Opera News

2012 was a blast for us. We had a lot of fun releasing new products and services, blogging and keeping you up to date on what was going on here at Opera. Here are the stories that pulled the highest amount of page views - they give us an indication of what you like to read. We hope to post more stories about Opera's new products and services the coming year!

Top-5 read Choose Opera articles:

1. Opera 12: Instant Makeover: Good things come to those who wait. We were happy to announce that Opera 12 was finally here. This new version of Opera was packed with themes and a multitude of other cool features to play around with.
2. Opera Mini 7 and Opera Mobile 12: What's better than 9 Speed Dials? Unlimited Speed Dials. That was one of many new features released in this update to Opera Mini and Opera Mobile.
3. What is the Best Android browser? The popular website Lifehacker made an attempt with a poll to determine what was the best Android browser...
4. Meet the New Opera Mini 7 Smart Page: We want you to have the best Internet experience available - regardless of what phone you are using. That's why we were happy to announce Opera Mini 7 for feature phones.
5. Preview ratings of YouTube videos: This Opera extension allows you to preview the user rating for every Youtube video on every page by adding a small bar under the details like the one you are used to see for your current video.

Top-5 read Dev Opera articles:

1. Extensions come to Opera Mobile: The Opera Labs release of Opera Mobile with support for extensions!
2. HTML5 Canvas: The Basics: The HTML5 specification includes lots of new features, one of which is the canvas element. HTML5 canvas gives you an easy and powerful way to draw graphics using JavaScript.
3. Opera Mobile Labs 11.5 for MeeGo netbooks and tablets: Since releasing Opera Mobile 11.5 for Android earlier this month, we have been working on an updated Labs release for MeeGo netbooks and tablets running Intel Atom processors.
4. 64-bit Opera, and out-of-process plug-ins: 64-bit builds of Opera were a popular treat in 2012.
5. Introduction to The Web Standards Curriculum/Table of Contents: Although the article is obsolete, it still pulls in a lot of clicks every month, which makes it to our top-5 list of most read articles on Dev Opera in 2012.

2012 is coming to an end, and we here at Choose Opera will be taking a break for the holidays. Espen, Anna and myself would like to take this opportunity to say thank you so much for following us - it makes us humble and thankful. As our last post this year, we'll review some of the year's highlights - and have a mini Opera quiz too! - before wishing you all the best for 2013.

New Opera HQ

Over the summer Opera HQ moved from our old offices to a brand-new setup in Oslo:

• Office Space - The new Opera offices.
• Opera at Night - The Opera O is ever present outside our new offices.
• Opera by the numbers - More insight into what goes into your favorite browser

That's not all though. Our new Instagram account has pictures from Opera offices across the world!

Opera the Travel browser

Also over the summer, we held the Opera Travel contest with world traveler Ian Wright. The competition was a blast, and the video segments were super popular. In case you missed it, the final answer to our travel quiz, made up of letters from 10 cities around the world, was "compression." (Which is also what happens to the stuff in your suitcase when you travel that much.)

Opera Desktop

We had a major update to our desktop browser this year, but it didn't happen all at once. Do you remember how many releases we had in total this year? And what's the most current version number of Opera for computers?

Opera Mini

When it comes to the world's most popular mobile browser, the plot thickens. We had different releases for all the operating systems in 2012. Can you name all of them?

Show off your level of insider Opera knowledge in the comments below!

Happy new year!

Before we close out 2012 for good, let's take a look at the new year's resolutions from 365 days ago. I think I did pretty well on my promise to do fewer Saturday night tweets and I've been more or less at the gym three times a week all year.

That's it for 2012. Thank you again for all the amazing support this year. Have the best holidays ever. We plan to!

Maybe some of you saw our "12.12" updates last week on Facebook and Twitter. But that wasn't only because it was the 12th of December... It was also to give you a little heads-up that Opera 12.12 was just around the corner. And today, less than a week later, it has finally arrived.

This is a security and stability update if you're using Opera on your computer. To get the background on this release, you can check out the Opera desktop developers' blog.

Otherwise, go and grab it for yourself from our download page.

Will it fit in a stocking? We're not sure about that, but otherwise enjoy this early holiday gift from us.