Opera 10 barrels into third beta

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 13 Aug 2009 at 09:47

Opera has released the third beta of Opera 10, touting improvements in performance and stability.

In casual use it certainly feels quick, with pages snapping open, though compared to the pared down style of Chrome, Opera is beginning to appear a little cluttered. This an impression not helped by its headline feature, the visual tabs that sit at the top of the screen offering previews of opened sites.

Perhaps in acknowledgement of this fact, these tabs have received a great deal of attention in the third beta. User can now choose to sit the tabs bar on the top, bottom, left or right of the browser window. Tabs can also be reduced to text, or text and favicons for those looking for a slightly neater experience.

There's also a host of tweaks to Opera Turbo mode - which uses proprietary technology to accelerate page loading - and it should run considerably quicker than before. Opera recommends it for people on dial-up connections, but claims it can even improve the performance on ropey broadband lines.

One surprising omission is the company's recently released Opera Unite technology, which allows PC to act as simple web servers, performing services such as file and photo sharing and streaming video. The company claimed the technology simply wasn't stable enough to be considered for this release.

"Since the alpha release of Opera Unite in June we have gained a large number of people who are testing the services. We are carefully monitoring the external feedback and the development of new Unite Services in order to evaluate when we can move it to a beta level. We plan to include it in a final version as soon as it reaches the required quality level," an Opera spokesperson tells PC Pro.

She confirmed that the company is looking "to get Opera 10 final out the door asap" but gave no clue as to whether a fourth beta will precede that release, or when it would take place.