I just removed my Opera 9.64 and installed Opera 10 Beta 1. New Opera even in Beta is stable enough for daily use, and I must admit it is pure evil. Its faster then ever. Facebook is working now smooth like a milk, javascript speed is faster more then 20 times. Few javascript intense pages now do not slow down Opera. Acid 3 test is hitting score 100/100. There is new skin but old skin are working flawless, so I just brought back old one Tango CL skin. One thing is not working for me. My userjs SEObar script. Hope I will manage it somehow. Obviously M2 client got upgraded too.

This new opera is introducing us two new great features. First one is Automatic Update. From now on, we will have always latest Opera automaticly. Second one is inline spell checker. This is something that most Opera users awaited eagerly. Now when I type any English text on any text box, Opera is checking my spelling. Great thing for non English speakers.

One another thing I just noticed is new function for tab bar. You can resize it. But when you resize over certain border, tabs becomes thumbnails of open webpages. Quite interesting effect

Love is in the air

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I searched all over the net for latest browser speed comparison test and I did not find anything,  so I decided why not to make test myself.  I already had on my pc, Opera and Firefox so I downloaded latest version of IE7, Chrome and Safari. Since I am big Opera fan and I am using Opera Browser for  over 9 years I thought that Opera will easily blow up opponents just like it did maybe two years ago. However I did not count that Chrome is so blazing fast.  I used few old tests from HowToCreate.co.uk and Java Script tests from CelticKane.com and also I added few of my own… All browsers are tested on same machine Athlon 3800 64bit, Gigabyte M55S-S3 mainboard and 2 gb DDR2 ram and Windows XP with SP2.

Browsers:

Opera 9.63
Firefox 3.0.4
Internet Explorer 7.0.5730.13
Google Chrome 1.0.154.36
Apple Safari 3.2.1

All browsers are tested “out of the box” without any extension or plugin.
This gave significant advantage to Firefox, since it is considerable slower with just couple of extensions.

1. Cold Start:
For cold start test, I run the programs (after windows finish loading) and then I measure time of loading until browser is ready for use. I measure 3 times and between any test I reset my pc. For other tests I also measured 3 times and then calculated average value…  After first test, Chrome already jumped on the first place with unbolivable load of only 1,6 seconds. Opera was second with 3,7 second and surprise was Internet Explorer with just 0,1 second behind Opera. Safari started bad with very slow loading with over 10 seconds.

2. Warm Start
Warm start is the test when I run browser then turn it off and then start it again without turning or logging out from windows. I hardly got Chrome loading time in this case, since it was incredible fast.  Safari, for a difference from last test, was now very fast to. Opera and Firefox are slower then first three.

3. Acid 2 test
Acid 2 is web standard compliance test. All browsers easily passed, but IE7 failed completely  with ruining and deforming that poor face.

4. Acid 3 test
After easy job on ACID 2, neither one browser passed Acid 3 test. However Opera scored most points, ending it with the score of 85. Chrome was second with the score of 79. Some alpha and beta version of browser are already passing successfully  this test…

5. CSS speed test
This test was taken from HowToCreate.co.uk!
Quote:
To test CSS rendering speed I use a CSS benchmark test devised by nontroppo. The test measures the time it takes the browser to render a page consisting of almost 2500 positioned DIVs. The page is stored locally, loaded once to pre-load it, then reloaded 3 times, and the average time taken  for those three renderings. The page is the first page loaded after starting the browser (after logging out and in). All browsers took significantly  longer during the initial load, which is why I discount this initial load, as it does not reflect the reality of normal rendering. Safari and Firefox headed clear victory here leaving behind Opera then Chrome and IE7.

6. Javascript speed
I assigned  browsers to celtickane.com javascript speed test. Every browser is tested three times and then average speed is calculated. Chrome won  again with Safari on second, Opera on third, Firefox on 4th and as expected IE7 on the last place.

