Opera 10 has been in development for quite some time now and we are happy to announce that today it made another important step towards the final release. Opera 10 Beta 1 is here with quite a lot of new features and improvements to lure most users into at
least taking it for a test drive. The most noticeable change is in the interface which, everyone will agree, looks infinitely better than in previous releases. All the elements (buttons, icons, bars, etc.) were redrawn to provide a more consistent, professional feel.
If you're a fan of Opera, you are probably aware that, when hovering the mouse pointer over an open tab, a thumbnail of it would appear to let you see what exactly is in there. Well, the team of developers took this a step further and now, the whole tab bar can be resized to reveal thumbnails for all of your tabs (see the picture below).
The popular Speed Dial feature, an Opera innovation, is now fully customizable, meaning you get to choose the grid layout (2 x 2, 3 x 3, 4 x 4, 5 x 4 or 5 x 5) and even set the background to display your favorite picture, instead of the default white.
| Opera 10 Beta 1 for Linux |
But don't think that Opera is only about looks, as a lot of new technologies were implemented in this release to bring a faster browsing experience. First of all, Opera Turbo debuts to benefit those with slow Internet connections. It works by using a powerful, server-side compression method to significantly decrease loading times.
The Opera Presto rendering engine has been updated to version 2.2 with stability and security improvements. Moreover, Opera 10 Beta received a perfect score on the Acid3 web standards compliance test and has support for the upcoming HTML 5.
“We think Opera 10 will redefine how you can enjoy the Web. We have more surprises on the way, but when you try the features, enjoy the accelerated performance and get a glimpse at our shiny new wrapping, I think Opera 10 beta will excite both long-time users and those new to Opera.” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera Software, in the
official release announcement.
Download Opera 10 Beta 1 right now from
Softpedia.
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