Opera Desktop Team

BitTorrent and Content Blocking in this weekly build

By Petter Nilsen. Thursday, 23. February 2006, 13:47:52

The information given here might not apply if we are forced to not release a build this week. But it should hopefully give some insight into what we are doing anyway.

I will go into detail on some of the changes this week:

BitTorrent

Implemented a new disk cache for BitTorrent. For the time being, it's hardcoded at 10MB per torrent, but this will probably be configurable. Due to the nature of the BitTorrent protocol, data is written randomly across the files currently being downloaded. This is quite demanding for both hardware and software.
The new disk cache tries to optimize this at the expense of higher memory usage.
Some people have reported that torrents have a tendency to stall. We have identified and fixed one case where removing a torrent from the transfer manager while other torrents were downloading could make the remaining torrents stall.

The implementation of this new disk cache is a somewhat major change in the BitTorrent implementation. If you experience crashes (hopefully there won't be any), please make sure to file a bug report with a crash log created by Inspector.

Content Blocker
Quite a few significant changes this week. Some has been implemented based on feedback from our users out there.

Background colour of the content block mode toolbar has been changed to be more visible.
Filters are no longer case-sensitive
When you click to block an image or plugin, all content on the page that matches the generated pattern will be painted as blocked.
Previously blocked content will be loaded from server when entering content block mode and can be easily unblocked.
When you are done blocking content, Opera will also properly remove all blocked content in all frames.
It will now be possible to block plugins that uses just an object tag and no embed fallback.

The tooltip delay on tabs when a thumbnail is shown has been reduced significantly. It should make the thumbnails more useful.

There are many other changes in this week's build, you will (hopefully) be able to read about them in the changelog that will be posted tomorrow.

New weekly buildWeekly build, return of the Macintosh!

Comments

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Dennis_Hawks # 23. February 2006, 13:59

It will be very nice to try and enjoy the updated content blocker!
10nx for giving the info before the tomorrow build, Petter!

Indyan # 23. February 2006, 14:35

What about flash files? Will it be possible to block them using the one click interface?Build 8212 doesnt allow that.
Also It would be nice if it was possible to insert for than one keyword/filter at once using the content blockers front end interface (the one that appears on clicking the details button).

XRock # 23. February 2006, 14:49

Yeah, this new content blocker seems to be really more useful than the previous one. And BitTorrent client is getting better, that's nice.

mitchman2 # 23. February 2006, 14:54

Flash files have always been blockable, provided they would navigate somewhere when clicked on and were not in an "object" without "embed" fallback.
"object" will be handled in tomorrow's build.

olrandir # 23. February 2006, 15:20

Anything new happening with the tabbar? I was thinking it could be a good idea to allow it to span multiple lines, or to create tab groups (kinda like the windows taskbar). I'd really appreciate *anything* that did not involve the tabs shrinking to below 10px width :-z

denopera # 23. February 2006, 15:24

Why is Opera-Software developing a BiTorrent Client although stand alone clients like µtorrent are freely available? I'd love to see the working time invested in things like content blocking and bug fixing.

mitchman2 # 23. February 2006, 15:27

Same reason there is a ftp client in all webbrowsers. It's a popular protocol with a widespread use, and with enough legal usage to warrent supporting it for casual downloaders.
Same as for ftp, really.

tarquinwj # 23. February 2006, 15:28

"Anything new happening with the tabbar? I was thinking it could be a good idea to allow it to span multiple lines"

This is already possible. Right click on the tab bar and select "customize" then set wrapping to "wrap to multiple lines"

olrandir # 23. February 2006, 15:42

"This is already possible. Right click on the tab bar and select "customize" then set wrapping to 'wrap to multiple lines'"

Cool, I hadn't noticed that! Grouped tabs aren't already provided too, are they?

