14 DAY TRIAL // The first taste of the next generation Opera browser is now available for download, offering a sneak peek into what the successor of Opera 10.60 will bring to the table. Opera Software has just announced the first Alpha development milestone of Opera 11, which was built for a while as Opera 10.70, until it was rebranded.
Early adopters and developers running Windows can now grab Opera 11 Alpha, install it and start test driving the release.
Of course, as is the case with all new major versions of browsers, Opera 11 sports a range of new features and improvements designed to kick up the user experience up a notch.
First off, testers will be able to notice that the installation experience for Opera 11 has changed. Opera Software labored to make the deployment process as smooth and as rapid as possible.
“At Opera we love speed and like to make everything fast, not only the browser but also the installation of Opera. Opera 11 will ship with a new installer for Windows,” noted Remigiusz Bondarowicz, from the Opera Desktop Team.
“The installation/upgrading is now twice as fast, and the installer download is about 10% smaller. Off course we'll optimize it even further in future builds.”
With Opera 11, early adopters will also get a boost in performance. According to the Norway-based browser vendor, Opera 11’s speed improvements are generated by a new JavaScript engine.
“We equipped it with the brand new Opera Presto 2.6.37 with improved performance, hundreds of bug fixes, enhancements in Web Standards support and support for Websockets,” Bondarowicz stated.
However, according to Opera Software, the focus with Opera 11 is extending the browser’s customization capabilities.
Already extremely flexible in terms of personalization, Opera has become even more customizable with the introduction of support for extensions.
Essentially, Opera 11 allows users to extend the browser by adding new features through extensions.
“With the Opera 11 alpha, you can personalize your browser with all your pet features and functionality. From now on, it is you who defines the best experience with the Opera browser,” Bondarowicz explained.
“Our focus when building an extension mechanism has been to enable closer integration with web pages and web applications, and we look forward to see what the creative developer community will come up with.
“Opera 11 alpha marks the beginning of the extensions mechanism in Opera. Before Opera 11 goes final we plan to include auto update for the extensions and a few other nice features to expand the functionality exposed to developers.”
Opera 11 Alpha for Windows is available for download here.
