Opera 10.50 Beta Build 3266 Fixes Windows 7 Crashes

Not counting the Mac OS X and Linux flavors, Opera Software made available no less than five testing releases of the next version of its browser for Windows the past week. The latest development snapshot was released Sunday, February 21, 2010, and brings to the table fixes for HTML5 <video> and Windows 7 related crashes. Despite having produced a plethora of development snapshots, Opera 10.50 has advanced only a little since February 11th, when the browser graduated from Alpha to Beta. In this regard, Opera 10.50 continues to be in Beta 1 stage, with the Norway-based browser maker producing testing snapshots at a high rate, without indicating when the next major development milestone is scheduled for release.

“HTML5 <video> should be working again, and we reverted the fix that caused the crashes in Windows 7. The changelog is basically: fixed - DSK-282162 <video> element no longer working; reverted fix - DSK-278062 File icons in the download dialog are stretched,” revealed a member of the Opera Desktop Team. “Thanks to those of you who gave us feedback on upgrading for the previous build! Do let us know if anyone finds any further problems when upgrading.”

Just a day ahead of Opera 10.50 Beta Build 3266’s delivery, Opera Software made available Build 3263, which was plagued by a variety of problems. Specifically, the browser maker informed that the Build offered on February 20 was affected by problems generating crashes under Windows 7 and that HTML5 <video> was broken.

Of course, users looking to try out Opera 10.50 Beta should understand that the Beta tag implies that the software has inherent issues, including problems affecting reliability, stability and functionality. Each development snapshot of Opera 10.50 comes with a “use at your own risk” warning, which informs users that they would be running pre-release software.

“This is a development snapshot: it contains the latest changes, but may also have severe known issues, including crashes and data loss situations. In fact, it may not work at all,” reads the message, which is also valid for Opera 10.50 Beta Build 3266.

The latest development snapshot of Opera 10.50 Beta for Windows is available for download here.