7. Memory usage
I started every browser with one tab. Opened google.com and then checked with Chrome “memory usage option” how much every browser take memory.  IE7 taked easy victory here probably because parts of the IE are in some other windows processes which are not counted. Safari taked shameful last place with using over 65 MB for loading only one page.

8. Setup Size
Opera used to have smallest installation file but now Firefox takes that place. Interesting thing is that if you dont need additional languages then Opera setup.exe is smaller then 6 mb, however since Opera gives this file for download by default then I took that file in count.

9. Options
Firefox got second win. By using extension firefox becomes very powerful tool. Main reason why people use it. Opera widgets are silly thing in  relation to extensions and UserJS are ok but not good as Firefox Extensions. However this bring another conclusion, Firefox without extension is  nothing. If you integrate to many extension then Firefox performance decrease significantly, almost 4-6 times… As I already mentioned this tests are conducted on Firefox without single extension. Just Out of the box. Even with that problem, Firefox easily take  win here leaving Opera behind. This category gives also to Chrome first last place since Chrome in current stage looks like a hairless person

Conclusion and FINAL SCORE.
Opera do not have advantage any more. Instead of advantage it is neither anymore the fastest. Chrome is ahead, then Opera on second place  and Firefox just behind it (depends on personal taste). Safari is ok browser but weaker then first three, and it looks that Apple marketing is just a bunch of lies.  IE7 is the bad thing. Just like a IE6. But since people get it free with windows they still use it. If we counted Opera powers of customizing skins, moving elements  (such as menus, buttons,  toolbars, adressbar, statusbar, skins) then Opera would  be easily be on first place…

For myself, I am going to stick with the Opera. Chrome, even if it is fastest, dont have some  key capabilities. Probably people who use Firefox think the same as Opera fans…
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SEObar – is a powerful tool for web-site promoters and analysts. SEObar is compatible to work with Opera 8 and Opera 9 browser.

SEObar can display the following information on the page of your browser:

Alexa Traffic Rank
Google Page Rank
Yandex CY (Russian SE)
Directory data:
DMOZ: Open Directory Project
Yahoo! Directory
Yandex.Directory (Russian SE)
Rambler’s Top100 (Russian SE)
Number of backward links:
Google
Yahoo – references for current page or domain
MSN – references for current page or domain
Yandex – number of referring pages and sites (Russian SE)

The information is displayed in the SEObar’s panel and the browser’s status bar.

However i noticed that it not function very well on page with frames. You must load only page showed in frame and it dont work sometime on pages with inline frames…

Here is print screen how it looks like on basic view…

Download latest version and see all details about how to setup, use and install you can find on official
OPERA SEOBAR webpage.

http://puzzleclub.ru/files/seobar/index.html

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1. Skin. It is very ugly.
Solution: right click bellow menu bar, click on “Customize” then go to tab “Skin” then “Find more skins” then download Opera Classic Skin probably first one or which ever you like.

2. Status bar at bottom. Personnaly dont use status bar and like that is by default off.
Solution: View -> Toolbars -> Unchek status bar
For all others who does then this location is probably natural, but you can place it
top left right or bottom at
View -> Toolbars -> Chek status bar and select appropriate “Placement”

3. Again Progress bar is up. Not like old school Opera.
Solution: Right click bellow menu bar, click on “Customize”, go to Toolbars, then set progress bar
“Pop-up at bottom”.

4. You cant open panels any more with clicking the left border of Opera.
Solution: Right click bellow menu bar, click on “Customize”, go to “Panels”.
Set Panel placement to Off, and check “Show panel toggle at edge of window.

Big problems:
5. JCE WYSIWYG editor do not work anymore in Opera.
Solution: It work at new 9.51, so simple update will solve the thing.

6. When you turn off Opera in Vista you cant turn it on.
Solution: Wait few seconds (30-100) or kill it from task manager.
Permanent solution: not found yet

Thats it for now. Hope that new Opera will resolve problems with JCE WYSIYG editor.
Also i hoped that ACID 3 will be owned but its not.

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