opera

Carriers try outflanking app stores with WAC

Nokia and Microsoft want to create a "third ecosystem" to rival the mobile phone realms built by Apple and Google--but carriers have an even broader alternative of their own.

Last year at the Mobile World Congress show, a group of them unveiled the Wholesale Applications Community. It's an effort to outflank native software and monolithic app stores with Web apps not tied as tightly to specific smartphones and available through a variety of conduits.

And this year at the show, they launched WAC.

"With the commercial launch of operator storefronts, handsets and applications, all based on … Read more

Sony TVs, Blu-ray players to offer Opera browser

Sony is partnering with Opera to enable Web browsing for the Japanese company's Bravia TVs and Blu-ray players.

According to the official press release, users can expect a full surfing experience, apps, and widget support based on emerging standards such as HTML5 advocated by Apple.

There's strangely no mention of Adobe Flash support, which is still widely utilized for Web-based mini games and videos.

Other new players providing built-in Internet browsers for their home A/V products are Samsung and LG, while Philips has been one of the pioneers, leading the trend since last year. … Read more

CES: Opera now browsing tablets, netbook PCs

LAS VEGAS--Browser-maker Opera Software is taking advantage of the tablet rage at CES this year to demo a preview build of the Opera browser for tablets and Netbook PCs.

We got a look at it last night on an Android-powered Galaxy Tab and on a Windows 7-powered IdeaPad tablet. We even took a video, but unfortunately, one important feature--Flash--wasn't implemented on the demo units we saw.

What we did see has potential. Opera for tablets has the usual URL and Google search bars, and tabbed browsing. It also has the typical features of search, bookmarking, and history, to name … Read more

Opera widgets are headed to Android

Today Opera Software announced that it's laying the groundwork to get its widgets platform onto its Android browsers. In lieu of extensions as employed by Mozilla Firefox, Opera uses widgets, small applications that run within the browser to perform tasks like showing the weather or a calculator.

From the development perspective, Opera's release of a widget runtime lets developers start creating these widgets for Android phones. It's alpha software, so consumers shouldn't start looking for these widgets yet.

Opera's widget runtime for Android uses a mobile application specification put forth by the WAC (Wholesale Applications … Read more

It's time to embrace software's auto-update era

Driven by Google and like-minded software makers, a new era is dawning in which your software is constantly refreshed--often without any intervention on your part at all.

Depending on how you see things, that could be either a scary loss of control over your own computer or a boon to convenience and security. Either way, the practice is increasingly common.

I, for one, welcome it.

In the last week or so, I've manually updated Google's Chrome, Chrome Canary, and Picasa; Adobe Systems' Flash Player, Photoshop, Premiere, and AIR; Microsoft Windows 7 and Office 2008 for the Mac; Apple … Read more

Opera 11 rocks out

The bottom line: Extensions, highly competitive page-load times, cutting edge features, and strong support for "future Web" technologies make Opera 11 one of the best browsers available.

Review: The second-oldest browser currently in use, Opera debuted way back in 1995 and has recently undergone a major overhaul. No longer the quirky choice of enthusiasts, Opera has developed into a robust, full-featured suite of browsing tools.

Opera covers the basics with tabbed browsing, mouse-over previews, a customizable search bar, advanced bookmarking tools, and simple integration with e-mail and chat clients. Mouse-gesture support, keyboard shortcuts, and drag-and-drop functionality round out … Read more

Opera 11 joins the add-ons club

Mobile Opera may be driving the Norwegian browser company's growth, but that doesn't mean that the desktop browser is getting ignored. Debuting today, Opera 11 for Windows, Mac, and Linux has only gotten more stable since the beta version of the browser launched last month.

The most requested of the new features is the lightweight extension API framework, which brings to Opera a long-missing capability to directly add to and customize the browser. Having launched while the browser was in beta, there are already several popular extensions available, including ad-blocker NoAds; YouTube downloader FastestTube; Image Preview Popup for … Read more

Top downloads and more

Download.com served up more than a billion software downloads in 2010--a huge feat, to be sure. And it may be tough to believe, but just 10 products made a huge contribution to that number. To recognize the programs that have dominated the Most Popular list for this year, we ranked the top 10 in 2010 among Windows downloads for your viewing pleasure.

Also, it may not have made our top 10 list, but Freemake Video Convertert certainly has its fair share of loyal fans. Since the software recently revved to version 2.0, we checked it out yet again … Read more

Opera for Android to get HTML5 video, Flash

Two significant features are coming to Opera Mobile for Android, the Oslo company's higher-end smartphone browser: playing HTML5 video and accommodating Adobe Systems' Flash Player plug-in.

"New Web technologies aim to replace it, but Flash will be around for some time. If you have Flash player installed on your phone, Opera will support it," mobile team member Pavel Studeny said in a blog post on Saturday.

HTML5 video, one of those technologies that encroaches on Flash's turf, lets developers embed video directly into a Web page, as happens with images. It's also en route Studeny … Read more

Opera goes to 11 with an extensions API

Editors' note: This post originally stated that the Opera 11 beta was not yet available for Linux. In fact, Opera 11 beta 1 for Linux is available for download here.

Opera may be getting most of its attention these days from its mobile browsers, but that doesn't mean that the company is ignoring its desktop browser. The first beta for Opera 11 introduces a long-missing extensions API in a lightweight profile similar to those that run on WebKit-powered browsers like Chrome and Safari.

Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Opera 11 beta 1 debuts other minor but useful changes. … Read more