Excellent work on the content blocker, btw!

oblogdele # 23. February 2006, 16:00

"Same reason there is a ftp client in all webbrowsers. It's a popular protocol with a widespread use, and with enough legal usage to warrent supporting it for casual downloaders.
Same as for ftp, really."

humm, and how about improving Opera's ftp client? it just renders an html file with the directory contents, there's no drag&drop, nor upload, a nice ajax interface would be nice =)

mattglet # 23. February 2006, 16:13

"humm, and how about improving Opera's ftp client? it just renders an html file with the directory contents, there's no drag&drop, nor upload, a nice ajax interface would be nice =)"

if they told you this already existed, what else would you find to complain about?

Sushubh # 23. February 2006, 16:41

opera content blocker would someday render me jobless!

rseiler # 23. February 2006, 16:47

Good luck on keeping a torrent client up-to-date. Ask the Azureus and uTorrent authors how easy that is. The alternative is to only have a weak torrent client no one would want to use once they've seen AZ or Utorrent. Not a great position to be in.

On the tooltip delay for the tabs, please don't forget the frustrating tooltip delay when hovering over links on a page. That delay is the only reason I continue to use the status bar, where you can see the URL instantly.

Kildor # 23. February 2006, 16:51

> "This is already possible. Right click on the tab bar and select "customize" then set wrapping to 'wrap to multiple lines'"
Unfortunatly, we can`t set max number of this lines… :-(
It will be *VERY* useful ;-)

thexfile # 23. February 2006, 17:27

Could uTorrent be incorporated as a tab in Opera? "excuse my ignorance"

mitchman2 # 23. February 2006, 17:32

@rseiler: It depends on what you mean by "up-to-date". It's not meant to replace advanced bittorrent clients, the same way ftp is not meant to replace standalone ftp clients. It's an alternative for those that want an easy-to-use and integrated solution.

chaimav # 23. February 2006, 17:44

"Previously blocked content will be loaded from server when entering content block mode and can be easily unblocked. "

Great News! I've been waiting for a way to see what is beeing blocked.

I've had som websites screwed up by overblocking. I had to shift through the source of the page (thanks for the built in viewer

it makes this easier) to find which server to unblock.

stam1na # 23. February 2006, 18:25

Sorry if this has been asked already, but can I install build 8225 over build 8212? Or shall I make clean install?

mitchman2 # 23. February 2006, 18:46

Yes, but it's highly recommended that you do not install over your "normal" Opera.

NickNet # 23. February 2006, 19:16

That's great!
But anything change on the widgets?

Zybex # 23. February 2006, 19:20

What about easier way to manual feed update? (Now i see only F5)

Lecter # 23. February 2006, 19:52

Is there a way to exclusively disable the tooltips on tabs? (I like other tooltips)

Also, is there a way to disable smooth scrolling?

Is there a forum to discuss the weekly builds (as opposed to other betas)? For example, I am having trouble with the first IMAP account losing its server connection, while the other 5 IMAP accounts seem to keep their connection in 8225.

Other than the above, I am enjoying the weekly builds. Thanks!

L

StarGazer # 23. February 2006, 20:08

I sure hope some progress was made on the proxy (NTLM) issue. This problem makes the browser unusable in my corporate setting.

toman # 23. February 2006, 20:18

@zybex: You can drag the reload button to the feed toobar.

@lecter: go to
opera:config#UserPrefs|UseThumbnailsinTabTooltips to disable the thumbnails on tab tooltips, and then to
opera:config#UserPrefs|SmoothScrolling to toggle smooth scrolling

ilyabirman # 23. February 2006, 20:21

olrandir, on your 10px problem:

Looks like you use dozens of tabs at the same time - me too! What I have done is I just turned off the whole tabbar. I just takes place with all those 10px tabs. I use Ctrl+Tab when I'm at the keyboard, or my favourite RightMouseButton+ScrollWheel, when at the mouse. So, Opera makes it very handy to switch between tabs even when there's no tabbar.

If we are lucky, Opera will someday implement even better tab switching with some my suggestions, which I have posted couple of weeks ago somewhere in the Beta forums...

Oh, and also, don't forget there are 1 and 2 keys.

