It seems as though Opera is about to launch their own iPad specific browser. Opera was showing off their iPad version at the Mobile World Congress that was in Barcelona last week.
Opera appeared to bury this announcement at the bottom of a press release, placing the iPad at the end of a long laundry list of platforms that will be receiving this new software:
“At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, new versions of the Opera Mini browser on Android, iPhone, J2ME, BlackBerry, Symbian and even the iPad will appear.”
Opera has released the new Opera 11.01, which adds security fixes and stability improvements to the popular web browser.
The full changelogs are linked from the blog post announcing the new release.
The security issues that have been fixed in Opera 11.01 are the following:
Removed support for “javascript:” URLs in CSS -o-link values, to make it easier for sites to filter untrusted CSS.
Fixed an issue where large form inputs could allow execution of arbitrary code.
Fixed an issue which made it possible to carry out clickjacking attacks against internal opera: URLs;
Fixed issues which allowed web pages to gain limited access to files on the user’s computer;
Fixed an issue where email passwords were not immediately deleted when deleting private data;
Fixed an issue which could cause the wrong executable to be used to display a downloaded file in its folder
Opera 11.01 is a recommended update for every Opera 11 user. It is possible to update the web browser directly by clicking on Help > Menu > Check for Updates.
The latest version of Opera can also be downloaded directly from Opera Software.
LastPass is known to be one of the most used applications to maintain our passwords in browsers and computers, and now they are offering the extension for Opera browser.
LastPass extension existed to all other popular browsers: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome; and now they will be available for Opera.
Opera is providing a new beta version (Opera 11) for a browser which will support extensions, and fortunately combining browsing with some nice extensions will be possible.
LastPass is a nice a simple tool and very recommendable if you have several passwords to remember and you need to maintain those synchronized.
StatCounter published a chart representing the top 12 browser versions existing; which we can distribute among continents or even particular countries. In this data I’m pretty sure you can find some surprises, take a look.
Ok, there’s no surprise if I say Internet Explorer is ruling over the world (Microsoft already had a lot of problems regarding this); but what do you think about Internet Explorer 6 (developed in 2001) being the third most used browser? Or that Firefox 2.0 has more popularity than Opera 10?
As strange as it could sound to you, the Opera team released RC3, RC4 and RC5 with just a few hours apart. I guess there’s a lot of expectation in the team and the public when you announced a while ago that this version will be 7 times faster than the previous (yes, you read it right, 7 times).
And how do they accomplish this, using a new JavaScript engine: Carakan. But not everything is new; they are using a Chrome method to also achieve some velocity, JavaScript pre compilation instead of interpreting (JIT compilation).
Some of other features included:
New HTML engine: Presto 2.5.
New graphic library: Vega; which is three times faster than the previous.
Highly integrated with Vista and Windows 7.
New Mac version as well where they’ve re written the Cocoa application.
Multi touch support.
Supporting Growl notifications.
Private browsing feature.
Refreshed user interface with a few mall functionalities added.
Microsoft’s answering the European Commission after a lot of struggling and starting tomorrow, March 1st, Windows users will have the chance to decide which browser will be your default in your machine.
Web Browser Ballot will be available in Windows XP, Vista and 7 operating systems as a Windows update. Soon as you download the update, a window will appear where the browsers will be listed randomly from which you’ll select your default browser.
I found very interesting the feature available for randomly listing the browsers, which avoids any suggestion that could induce a user to make a pick according to the location in your screen of the browsers. Here’s evidence of the random is actually working:
Internet Explorer 8 showing third in browser’s list.
Internet Explorer 8 showing first in browser’s list.
From what we know, the ballot will only appear to users that have Internet Explorer as the default browser; if you have any other as default, the list won’t appear to you.
I’m a huge fan of music. I’ve got several versions of the iPod for a variety of occasions, I’ve got streaming music players all over my computer, I’ve got sites bookmarked that stream audio from overseas; for me, there’s just nothing better than paying music for inspiration, clarity, and nostalgia. To increase my music listening abilities I’ve used plugins such as FoxyTunes to give me access to my music straight from my browser, but what if I’m not home or on my laptop. There’s a good chance I’ve got my mobile on me and I can stream from there, but for those of us always changing computers, or using public computers, there’s now an interesting option that we can participate with.
Stereo8 is a new stream audio web app that streams straight from your browser. No downloading, no installing, no problems. Just about any browser should work (I tested on Safari, Firefox, IE6 and IE7, Opera, and Chrome). Simply select a genre of music you want to listen to, and let the music play. You can interact with the music by voting on what you like, and those votes determine what’s played. Stereo8 calls it self a true internet radio with a twist. That twist is that listeners can vote and share music with one another making it a social community of sorts.
As I write this article I’ve picked the video game category and have listened to some of the biggest games from my present and past. In some of the other categories I was listening to songs that perhaps I was not a fan of myself, and some more obscure songs that I never even knew existed, which is not always a good thing. But if you’re looking to be introduced to something new and unique, far from the beaten path you’re used to traveling, then perhaps Stereo8 is for you. A few stations I found really solid, and just now they started playing the Terran theme from Starcraft, so that’s just an idea of the kind of music you’ll be listening to (at least on the game channel).
With updates to Flock, Firefox, Opera, and even IE, browsers are becoming key factors in how we choose to integrate our online experiences with our daily lives. Each of the above mentioned browsers have key factors that stand out and make them useful to someone, all depending on our tastes. What if you could find a search engine that learned, adapted, and showed you extra content that you would not have found otherwise?
Worio is the social search that has somehow found a way to intelligently learn from your search habits and adapt itself to your likes and dislikes. Worio creator Ali Davar focuses on the search as a form of discovery. He comments that Worio will show you things that you perhaps never even thought of, but are related to your initial search.
The idea of discovery is key to Worio, and information is collected and saved on your habits. The mechanism can be turned off and it will simply function like any other search engine, but the uniqueness also comes in being able to share your favorite links and sites right from the search, without having to rely on social bookmarketing efforts or emailing people. Anyone within your network can see your habits and you can see theirs. Taking this concept a step further, Worio now supports Facebook connect. Now you can directly share your passion, your searches with friends in Facebook and open people up to a whole new world of discovery.
The search looks very promising and has a bright future, we’d love to hear what you think.
Microsoft’s answering the European Commission after a lot of struggling and starting tomorrow, March 1st, Windows users will have the chance to decide which browser will be your default in your machine.
