Opera Browser Beta Adds Voice, More 369
An anonymous reader writes "According to an article at DesktopLinux.com, the first public beta of Opera 8 is available for free download. It adds voice input/output and a host of other niceties. Key new features include improved RSS handling, fit to window or paper width, a start-bar for easy access to the most commonly used functions, and automatic update checks. The beta release supports Windows only, but a general release is scheduled for early 2005. Opera and IBM have partnered on XHTML+Voice (X+V) technology for several years, co-announcing a Multimodal Browser and Toolkit early in 2003."
The new beta is awesome. (Score:5, Interesting)
Firefox might be better than IE, but Opera is much nicer, faster than firefox.
Major Version Upgrade Again (Score:1, Interesting)
I only upgraded from the end of major version six to seven a week or so ago, and they're getting ready for version eight already. I guess I'm destined to be one major version behind everyone else forever.
I get a bit tired of paying again just to get a browser that crashes less. Really, they should roll back bugfixes (but not new features) into older versions; I don't use any of the new features of Opera 7, and only upgraded because of several crashing bugs in Opera 6 that were driving me mad. (both the image loader and the XML parser seemed to have serious problems with large documents, and I'm suspicious that there is a buffer overflow there somewhere.)
This is good for Firefox (Score:2, Interesting)
Talking Browsers (Score:2, Interesting)
I just wonder how well the voice recognition software has become, to actually have a voice-to-website a viable solution. Considering the last time I tried using voice recognition was back '96 on an old Acer I had. Basically, you had to program every command that you wanted the computer to recognize. On top of that, you basically had to scream into the mic for the computer to pick up the sound.
Re:Face it (Score:5, Interesting)
Why I like Opera better:
- Gestures are implemented better, more customizable, and can be used across the WHOLE browser app and not just the browser window.
- Tabbed browsing is better, more natural.
- Rewind and fast forward
- The way Opera handles cache on windows, by cache'ing the GDI objects instead of just the page data.
- The start bar
- Better and easier customization
- Smooth image zoom
- Simply faster
- Sessions and reloading all my pages after a crash.
- MSR/Fit to width/SSR
- The option to have the progress bar pop up at the bottom of the window and hide when it's done.
- Wand, it's simply better.
- Author/user modes
- All images/cached images/no images toggle
- Native windows skin. With OpusOS, it's great.
- Paste and Go
- That a page is actually a window and I can break it off from the main window if I want.
- Trashcan that keeps track of closed pages.
- Reload every
- Hotclick
And all the little details that aren't features. Firefox simply can't provide all this, even with extensions. And if there were an extension for each thing.. it would use a lot of resources, be slower, and they would not work as well together.
Re:The new beta is awesome. (Score:2, Interesting)
The features may be different than those in the Mozilla Suite, but I have only ever needed to use 4 extensions ever. I only use one on a daily basis. I have all the functionality I need and want.
I have a couple of 19" LCD screens (1280x1024) - I wouldn't want any screen real estate occupied by image adverts.
As for voice commands - I cant see that being usable at my work. We have open partitions, four people to a partition.
Although if it helps people with disabilities, it can only be a good thing.
Although Homer asking his computer/browser to kill Flanders might be a bit extreme...
Opera: still leading the pack (Score:5, Interesting)
And now they bring voice recognition. If they get that to work on Linux, I'll be happy to buy a couple more licenses from them.
Actually this could be a good business decision (Score:4, Interesting)
I think Opera Software should care about staying in business before it thinks about what most people will or won't use. In all fairness, Opera doesn't have 95% of the browser market to begin with. It never has, and it's extremely unlikely that it ever will.
Opera (the desktop browser, at least), has primarily been a browser of choice for niche groups of users. 5% is a niche market, and much less than 5% can easily be a niche market. If Opera happens to be the only browser that satisfactorily offers what those 5% or less happen to require, it'll be succesful enough to keep the business going.
Opera is now competing with Firefox, Konqueror (although not in Windows), and a host of others. Many of these new alternatives provide the satisfactory alternative to MSIE that Opera used to dominate in providing. Consequently, that market is diminishing, and it's probably not as viable any more because so many potential users can use something besides Opera. If Opera is to compete and survive, it's a sensible business decision to look for more points of difference to open new niche markets that aren't yet well catered for.
You might not personally like the way Opera's going, but chances are that you have plenty of alternative options anyway. Meanwhile, if you have a need for effective voice operation of a web browser as a particular group of people do, Opera might well be your first choice if they can pull it off.
Re:Let's be clear on a few things here (Score:3, Interesting)
Purchasing Opera is one of the few things I did with pride (/me growls)
But purchasing the Linux version
Still its handy having a Linux version (however un-pretty)
Re:Opera: still leading the pack (Score:3, Interesting)
For me, the UI is *too* polished; I wish it would stop trying to be "different" and just fit in with the system theme I've chosen. Yes it's dull, but I like it that way.
On my 1400x1050 laptop panel the default font size is too small, even though I generally like small fonts. If I use the zoom feature, it zooms the images as well and I don't like the effect. Can't I just zoom the text? Firefox/Mozilla does that exactly right with Ctrl+/-.
Again on the laptop (IBM ThinkPad), the trackpoint scrolling (with middle button) doesn't work in Opera, and I simply hate that because I use it all the time in every other application. Does Opera use some fancy homegrown scrollbars? Why?
These may seem like small points, and perhaps if I persisted I could overcome them and grow to love it, but since Firefox does pretty much everything I need exactly how I like it, why on earth would I pay money for Opera?