Well, I took some time to download, install, and mess with the newest version from Opera, and I am both excited and disappointed.
As others have reported, the places where Opera was lagging, like the JavaScript performance, it is now wicked fast. It’s like spice on an Emeril Lagasse recipe. Bam! The screen just hits. Bear in mind I’m doing this testing on a 2.8GHz P4 machine with Intel graphics.
I have the latest revision of Iron installed on this machine, and Iron seems a bit pokey now. who would have thought that. This is not simply my gushing because I love Opera, for I am also about to slam a few things. However, there are some pages I visit where I can count one, two, three, and then the page is there with Iron, the count gets to five with Opera 10.1, and with this pre-Alpha, there is barely one, and it’s complete. Of course this is not scientific, but it is fair, because if anything, I am being harder on Opera, as I hate reviewers that gush and then find that they are gushing for nothing, or for literary effect.
On the other hand, there are changes I am not liking, which I am assuming are because of the changes to get in line with Windows 7. (The machine I am now using this on is using Windows XP, and will be changing operating systems soon – it will be moving to Windows Server 2003, which will be fully service packed and then made to become 2003 Workstation, rather than functioning as a server. What that means is that the changes to this version of Opera will either be lost on me, or be annoying.
I hope that the developers of Opera are listening, and that they will choose “lost on” meaning that the browser will note that it is not running on Windows 7, and resume the previous screen behavior, rather than being oblivious, and forging ahead with annoying behavior that is not helpful on Windows 95 through Vista. This means a few possible code forks, but I believe it is best; after all, no one really cares if the download for a browser is 7 MB or 10 MB.
One thing I have not yet seen, is how this does work on a Windows 7 machine ( that is partly because of the apparent holiday that Newegg is taking – I ordered some computer parts for 3 day delivery, and apparently 3 days doesn’t mean 3 working days to them any longer).
I also note that the drop-down from the address box is missing – I certainly hope this is only a temporary flaw, for it is the one thing that annoys the most about Chrome or Iron. I rely on that drop-down MRU box, and anything that does not have it will not ever be on my list of favorite things.
As for my recommendations for people to download this – forget it. Not because of the lack of the MRU dropdown, but because there are so many changes are not there in this. There are many checkboxes that do nothing, being drawn for no reason just yet. There are many boxes in the Preferences area that have check boxes with no text explanation of what they do. These changes are not WYSIWYG, because you have to save, then look to see what has changed. OK for developers, not for end-users.
It is, however, very gratifying for the speed freaks, and hopefully the things that have made Opera what it now is will not be dropped simply to appease those who think Opera should bend the way of Windows 7′ interface. As I stated, a fork upon install would be best, IMHO. Perhaps a switch after install. But not all like, or use the taskbar pinning on Windows 7, and trying to force its use by removing familiar things is not the way to engage the public. What the developers don’t want to do is gain lots of new users, while losing many others, or having them stick with the older versions begrudgingly.
There are differences I see, and many I can take or leave. But, as with the drill-down menu removal from Windows 7, the removal of the MRU list from this new iteration is a bad move, and could be a deal breaker.
After having this on the machine for a few hours, I am removing it, and hopefully, I’ll be able to install an alpha release, with more of the code in place, soon.
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10.1 now, with an eye on the stable betas!