14 DAY TRIAL // The developers behind the Opera web browsers have used an early build of version 22 to introduce a completely new silent auto-update engine that should make downloading and installing app updates easier and smoother.
No UAC prompts will be displayed from now on, which clearly makes the process faster and easier for users, but the developing team has made many more improvements to version 22.0.1460.0.
Starting today, all new auto-update packages will be delivered to users as patches, and not as full installers as was the case with older versions. This could help save bandwidth and help those with a monthly download quota, the developers said.
In case you’re looking for some information about the way the developing team managed to implement this new auto-update system, here’s what they said earlier today in a blog post:
“The silent autoupdate feature is implemented using a scheduled task. Those of you familiar with the Windows Task Scheduler should be able to use it to retrieve information about the task. The scheduled task is supposed to run on system startup and every day initially, but we can adjust it run every few days instead if we need to reduce the load on our servers.
When Opera is running, it will keep track of whether the scheduled task is running normally and will attempt to run it manually when needed. If all else fails (which should really not happen), Opera will fall back to running autoupdate itself and in such a case, UAC prompts might appear anyway.”
On the other hand, developers warn that for users who installed the browser with a standard account and chose to deploy files only for the “Current User,” UAC prompts might still show up.
As you can see, Opera is getting better and better, even though its market share still places it below the fiercest rivals, namely Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Internet Explorer.
Obviously, those who wish to try out the new Opera browser can download the fresh builds using the links below, but keep in mind that it’s still a developer version, so some bugs could still exist in the application. As far as we’re concerned, this new build seems to be very stable and reliable, but it’s still not recommended to be installed on production machines and be used as your main browser.