28 replies to this topic 4 votes

[Yogurth]

http://www.opera.com...nts-in-opera-12

Twelve under-the-hood improvements in Opera 12, and 11.65

By Huib Kleinhout(huibk). Thursday, June 14, 2012 8:05:38 AM

Opera 12 has been released today! With Opera's new theming support it's easier than ever to dress Opera the way you like. But behind Opera's visual changes there are numerous of technical enhancements in Opera 12. Here are 12 of our favorite under-the-hood improvements in this release.

Faster startup with many tabs
Previously it could take a while to start Opera if you had many tabs open. In Opera 12 tabs are loaded smarter; fewer at the time with those that are visible or recently accessed loading first. Opera now always starts up equally fast no matter how many tabs you have open.

Out-of-Process Plug-ins
Plug-ins are notorious for causing stability issues. In fact almost one third of all crashes in Opera are caused by plug-ins. In Opera 12 plug-ins are isolated in a separate process, when they crash all you need to do is reload the page.

Experimental Hardware Acceleration and WebGL
Opera 12 contains experimental support for full hardware acceleration and WebGL. While the stability and performance depends on the OS, drivers and graphics card, it is already available for testing. Enabling opera:config#UserPrefs|EnableWebGL allows you to test WebGL content and enabling opera:config#UserPrefs|EnableHardwareAcceleration makes not only the web page but the whole user interface being render via the graphics card. By accessing opera:gpu you can check the current status of Hardware Acceleration and WebGL. Using opera:config#UserPrefs|Preferredrenderer you can switch between OpenGL (0) and DirectX (1).

opera:cpu
Is something slowing down Opera or your computer? You can now easily check with opera:cpu.

Improved loading performance
In Opera 12 the loading of pages has been optimized to ensure that resources like scripts, style sheets and images are loaded more efficiently. The result: Faster loading of pages!

Improved performance on secure connections
When loading a secure page (https) the browser goes through a complex process to establish a secure connection. This exact steps in this process vary from web server to web server, depending on the certificates, version and implementation of TLS they support. For Opera 12 we've analyzed and optimized many of the different steps in this process. Overall many secure pages are now loading faster than before!

RTL
In each release Opera learns a new language. New in Opera 12 is the capability to support Right-To-Left languages which makes it possible to support Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Urdu. With Kazakh in addition, Opera is now translated into 55 languages.

Improved HTML5 support
HTML5 is the heart and soul of the web. Opera 12 adds support for drag and drop, camera access (getUserMedia), css animations and more.

Improved extensions support
The windows/tabs extensions api has been revamped to include support for access to tab stacks. Check out dev.opera for more upcoming extension features.

64 bit Windows and Mac
Opera 12 is now available in 64 bit for all platforms. Note that because 64 bit applications use more memory than their 32 bit equivalent, the default version of Opera for Windows will continue to be 32 bit.

Do Not Track
Opera 12 enhances your privacy by supporting the "Do Not Track" feature. You can enabled it in Opera's Preferences dialog (Preferences > Advanced > Security > Ask websites not to track me).

Improved address field suggestions
Based on feedback from you we've implemented numerous of tweaks to the address field making the suggested results cleaner, more accurate and more relevant.


Try out Opera 12 and stay tuned for new Opera Next builds!

Update: Mac App Store edition

Opera 12 was released earlier today through all our distribution channels but one. We now also announce the released of Opera 11.65, a security and stability update for the version of Opera that is distributed exclusively through the Mac App Store (MAS).

As of June 1st, it has been a requirement for all applications in the MAS to be using Mac OS’ sandboxing security technology. Although Opera itself has completed all the work needed and is running fine in a sandboxed environment, we have chosen to delay the MAS release of Opera 12 with sandboxing enabled. To ensure that our users get the best experience, we need third party plug-ins such as Flash Player from Adobe and Java from Apple/Oracle working in a sandboxed environment. These key third-parties still need more time to update their products.

Opera 12 for Mac without sandboxing is available from http://www.opera.com/browser/ today, and Opera 11.65 will be made available in the Mac App Store shortly.



http://www.opera.com/browser/

[Copernic]

Yesterday:

http://www.neowin.ne...-final-released

[funkydude]

They finally caught up to other browsers, nice. I hope the 6... release candidates got it stable enough!

[+ViperAFK]

looks like opera beat google and firefox in making a proper stable 64 bit release .

[DJGM]

The Opera Unite personal web server feature has been discontinued with Opera 12, so I'm sticking with Opera 11.62
until I have completed transferring my website and other web content, to an actual physical web server in my office.

I am already using the physical web server for hosting screengrabs to post on forums like this ... but some of my
website content is still hosted on my PC with Opera Unite, so I won't be upgrading Opera until it's transferred.

[Miuku.]

ViperAFK, on 14 June 2012 - 13:15, said:

looks like opera beat google and firefox in making a proper stable 64 bit release .

Chromium has been available as 64 for a long time.

[Nagisan]

Any benchmarks between Opera 12 and other general public browser versions yet (ie. Chrome 19, etc)?

[Zlip792]

Miuku., on 14 June 2012 - 13:35, said:

Chromium has been available as 64 for a long time.

Where for Windows?

[+Blank]

Aww, already removing Unite? But wasnt unite supposed to "change and reinvent the web"? haha sad.

[+ViperAFK]

Miuku., on 14 June 2012 - 13:35, said:

Chromium has been available as 64 for a long time.

chromium doesn't auto update and lacks things chrome has such as the pdf viewer.

.Neo, on 14 June 2012 - 14:12, said:

Not everyone here is stuck using Windows.

Well yeah, chrome, chromium, firefox, and opera have been available as 64 bit on linux for some time, I was talking about windows.

[ArialBlue]

Not that good. IMO you should avoid it until bugfix release.

[Miuku.]

ViperAFK, on 14 June 2012 - 14:21, said:

chromium doesn't auto update and lacks things chrome has such as the pdf viewer.

Doesn't remove the reality that it's been available for Linux and OSX for a while now

Also Chromium updates nicely with package managers for Linux and OSX.

[x-byte]

muggerfugger, on 14 June 2012 - 13:57, said:

Aww, already removing Unite? But wasnt unite supposed to "change and reinvent the web"? haha sad.

Extensions taking over... You got to adapt the market.

funkydude, on 14 June 2012 - 12:47, said:

They finally caught up to other browsers, nice. I hope the 6... release candidates got it stable enough!

That's nothing. I think 10.50 or earlier had like 8 or 9. It have been pretty stable since alpha. Like almost any Opera release.

But those with Windows 8 watch out. There is something in the Repease Preview that makes browsers (and especially Opera 12) to freeze your computer. More info here:
http://www.neowin.ne...freezing-issue/

[Tom]

Nagisan, on 14 June 2012 - 13:53, said:

Any benchmarks between Opera 12 and other general public browser versions yet (ie. Chrome 19, etc)?

I did a peacekeeper test earlier on. Tested Opera 12 and latest stable chrome release. Chrome won by 200 pts.

[x-byte]

Did you enable HWA?