Opera 9.5 Good Enough to 'Ruin You for Other Browsers'

Here are more new features of Opera 9.50 profiled in greater detail.

Full History Search

Most of us have found something interesting online, but later struggled to find your way back to the small portion of a Web page where we saw it? Opera 9.5 introduces full history search - with which you can search the complete content of Web pages you visited, but without the need to bookmark them.

Unlike previous and other browser history searches which only look at the URLs of the pages you have visited, full history search searches the actual content of the Web pages you have visited. When typing a keyword, Opera 9.5 will automatically search the text of Web pages in your history.

Full History Search is integrated into the URL field of Opera 9.5, making it easy and quick to find what you're looking for.

Status bar with Zoom and Image control

Opera's zoom function and the bandwidth saving control of images are now made easily available on the Status bar. You can add your own buttons like the developer console to the Status bar.

Restore closed windows and changes in Speed Dial

Opera 9.50 Kestrel has an improved version of the browser's much loved trash-can feature adding support for opening closed windows, not only the closed tabs. You can also use the undo function now for Speed Dial.

Improved BitTorrent performance

This version of Opera adds support for BitTorrent Peer Exchange to allow you to connect to more download hosts and improve your download speeds.

Platform integration

Kestrel has been tuned to feel even more integrated with your platform. Mac users get the subtly cleaner new visual look and feel, and adds support for Apple's screen reader "VoiceOver" found in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard. This allows visually impaired Opera users to more easily use all of the features in the browser.

Appendix B: The Opera 9 Feature Set

Carried Over from Opera 9.x

BitTorrent

You don't need a separate BitTorrent application to download large files. Simply click a torrent link and start the download.

Content blocker

Remove ads or images - it's up to you. Right-click (Ctrl-click on the Mac) on the Web page and choose "Block content".

Add your favorite search engines

Right-click on the site's search field and select "Create search" from the menu.

Thumbnail preview

It is easy to have many tabs open at once in Opera. But exactly which tab had that video you wanted? Hover your mouse on any tab to see a thumbnail preview.

Site preferences

Want to view a site in a different way or deny certain cookies? Want to block popups on certain sites only? Right click and select "Edit site preferences".

Widgets

Small Web applications (multimedia, newsfeeds, games and more) that make your desktop experience more fun. Use the Widgets menu to discover new widgets and access your favorites. Visit widgets.opera.com to learn more.

Improved rich text editing

Use advanced text editing features for today's most popular Web applications.

Efficient Surfing

Transfer manager

View download progress and access all your downloads from one simple transfer manager window.

Tabbed browsing

Surf the Web easier and faster by opening multiple Web pages within the same application window.

Password manager

The password manager remembers your usernames and passwords so you will not have to.

Integrated search

Search Google, eBay, Amazon and more with our integrated search field. You can also search directly in the address field using keywords (for example "g" for Google).

Popup blocking

Opera lets you control whether to block all popups, or open only the ones that you have requested.

Mouse gestures

Opera supports mouse gestures, allowing you to perform certain movements with the mouse to access commonly used features.

Fast Forward

Fast Forward will detect the most likely "next page" link and greatly simplify navigation in multipage documents such as search results and image galleries.

Sessions

Save a collection of open tabs as a session, for later retrieval, or start with the pages you had open when Opera was last closed

Quick preferences

Pressing F12 displays the 'Quick preferences' menu to easily switch settings such as popup and cookie preferences and more.

Notes

Notes can be kept in conjunction with a Web site you want to refer to later, or remind you of any particular information you may like to review again.

Voice

The voice feature allows you to control Opera's interface by talking and to have documents read aloud. Voice is currently offered in English and runs on Windows 2000 and XP.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts - like mouse gestures - make your browsing faster and more efficient. Read more about all the keyboard shortcuts in Opera.

Trash can

If you accidentally close a tab, you can retrieve it from the trash can. This also works for blocked popups that you may want.

Security and privacy

Security bar

Opera displays security information inside the address field. The padlock icon indicates the level of security present on a site

Encryption

Opera supports Secure Socket Layer (SSL) version 3, and TLS 1.0 and 1.1. Opera supports 256-bit encryption, the strongest standard encryption for the Web.

Delete private data

You can clear the history and cache when exiting, to protect your privacy. Private data can easily be erased at any time by going to Tools > Delete private data.

Cookie control

You have detailed control of what cookies to accept and reject, including different setups for different servers.

Mail and Chat

Opera mail

This built-in POP/IMAP E-mail client is a combined e-mail program, news reader, mailing list organizer and RSS/Atom newsfeed reader.

IRC chat

Communicate with people all over the world using Opera's IRC chat client. Chat privately or in rooms, or share files with your friends and family.

Customization

Drag and drop

Add, remove or rearrange buttons, search fields and toolbars. Go to Tools > Appearance.

Skins

Skins can give your browser the look you want. Make the browser your own by giving it the icons, colors and style of your choice. <IMG:lnk>demo

Language

Opera is translated into a multitude of languages, and the language can be changed on the fly. Go to Preferences > General.

Accessibility

Zoom

You can zoom the contents of any Web page from 20%-1000% using the zoom dropdown or the + and - keys.

Text size and colors

You can change text size and color, link styling or background color to your liking in Preferences > Web pages.

User style sheets

Opera comes with a set of ready-made style sheets, including accessibility style.

Web Development

Standards support

We take pride in supporting all major Web standards currently in use, including CSS 2.1, XHTML 1.1, HTML 4.01, WML 2.0, ECMAScript, DOM 2 and SVG 1.1 basic.

Small-screen mode

When displaying a page in small-screen mode (Shift+F11) you can see how it will look on a mobile phone or other small-screen device running Opera.

Validate code

You can validate the HTML code of any Web page by pressing Ctrl+Alt+V.

Toggle graphics and style sheets

Graphics and style sheets can be toggled on/off via our toolbars and shortcuts.

Info panel

The Info panel shows details about the currently open page such as MIME type, page size, character encoding and more.

Reload from cache

Edit the source of any open Web page and view the result instantly. Go to Tools > Advanced.

Special features

Full-screen mode

The F11 key toggles Opera's projection mode, using the whole screen for browsing and, if a projection style sheet is present, displays 'slides' suitable for presentation.

Kiosk mode

Opera supports kiosk mode - a lock-down mode in which the browser can be used for unattended computers in public places.

Opera Widgets

Widgets are small AJAX applications that provide specific functionality like getting your favorite news, converting currency, and so on.

Go to the Opera 9.5 review.