Daniel Aleksandersen

An update on how to maintain multiple installations of Opera xx.xx and newer for Mac OS X. If you are not entirely confident in what you are doing, you should start by backing up your Opera profile. If you use Time Machine, you are already backed up. Lets dive into it:

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YouTube WebM Plus extension for Opera updated

Tuesday, October 25, 2011 7:12:25 AM

extensions, youtube, plug-ins, WebM

I have forgot to mention that I posted an update to my YouTube WebM Plus extension for Opera. The extension that keeps you in the HTML5 Trial on YouTube to offer you plug-in free video playback.

Version 3.0 does a much better job of not flooding your cookiejar and destroying your PREF cookie on YouTube’s domains. It comes with an extension options page that let you do some new cool stuff including the addition of a download link beneath all WebM videos. There is also a new more aggressive mode that prevents plug-ins from playing back movies altogether.

Download the extension from the Opera extension gallery.

The extension source code is also on GitHub were I would welcome translations and other contributions.

By the by, do you see speed improvements with HTML5 on YouTube?

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Backing up Opera user data (11.50 and newer)

Monday, October 24, 2011 11:55:38 AM

backup

The next installment in the ongoing series of “where stuff are stored” covers Opera 11.50 and newer. All locations are as usual backed-up by the system-wide Time Machine service:

~/Library/Application Support/Opera/
~/Library/Opera/
~/Library/Preferences/com.operasoftware.Opera.plist

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No longer showing XML parsing errors

Wednesday, September 28, 2011 12:11:00 PM

Following up to my article explaining the occasional ‘XML parsing failed’ error messages. Starting with today’s Opera Next release the error will be handled silently by reparsing the document as HTML. The user will no longer be shown an error and prompted to reparse as HTML. The error message will be printed to the error console instead.

This is a move from developer centric do-what-the-spec-says to what other browsers are doing by applying magic that fixes the problem for the end user. To be, this error seems like just one of those things that should be on by default in a separate Developer/Debug Mode in the browser.

As we no longer show the error, it also means that Opera will no longer be a fully valid XML parser.

Update: the ODIN blog has more information about this change.

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Better than average network performance with HTML5 YouTube

Monday, September 26, 2011 4:27:51 PM

youtube, the-web, plug-ins

Think YouTube does not care about HTML5? My YouTube network performance graph might just be indicating the opposite:

I have got a 126% increase above the global average video loading performance, and 90% increase above my ISP average. The data have been collected over 30 days since August 27. The results are from my MacBook Pro and Windows 7 PC. Neither has any plug-ins installed and are running Opera 12 (WebM and Ogg Theora codecs only).

Want to help the Web reach its full potential and be more open and inclusive? Join the YouTube HTML5 beta using the Opera browser! The only thing you will miss out on is videos that have overlaid ads. Videos embedded on third-party sites are included in the beta too!

Source: Graph credit and data collection, YouTube.com.

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Running Opera Unite without an Opera Account

Wednesday, September 21, 2011 4:09:26 PM

Opera Unite

Ever wanted to run Opera Unite on a system without going through Opera's proxies, free domain service, and require an [My] Opera Account? It is a bit cumbersome, but I am going to show you how it is done.

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[My] real world use cases for Opera Unite

Monday, September 19, 2011 1:35:25 PM

Opera Unite

Do you remember November 23, 2009? It was the day Opera Software said it would reinvent the Web and release version 10.10 featuring Opera Unite. Maybe Opera’s Segway-moment (we haven’t rearchitectured our cities nor the Web) was not that memorable; but the technology is still around. Since November 2009, I’ve used Opera Unite for a few scenarios and thought I would share the use cases with you.

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Sharing is fun

Thursday, July 21, 2011 5:48:09 PM

These blog posts are getting fewer and father between for each month that passes. The blog isn’t dead just yet. But I suggest that you follow my public posts on my public Google+ profile, or shorter messages on Twitter.

I’m currently busy testing to make sure Opera behaves like a good Mac citizen on Mac OS 10.7 ‘Lion.’ We’re looking good in the current release, and we have some improvements on the way for a future release.