Author Archive for Kelson

First Opera 9.60 Preview

Published
by
Kelson
on August 26, 2008
in Apple, Linux, Mac, Microsoft, Opera, Ubuntu, Web Browsers and Windows
. 0 Comments

Just days after the Opera 9.52 release, the Opera Desktop Team has posted the first preview of Opera 9.60. Highlights include:

Opera Link synchronizes more data, adding custom search engines and typed history (i.e. URLs that you type into the address bar).

Feed previews when you click on an RSS/Atom feed, so you can look at the content before subscribing.

Mail improvements including:

  • Low Bandwidth Mode. In this mode, IMAP will only synchronize new messages and only retrieve attachments when requested, and POP will only fetch the first 100 lines of each message until you request that it download the full message.
  • Follow/Ignore threads and contacts, making it easier to track discussions when you have a lot of messages.
  • Go To Thread, which filters the view to show only the current thread.

As usual, the preview is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Download the Opera 9.60 snapshot

4+ Million Downloads, 20 Million Users

Published
by
Kelson
on June 17, 2008
in Apple, Linux, Mac, Microsoft, Opera, Ubuntu, Web Browsers and Windows
. 0 Comments

Barely five days since the launch of Opera 9.5, the new release has already seen 4.7 million downloads. On average, that’s nearly a million downloads each day.

New usage figures are out as well, and they look just as good, with more than 20 million users running the desktop browser, and 12 million running Opera Mini. That’s twice the number of users they had when Opera 9.0 appeared two years ago.

To put these numbers in perspective:

  • Nearly one-fourth of Opera users downloaded the new release within the first five days.
  • Opera Mini has more than half as many users as Opera Desktop.
  • More people use Opera Desktop each month than live in the state of New York (2006 population estimate).
  • More people use Opera Mini each month than live in Greece (2002 population estimates).

Opera 9.5 on the Horizon

Published
by
Kelson
on June 11, 2008
in Apple, Linux, Mac, Microsoft, Opera, Ubuntu, Web Browsers and Windows
. 0 Comments

Opera 9.5 Coming Soon

After months of betas and near-weekly previews, Opera 9.5 is nearly here. The first release candidate of the browser shipped today.

Opera 9.5 is a major update to the desktop web browser. Highlights include:

  • Opera Link synchronizes your bookmarks, Speed Dial, and notes between Opera on different computers, and even links to Opera Mini on your phone!
  • Enhanced address bar searches your entire browsing history, including the contents of each page.
  • Security enhancements: malware protection, improved fraud protection, and support for Extended Validation SSL Certificates
  • New rendering engine with improved site compatibility and performance.
  • Opera Dragonfly, the long-awaited tools for web developers.
  • New theme inspired by Scandinavian design.

And, of course, it’s all free.

If you want to try out a preview before launch, the Desktop Team has a release candidate available.

With Opera 9.5 and Firefox 3 both around the corner, June is shaping up to be a good month for the future of the web.

PayPal Asks: What Makes a Safe Browser?

Published
by
Kelson
on May 27, 2008
in Apple, Linux, Mac, Microsoft, Opera, Ubuntu, Web Browsers and Windows
. 0 Comments

Last month, eWeek reported that PayPal intends to block unsafe browsers from accessing their site. They’ve focused on phishing detection and support for Extended Validation SSL Certificates. So what are these features, and why does PayPal think they’re critical? And just which browsers are they likely to block?

Phishing protection has an obvious appeal for a site whose accounts are one of the biggest phishing targets on the web.  Opera 9.1 and up, Firefox 2, and Internet Explorer 7 check the websites they visit against lists of known fraudulent sites. These browsers will warn the users before they accidentally type their credentials into a bogus log-in form. While this makes no difference when a user is already on PayPal’s site, it does mean the user is less likely to get his or her password stolen, and thieves are less likely to carry out fraudulent transactions with the account.

Extended Validation or EV certificates are like normal SSL certificates: they encrypt your web activity to prevent eavesdropping. What makes them different is that EV certificates require the issuer to verify the site owner more thoroughly. Browsers with EV support will display an indication that the site has been verified, usually by turning part or all of the address bar green. This is intended to give the user greater confidence that the site is legit. EV certificates are currently supported by IE7 and development versions of Opera 9.50 and Firefox 3. (You can preview a version of Opera with EV support by downloading Opera 9.50 beta 2.)

(It’s worth noting that Opera 9.50 beta 2 is stricter about verifying EV certificates, and will not show PayPal with a green bar because it loads images and scripts from another site. More recent preview releases will, like IE7 and Firefox 3, be satisfied if the main page is EV and the resources are all protected by regular SSL.)

So which browsers might get turned away at the gate?

In a follow-up story, PayPal clarified that they have absolutely no intention of blocking current versions of any browsers, and that they would only block obsolete browsers on outdated or unsupported operating systems. So an Opera 9 user on Windows XP isn’t likely to get shut out of PayPal anytime soon. But a Windows 98 user might have cause for concern.

Browser detection is extremely tricky to get right, requiring frequent adjustments. It looks like PayPal intends to take the minimalist approach: Assume most browsers are capable of handling what you send them, and only block the problematic ones.