Opera 12 Beta Released
 

Opera Software today released the beta version of Opera 12, codenamed "Wahoo", the latest entry in Opera's long line of desktop web browsers. Opera 12 is both smarter and faster than its predecessors and introduces new features for both developers and consumers to play with ahead of the final launch. Discover Opera 12 for yourself at http://www.opera.com/browser/next/.

It's a theme, not a meme

Themes give you an easy way to change the look of Opera to suit your tastes or your mood. Just select a new theme and - voila! - your new-look browser awaits. To try a theme for Opera 12 beta, visit http://addons.opera.com/themes.

http://www.techpowerup.com/img/12-04...eta_01_thm.jpg http://www.techpowerup.com/img/12-04...eta_02_thm.jpg



Themes are also easy to make. If you want to try your hand at making a theme for Opera, learn how to do it here: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/o...weight-themes/.

A separate process for plug-ins

Plug-ins are a leading cause of browser instability, so we gave them their own process. This way, when a plug-in crashes, it doesn't take Opera down with it.

Faster by being smarter

We gained speed improvements by further optimizing the network SSL code and used smarter tab loading to accelerate start-up and shut-down times.

Camera support

Opera 12 shows some of the new tricks available to web developers by supporting getUserMedia, an API that allows web applications to use hardware like your computer's built-in web cam. To try some demo applications, click here:

- Photo Booth
- Polaroid
- Color Picker
- Explode

Native pages in the browser

What if webpages could be laid out like a book with pages that can format automatically to the screen size? What if it only took a few lines of CSS code? The project was formerly known as Opera Reader, but we are opening it up for standardization as CSS3 Generated Content for Paged Media. You can try it for yourself in Opera 12.

A new sheriff in town

Opera upgraded its innovative security badge to make it easier to understand the security and privacy policies of the sites you visit. You can quickly see if a site is using your location information or wants to turn on your web cam.

Learning new languages

Opera 12 will come in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Hebrew thanks to new support and a remodeled interface for right-to-left scripts.

Extensions extended

The Opera extension platform becomes more powerful with the introduction of a Windows and Tabs APIs that allow extensions to control the windows and tabs in the browser.

Other cool things like:

- 64-bit versions for Mac and Windows
- Support for the Do Not Track header
- CSS3 Animations and Transitions
- HTML5 Drag and Drop
- Support for CORS - not the beer, but rather Cross-Origin Resource Sharing
- Opt-in hardware acceleration and WebGL

"Woo-hoo! After months of hard work, we're nearing the finish line on Opera 12," said Haakon Wium Lie, CTO, Opera Software. "There are so many new things to try. The paged media project has the potential to change the way browsers handle content, and camera support shows just how web applications can compete with native apps. With so many new features, especially for developers, Opera 12 is a platform to build upon. We're excited to share it with the world and see what people can create."

Opera user and proud!

I swapped to Opera once Firefox 4 beta hit. I'm glad I did.

Ditto!
I've been using Opera since the first free version (the one with ads, I believe that was v7 back in 2003 or 2004) and I've been loving it ever since! :rockout:

Running x64 version. It's awesome.

I used most Opera 12 builds and some were quite good (those more similar to 11.6x) and some (new ones) horrendous with a lot of issues (like bad favicons scaling - very annoying), instabilities, html5 video was screwed up and some builds had problems with loading pages (sometimes very slow and sometimes stopped loading pages completely)

and because last bild I tested (it was probably 1385) had almost all those issues I'm shocked they have RC (build 1387) now...

I like Opera Tabs/Tab Group, makes it easier with lots of open pages.

Nevermind, tried this new version, they still have not managed to implement a decent Bookmark managing system. It is a major hassle to get 500+ bookmarks sorted properly. Meh.

I just don't understand why Opera just doesn't gain any noticeable market share. Ever since version 10, things just skyrocketed in all segments. Version 11 was very good and 12 is just superb. But it's still crunching the 2-3% market share. Why!?

these hipsters and their opera XD

The only thing i think Opera does better right now then say FF, Google, IE etc would be that you can move any part of the UI anywhere pretty much without having to install something extra or write code to do so. Outside of that it's obscurity often cases websites to be displayed differently or even broken at times and it's speed and security is average and stability(the thing it had going for it besides UI) has been iffy sense 12 and the introduction of GPU acceleration. Frankly with 12, until stability is back or fixes for common problems are more public i'll be sticking to older builds and IE.

Operanian since years, this one is cooooooowlllll


But GPU acting is necessary?
My GPU now goes from 50 Mhz, to 450 Mhz to 750 Mhz, back and forth, while surfing sites....

You can disable GPU acceleration (I'm surprised it is not disabled by default as it is still heavily a work in progress)

Anyhow, to disable it, go to:
opera:config
and try searching for GPU or something like that (I'm still at the latest stable, so I don't know what to search for exactly)

Hardware acceleration have ugly font rendering and a lot of other issues related to fonts and other things. WebGL basically don't work at all.

and it crashes like crazy on me...

Thanks but I enabled it myself, but I am questioning the need to have it....

That used to be the case with Opera 6, 7, 8 and partially 9. Opera 10, 11 and now 12 rarely have problems with any webpage.

Omfg !!! Finally :D Waiting for final ... from alpha to beta 1 year ;D and now from beta to final ? xDDD

Opera the best IMHO... Fastest and most comfortable browser for daily use.

http://qkme.me/3ozha1

Sorry I just had to :D

Their usage share doesn't support this claim though :P

Looooong time Opera user here. Will definitely be trying this out.

I've been using Opera for years. It just works better than FF if you consistently have 60+ tabs open all the time. I'm a tab whore, and Opera has had the best tab management system for me.

I'm gonna fully switch to Opera 12 when it goes gold. Extensions work great, AdBlock now also collapses elements like in Firefox. It's really quick and i sort of love the exclusivity. 2-3 market share is just that :D