Opera 7.23 final

oh don't act surprised ;)

[amznVibe]

The month isn't over, so here is yet another opera release:
Windows
ftp://ftp.opera.com/pub/opera/win/723/en/std/ow32enen723.exe

Linux
ftp://ftp.opera.com/pub/opera/linux/723/final/en/

Build number only went from 3221 for 7.22 to 3226 for 7.23 so not too much I guess.
(note the lack of "beta" or "preview" in the path)

This should be active in a few days:
[opera.com...]

[edited by: amznVibe at 2:30 am (utc) on Nov. 21, 2003]

[lorax]

Wuff...another one?! It seems like just yesterday I installed the last one.

Tanx.

[DrDoc]

And that surprises you?
It's not any worse than the patches released for Windows or IE ;)

[TGecho]

At least here there's noticable progress on top of an already excellent product :)

[bill]

...which brings about the question, "just how much time per day does amznVibe spend lurking in Opera's FTP server?" ;)

Thanks for the heads up.

[GaryK]

In a way this is like downloading MS security patches since the change log for 7.23 lists only two changes that both deal with security issues. I'm no MS-lover but it seems somehow unfair that Opera isn't picked on in the same way MS is for its security flaws.

[Distel]

Hmmmm, there is a bit of a difference, though:

1. Opera is free, whereas Windows isn't.
2. Opera doesn't have a quasi-monopoly, and you can easily do without (although I wouldn't want to ;-) )

Just a thought.

[troels nybo nielsen]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, Distel.

> Opera is free

That is a matter of definition. If you do not want to buy Opera you pay for it indirectly by giving real estate on your screen to advertisers.

But your other point has full value.

------

I hesitate a bit to upgrade once again. When I upgraded from 7.21 to 7.22 I hit into mysterious problems with the mail client which may or may not be Opera's fault.

-------

I am a bit sentimental about Opera. Being Scandinavian I have to admit a certain degree of quasi-nationalistic pride in my attitude to Scandinavian products of high quality though it must be said that AFAIK the development team behind Opera is rather international.

[Distel]

Thanks, Troels.

I've gotten so used to ignoring the banners on websites, I don't even notice that Opera banner anymore. And in the end, I severely limit the amount of icons on my toolbar, so removing that banner would result in unused, empty realestate anyway. :)

BTW, what part of Scandinavia are you from? I've been planning to learn Norwegian for a while now, but in the daily contest between my Norwegian learning book and my computer, the computer always seems to win. ;)

[GaryK]

I continue to be amazed that 7.23 was released so quickly after 7.22 for the sole purpose of correcting two potentially serious security issues and yet nobody seems concerned about it.

Have we all become so accustomed to security patches that we hardly take notice of them anymore?

[troels nybo nielsen]

Distel, I'm from Denmark. And be carefull remembering that Norwegians may have another attitude to scandinavism than Danes have. There are historic reasons for this.

GaryK, Opera in general are very quick in correcting security issues. This may be a reason for the relaxed attitude of the users.

[Solution1]

I'm noticing a difference in rendering with 7.11, that makes this version appear a bit slow.

The previous version I was using would immediately start rendering any HTML code, making it look very busy. I could for example see ALT-texts very briefly of all images being loaded. (I didn't quite like that.)

This version waits some 0.3 seconds or so before displaying the page. IE 6.0 does something similar, but it works much smoother there.
Opera 7.23 even does it when there isn't any reason to do so, I noticed. I have a start page that is a local HTML file that doesn't contain any graphics, so it should load immediately. When I click the Home button, it still takes this 0.3 seconds before it displays.

[Birdman]

I could for example see ALT-texts very briefly of all images being loaded. (I didn't quite like that.)

I recently upgraded to 7.22 and I agree, it is annoying. My 6.04 loaded the page better, in my opinion.

I do like the new skin though.

[Tor]

And be carefull remembering that Norwegians may have another attitude to scandinavism than Danes have. There are historic reasons for this.

?

[dragonlady7]

> historic reasons

Being subjugated by Sweden for centuries might have an effect on one's Scandinavian pride. :D
I know very little about it, though.

I also know very little about Opera, but have been meaning to install it and have a look around. Cheers for reminding me, all. :>

[MatthewHSE]

What are the main benefits to Opera? I tried it for the first time a couple of days ago and found it much less convenient than FireBird, and not any faster. But I know many people here couldn't get by without Opera. So I'd like to know, what are the best points to it? (And does the paid version get rid of that huge ad window, or does the same space get filled up with something else?)

[TGecho]

To answer your last question, the ad space can easily be filled (there's plenty of stuff you an put there) or collapsed to give pages more real estate.

Why Opera? For me it's all of the little customization options, shortcuts, and innovative features. Very few of them are amazing by themselves, but they all add up to a solid package.

I use Firebird for testing and I would choose it over IE any day, but after getting used to Opera's multitude of useful features I just can't switch. I'm hooked.

[Solution1]

Opera has always been claimed to be the fastest browser, but I've never been able to confirm that for myself.

A few years ago, my new computer needed repairs, so I had to work with my old one. An excellent occasion to see if Opera is faster, I thought, as the slow 486 120MHZ would make differences in speed quite obvious.
I'm not sure which version of Opera I was trying, it must have been 4 or so, but compared to IE 5.5 it was definitely slower.

A couple of months ago I've been comparing Opera 7.11 to Netscape 7 and IE 6. To my eyes, it was definitely faster than Netscape, but slower than IE 6 in displaying pages.
At the time it mattered particularly to me what some renewed page for my site was doing in different browsers.

This page didn't need to be in the SERPs, was one of the most requested on my site, had a lot of repeating elements - and I wanted to reduce bandwidth. So I used javascript functions to render the page, effectively reducing it's size by 60%.
It displayed fastest in IE 6, not in Opera.

Today I wanted to see if indeed the javascript of Opera would have increased speed, as was claimed on this board for 7.21. But the initial delay in displaying pages made it slower again than IE 6, particularly on this page.

[photon]

Mouse gestures, to name one.

[MatthewHSE]

Using Opera right now and liking what I see. But so far, I haven't found anything that Firebird hasn't got, and Firebird is more customizable.

Opera's good, though. No denying that! (Also seems to render a page a bit more predictably than Firebird. I've noticed that FB tends to leave "chunks" out of some pages until you go to another tab then come back.)