子尧waterside Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:57:25 AM

that's great!drunk

prd3 Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:58:19 AM

Originally posted by LorenzoCelsi:

To me as user of Opera (the browser) widgets are useless.


Then again, you are irrelevant. In fact, you are dangerous because you are bashing a huge revenue source for Opera. Opera can't survive without making money, and you want them to stop making money.

FAIL.

Unite is a flop because it did not attract enough developers so basically there aren't applications that make any difference.


Wrong. Unite lets you do things easily that no one else lets you do as easily.

The only features that really matters in Opera (the browser) are hardcoded. Moving to "extensions" means you don't use "block content" as hardcoded feature but you use ADBlockPlus as extension on "certain browsers".


Says who?

Lorenzo CelsiLorenzoCelsi Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:58:53 AM

Interestingly, Firefox is (not openly) trying to find a way to move away from extensions.
They are trying:
- "soft extensions" through Jetpack.
- "hardcoding" like "Inspector" (same as Dragonfly) instead of "Firebug" or "Personas".
They discovered that 99% extensions are poorly coded and it is impossible to supervise them and the side effect is people installing tons of crap than complaining Firefox is slow or crashes.

Obese MauriceObeseMaurice Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:59:07 AM

Make it happen real soon! Any other news about Opera 11? Hardware acceleration? ...?

prd3 Thursday, October 14, 2010 9:01:21 AM

Originally posted by LorenzoCelsi:

Interestingly, Firefox is (not openly) trying to find a way to move away from extensions.


No they aren't. You are clearly deeply ignorant and bigoted, and are making stuff up as you go along.

In fact, all Mozilla did was to make it EASIER to create extensions.

FAIL.

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