Sydney Opera House - took nearly as long to finish as Opera 10
The Opera 10 web browser was released as a final version on September 1st after being in beta for a fair few months. It was set to revolutionise web browsing when it was first announced but are your web sites compatible with Opera 10 and is it worth worrying about?
So now that Opera 10 is out of beta and launched on an unsuspecting public, I decided to install the newly released web browser and put it through its paces with a few web sites to see how they display and to make sure they work correctly.
From checking over several web sites that I am familiar with and had a hand in project managing and testing when they were launched, including a couple of decent sized gaming web sites, I can safely say that Opera 10 does a pretty good job of displaying those sites as they were intended. I could only find one or two very minor layout issues from the brief checking that I completed although overall I still preferred using Firefox for browsing, as Opera 10 did not load in the pages fully on some occasions. This could be my Internet connection but I was using Firefox to load in exactly the same page just a second or 2 after Opera so I believe it is more likely to be Opera.
Presto 2.2 Rendering Engine
Opera 10 uses the company’s own Presto 2.2 rendering engine to produce pages and display them on screen and so separate browser compatibility testing just for Opera should be considered just in case Opera decides to display an element or part of a layout in a different way to other browsers.
As I mentioned above, from the checks that I have completed today I am not massively worried about going through all of the sites I have worked on to ensure that they display and work correctly (although that is always a good idea if you have the time) but should Opera 10 be added to the standard list of major web browsers that I test web sites with?
Opera 10 Usage
From reviewing the browser usage statistics at w3schools.com, Opera shows as being used by 2.1% of Internet users. Deliving into this a bit deeper we can see that 2.0% are currently using Opera 9.5 and so could be expected to upgrade to Opera 10 in the near future.
So the usage figures are very low, even taking into account Opera 9.5 users that will probably upgrade at some point. And there are some features worth upgrading for in terms of Opera Turbo, which compresses pages to speed up browsing when on slower connections, revised tabs area and an improved Speed Dial page.
Opera For Mobile Users
What we should also remember is that Opera is used as the main web browser for many smartphones, PDAs and other mobile devices, including netbooks. The advent of Opera Turbo, which has also found its way into the company’s mobile version means that devices that connect to the Internet on 3G or similar connections will often use Opera as their preferred browser.
If your web site is going to be frequented by mobile users then I would strongly recommend that you make sure you test thoroughly in Opera 10 and its mobile equivalent version (version 9.7 is currently in beta). For those looking for all round browser compatibility then some testing in Opera 10 would certainly be recommended but, as is often the case, if you are seriously stuck for time in your testing plan then Opera will probably be the first of the ‘major’ browsers that you can safely not worry too much about. There will undoubtedly be more issues to discover in the IE’s (6, 7 and eight) and I would continue to concentrate on those browsers along with Firefox and Safari/Chrome.
Browser Compatibility Tools
For those of you wishing to test in Opera 10 then you can download the browser for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux here and run it alongside other browsers that you may have installed. So it is easy to flick between Opera and Firefox or IE8 when checking individual web pages over.
In terms of the browser compatibility testing tools that are out there and shown on our testing tools page, the following are showing as supporting Opera 10.
- BrowserShots – showing as supporting Opera 10
- BrowserCam - showing as only supporting up to version 9.62
- Litmus - showing as supporting Opera 10
- Xenocode (or Spoon as it is now known) – showing as support Opera 10
- CrossBrowserTesting – not showing as supporting Opera 10 yet
- BrowsrCamp - showing as only supporting up to version 9.61
Further Reading For Opera 10
- IT Pro Review of Opera 10
- ReadWriteWeb’s mini review of Opera 10
- makeuseof.com – 6 Unique Features That Make Opera 10 Stand Out
Photo credit -: pranav :-