Paradox Designs

Opera 9.2 was really quite good. It had features that could compare to Firefox3[1. Or at least the version avalible at the time], used less system resources, was faster, and looked better (when you themed it). Opera has had a beta out for a while, but what really enthralled me was the addition of Dragonfly.

A much missed firefox extension

One of the features i missed most from firefox was not included with the browser. It was an extension. It was Firebug. Firebug is a debugging tool that let you view the source of a page, the tree, the style, and many other things. Sounds plain right? It didn’t render it that way. It rendered everything in a tree, you could collapse or expand blocks. Great for ensuring one’s code worked. Migrating to Opera 9.2, i had to loose this feature. There was a little tool to hold me over for a short period of time, but it was nothing like the original firebug. Opera 9.5 has an integrated developer platform called Dragonfly. Dragonfly appears to do everything that firebug did, and more. It is still in development, but for an early release client, it is really quite good.

More Compatibility

Opera 9.5 seems more compatible with big issue sites like Gmail, Google Calendar, and many other services too. This is a big issue. One of the biggest problems i had with Opera was that i had to use the crappy old Gmail interface. With the new opera, and a special link to gmail, i can browse my email easily in the new interface. Another thing that seems to have been added is the ability for javascript to modify form field contents. In 9.2, if i wanted to change an issue in Google Code, i would have to blank the text field, pull up the drop down, hilight said item, and press enter. Not exactly the easiest way of doing things. The new version seems to have fixed this.

Stability and Speed

The new release certanly is more stable. 9.2 crashed a few times, but I have yet to see 9.5 crash or lock up. It humms along quickly, and really makes browsing a pleasure. It uses about the same amount of memory as 9.2, that is, much less than firefox.

All in all, 9.5 is a very promising beta, and things are likely to get better as they progress