Opera News

...Coming soon your very own Opera Mini

Come March 2012 and all Idea customers will be able to download a co-branded version of Opera Mini on their devices.

Idea says:
“In emerging markets such as India, the mobile phone will soon become the primary way of accessing the Internet. We are arming ourselves with the best-in-class solutions for catering to this data-hungry population," says Shashi Shankar, Chief Marketing Officer, Idea Cellular. He adds, “By providing a enhanced superior Opera Mini browser, we are confident that our customers will enjoy an even more fulfilling, faster and feature-rich mobile Internet experience on their handsets.”

Read the complete press release here: http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2012/02/01/

If you are an Idea user we would like to know your speed-dial wishlist.

Looking forward to your comments.

The beeps, blips and clicks from a gazillion new gadgets at last week's Consumer Electronics Show were still resounding in the early part of this week (speaking of which, if you haven't yet checked out our team's photos from the show, you can find them here).

Given all that noise, it's understandable if a quiet little update from our side on the App Store might have been overlooked. So here's the official notice for all you iPhone users: Opera Mini 6.5.2 for iOS is ready for your browsing pleasure. Upgrade today!

Meanwhile, the other big story on the Internet this week was the lack thereof. In other words, the January 18th blackout of popular sites like reddit, WordPress, Wikipedia and many others. In the case of Wikipedia going dark for the day, this probably resulted in many dinnertime debates going unresolved and more than a few students' homework being left unfinished. However, one definite consequence was the sudden proliferation of invented knowledge under the #FactsWithoutWikipedia hashtag on Twitter. My own favorite new "fact:" hamsters are actually very tiny lions.

Now, the reason that all those websites closed down for a day was to protest laws now being proposed in the US to protect intellectual property online called SOPA and PIPA, aimed at content pirating in general and file-sharing in particular (but probably also including file-revealing, in the case of sites like Wikileaks). But although SOPA and PIPA are not laws yet, the file-sharing site megaupload was shut down on Friday using existing laws in the US, leaving lots of people and their content in the cloud hanging, as it were...

But enough of these big-picture issues. The real news these days is that we're all going nano. From IBM's creation of a magnetic storage unit consisting of just 12 atoms to the announcement of a microscopic "ear" able to hear germs, it's clear that, like hamsters, we are all going to have to start sweating the small stuff after all...

Have a great week ahead

To say that 2011 was busy here at Opera might well be the understatement of the year. There were so many innovations, new releases and achievements that we can only focus on the highlights.

New releases
We stepped up our game in mobile browsing with the release of Opera Mini 6 and Opera Mobile 11. Meanwhile, over on the desktop, 2011 saw the release of Opera 11.10, code-named Barracuda, followed by a quick jump over .4 spaces on the release ladder to 11.50, closing out the year on the high note of Opera 11.60. With each of these releases, Speed Dial looked slicker, searching became easier, and the browser engine running the whole shebang got a mighty extra dose of processing power and rendering capability.

More places, more devices
Getting better was only part of the story in 2011 - Opera also got broader. We extended our reach to more places in the world, from China to Latin America to the Middle East. At the same time, we also found our way to a new set of screens, from tablets to TV And while we're talking about expansion, let's not forget getting onboard the A train, with Android.

Innovations
Within the browser, we added a number of very cool features this year. With folks around the world facing a new wave of data caps or other brakes on their browsing habits, Opera highlighted the benefits of our data compression technology with the Data Usage Tracker tool, which showed the total data savings by all our users over the period of one month to be the equivalent of 50 billion hamsters! (Now you know why get such a warm, fuzzy feeling whenever you think of Opera.) Not to be outdone, our tireless CTO Håkon Wium Lie improved the experience of reading online with the invention of paged reading in the browser. What will we cook up next in that mysterious lab/basement/garage/unmarked office where all the magic happens, you wonder? Well, if this year was any indication...

Other notable stuff
Our associations in the wider world spanned a particularly wide gamut, from sponsoring the worst hockey team in America to facilitating a real-life meetup of blogging sensation iJustine with legions of her Norwegian fans. We also paid our own sort of tribute to Oprah Winfrey, and participated in a random act of pizza.

But none of this would have been possible without the dedication and support of our users and fans, so thanks to each one of you for making 2011 such a great year. We look forward to doing even more in 2012!

Just in time for the holidays, we bring you the gift that keeps giving all year round: a new browser! Say hello to Opera 11.60.

We've redesigned everything from the inside out, starting with a brand-new HTML engine. More websites will work better and load faster in Opera - even secure sites using SSL technology. And not only that. Now vector graphics (SVG) can mix with HTML, enabling the next generation of Web applications.

Other great new features include a star function in the URL field which allows you to add your favorite sites to Speed Dial instantly, as well as a number of changes to Opera's email client to make it more intuitive and streamlined.

If you haven't gotten the auto-update already, go to opera.com. Or if you just want to read more about what's new, click here.

Our co-founder Jon S. von Tetzchner riding a narwhahl over a double rainbow.

Yes, we're not kidding. Opera 11.60 beta introduces Ragnarök, our implementation of the new HTML5 parsing algorithm. Because HTML5 specifies how browsers should handle incorrect code, browsers will soon handle coding missteps the same way - a big win for web-application compatibility across browsers.

Double Rainbows ? Why ?

YES! That's right. Opera 11.60 adds CSS3 radial gradients, so front-end designers can create hypnotic ellipses or awesome double rainbows like Bruce made (pro tip: right-click and select Inspect Element to see how he made it).

In addition to site compatibility fixes, Opera 11.60 beta also introduces long awaited visual improvements to the Opera Mail client:



For more info and download links to Opera 11.60 beta, visit the Desktop Team blog.