Hope that helps :-)

SergeantHobo # 23. February 2006, 20:40

Cool. Looking forward to the new content blocker. My main problem with it is that when I've blocked things, there have been white "placeholder" images left in place of what was blocked. Is this going to be fixed?

porneL # 23. February 2006, 21:22

Ofcourse Opera won't replace Azureus or other full-blown clients, but bittorrent support in browser makes it just work - I can post link to torrent on my website and I won't have to explain Opera users what torrent is and how to install torrent-capable client, etc. - it just works (for those who don't care

). That's the point.

chaimav # 23. February 2006, 21:24

" My main problem with it is that when I've blocked things, there have been white "placeholder" images left in place of what was blocked. "

As a temporary solution you can use "fit-to-width". I will collapse those spaces.

porneL # 23. February 2006, 21:24

Another thing - thumbnail of current page is completely unneccessary and because it makes tooltip large (obscures page content), I find it annoying.

Could you please don't add thumbnail to currently visible page and make normal tooltip delay for it?

tprochazka # 23. February 2006, 21:56

I will be more happy when some of render bugs will be fixed, more that from BitTorrent support.

For example:
http://atom.mamto.cz/projekty/opera/bug12/ - bug-195775
http://atom.mamto.cz/projekty/opera/bug13/ - bug-195776
http://atom.mamto.cz/projekty/opera/bug4/ - bug-126808

But, great work! ;-)

Lecter # 23. February 2006, 22:32

Thanks Toman! My browsing life is great again!

Junyor # 23. February 2006, 23:15

@t.prochazka: Just because your pet bugs aren't fixed doesn't mean other bugs aren't. Rendering bugs are fixed *every* day.

eblade # 24. February 2006, 00:08

another link that crashes the current build...

http://go.fark.com/cgi/fark/go.pl?IDLink=1928289&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kpho.com%2FGlobal%2Fstory.asp%3FS%3D4544538

Vasto # 24. February 2006, 00:50

The links don't point at the newest build.

moises-l # 24. February 2006, 01:07

you can do a userjs manager?

TheRockSays # 24. February 2006, 01:23

Why does it just not download the torrent file and let us download the torrent's contents ourselves with our prefered software? Is there any option to remove it?

antoxicion # 24. February 2006, 01:49

CTRL + ENTER

SHIFT + ENTER

CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER

Highly needed......

also,

ALT + S

vevola # 24. February 2006, 01:50

Has anyone noticed that when the Download Dialogue Window shows up and the tab isn't focused, you have to unfocus Opera and refocus the tab to get "Open" to show up, whereas "Save" and "Cancel" are already active? This has happened to me for a while. No problem if the tab is already on focus when the Dialogue window shows up, though...

vevola # 24. February 2006, 01:51

sebt # 24. February 2006, 03:14

SSP's and content blocking don't work at www.mininova.org (in fact this also makes opera go 100% cpu when loading). These pig sites are where the blocking is most useful, but it seems that a lot of them don't listen to Opera's SSPs and blocking yet.

Seb

mitchman2 # 24. February 2006, 03:36

@Sgt_Hobo: Those ads are in iframe's which are currently not automatically blocked and collapsed.

@Vasto: The weeklies are normally released on fridays. I just wrote a "sneakpeak" article.

Do not report bugs here, please use http://bugs.opera.com/wizard/ for that.

gahbmwM5 # 24. February 2006, 04:33

I too would like to send thanks to Petter for the advance notice on the forth_coming weekly build!

mark_poleon # 24. February 2006, 05:06

What time to release new build?

Vinny-perm # 24. February 2006, 10:15

Where is the new build :-) ?

toman # 24. February 2006, 10:58

@The Rock Says, you can change the torrent file type settings in the preferences to open whatever application you want

non-troppo # 24. February 2006, 12:14

@antoxicion: Opera does support server completion for CTRL+ENTER and the key mappings can be supported for the other variants. What do you expect ALT+S to do?

apocalypsebg # 24. February 2006, 12:36

Waiting eagerly for the new build

Btw: Thumbnails on tabs are a really awesome feature and i hope in the future there to be an option to show only the thumbnail of the page while hovering without the title/url/encoding information. If there is such an option currently and i am not aware of it then please forgive my ignorance.