Following a few months of beta testing, Opera 10 has finally been released and is available for download.
We previewed the new features and performance in June, but the main additions you can expect are:
- an improved interface
- a re-sizable tab bar with page previews
- in-line spell checking
- webmail integration
- HTML email composition
- auto-updates
- crash recovery
- Opera Turbo — a new proxied compression system that can speed up a slow Internet connection.
Even better — they’ve improved the application logo (about time!)
Developers can also utilize several new facilities including:
- a better DragonFly; Opera’s Firebug-like development and debugging console
- web fonts
- HSL (Hue, Saturation and Luminosity) colors in CSS
- CSS opacity within RGB and HSL declarations
- JavaScript DOM element selection using CSS-like syntax
- improved SVG support
- rudimentary HTML5 support
My first impressions are good. Opera 10 is slick and looks better than the competition. It feels just as fast as Chrome or Safari with many of the customization options and power tools in Firefox. It’s early days, but I’m increasing tempted to use Opera as my default browser … I recommend you try it for yourself.
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Craig BucklerCraig is a freelance UK web consultant who built his first page for IE2.0 in 1995. Since that time he's been advocating standards, accessibility, and best-practice HTML5 techniques. He's created enterprise specifications, websites and online applications for companies and organisations including the UK Parliament, the European Parliament, the Department of Energy & Climate Change, Microsoft, and more. He's written more than 1,000 articles for SitePoint and you can find him @craigbuckler.
