Although Firefox took a large part of the browser market, Opera is not dead, in fact, it’s alive and kicking with a new updated version, the 9.6. Opera still has all the excellent features that made us declare that Opera is still in the browser race with its previous release, but this latest release is faster, and it continues to add innovative features that most browsers only support through third-party extensions. As always, the latest update includes speed and performance increases, but the update delivers several new features, too. The one new feature that we were really excited to try out is how Opera 9.6 deals with RSS feeds.

Low-Bandwidth Email
The most noticeable changes in Opera 9.6 are in the Opera Mail section which has a new “low bandwidth” option that grabs your e-mail in a minimalist fashion to conserve on transfer bandwidth. Opera Mail’s low bandwidth settings will truncate your messages (for POP accounts), limit downloads to new messages (IMAP accounts) and strips out attachments (both types of accounts). You can find the new Mail option, also called M2, in the menubar.

Magazine-Style Feeds
In Opera 9.6, a new feed preview feature has been introduced that turns any RSS feed into a magazine-style page where the articles in an feed appear as columns. (see image above) With the feeds laid out in this manner, suddenly RSS reading becomes accessible, understandable, and far less geeky than its acronym implies. Although heavy RSS users and techie folks will probably continue to use an RSS reader like Google Reader, a magazine-style layout is a great option for a light reader or someone new to RSS
Better Syncing
Opera Link, the feature that syncs Opera browser settings across multiple computers (sort of like previously mentioned Mozilla Weave but built into Opera), has expanded to support custom search engines and your typed URL history in addition to the information it already syncs (which includes Speed Dial, Bookmarks, and more).
Synchronization tools
Other changes in 9.6 include some improvements to the Opera Link synchronization tools which which now record and sync custom search engines and typed history.

And All the Rest
Of course, the latest Opera still sports the excellent stable of features including Speed Dial (the homepage idea that’s inspired countless Firefox knock-offs), mouse gestures, note-taking, BitTorrent support, and even voice-controlled browsing.

Opera 9.6 is free download for Windows and Mac and, thanks to the security patches, a recommended upgrade for Opera fans. Download Opera 9.6 for Windows

Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 3:17 pm | by Kur-nia-one |