Opera 10.50 beta released
By
Kshitij Sobti |
Updated on 11-Feb-2010
Today Opera announced the first beta release of their upcoming Opera 10.50 browser. Just a few weeks back the release of Opera 10.50 pre-alpha left us amazed by how far the browser had come in terms of speed, and the browser has been improving since.
Unfortunately the first release of Opera 10.50 pre-alpha were too unstable to be of any use other than to marvel at the new interface and the blazing fast speed. With Carakan, the new Javascript engine, in the latest version, Opera 10.50 beta came out nearly 10% faster than the latest version of Google Chrome 5, and twice as fast as the latest developer build of Firefox 3.7 Alpha. For a thorough comparison of browser speeds check the comparison on Opera Blogs.
Also included is the Opera Turbo server-side compression technology which allows people with slow connection to experience significantly faster browsing by compressing data on their servers before it reaches you. Combined with the new JavaScript engine, this makes for a very snappy browsing experience, especially with web applications.
Support for web standards in opera continues to improve as Opera 10.50 comes with better HTML5 support, full CSS 2.1 support and greater CSS3 support. In this latest beta, Google Wave seems to run despite the message that it has crashed.
Going in the direction of many of today’s browsers, Opera 10.50 also includes a private browsing mode. In fact the private browsing mode in Oprea 10.50 is the best implementation so far, as it allows not only private browsing windows, but also private tabs! With a tabs privacy defined on a per-tab basis you can have a window with mixed private and non-private tabs.
However the changes are not only engine deep, Opera 10.50 has also revamped interface, opting for a Google Chrome-like tabs-on-top interface which makes good use of Aero effects in Windows Vista and 7. On Windows 7 systems Opera 10.50 also supports tab previews on the taskbar, and jumplists. The Aero transparency effects are skinnable, which allows for amusing styles such as this one, which is a fully transparent skin for Opera.
Most importantly, the beta version is now quite stable and is usable for everyday browsing. Unless you’re the kind of person who shies away from beta versions you will find Opera 10.50 sufficiently stable — after all, a little instability is OK when you are using the fastest browser of all.
Download Opera 10.50 beta now