Dev Sandalian

Today I read nice info from Opera Mobile Development Blog that saying Opera Mobile 9.5 beta will be released for public test on July 15th. This mobile browser is using the same rendering engine as latest Opera desktop version.

Some mobile phones are already equiped with Opera Mobile 9.5 such as HTC Touch Diamond. This is because preparing an application to work on different platform is a lot of work compared to application for specific platform.

Let’s just wait for the public beta release and by the way how is Fennec going?

After creating a new world record as the most downloaded application in the first day out doesn’t mean Firefox 3 has no security issue. Tippingpoint has found a very first vulnerability just five hours after the browser is released. The vulnerability allows attackers to run programs on any Firefox user’s computer. To expose the vulnerability, victims would have to click on the wrong link first.

Although this vulnerability details won’t be released to public until the Firefox developer has a chance to repair the problem, there is no waranty that nobody has found the same vulnerability. They might have created some tools to exploit this hole.

Opera Software has released their final Opera 9.5 yesterday at June 12th. With a lot of improvements from the prior version, this release also has a new shinny look and feel. It’s also mentioned as the best achievement of four years development. It’s a little surprising that Opera released the final version just a few days before their competitor, Firefox, release their final version 3 next June 17th (tomorrow!).

I’ve tried Opera 9.5 and see many improvements and brand new features. Here are the list of Opera 9.5 features that worth to mention. Well, not all mentioned here are brand new features, just to write down my own opinion of interesting Opera features.

• Opera Link
  Opera Link is a new feature that allows Opera users to synchronize their bookmark, speed dial and notes on desktop version with Opera Mini and vice versa.
   
• Enhanced Tab Menu
  
  You can duplicate the tab, lock the tab to avoid incidental closing, detach the tab, and even create a follower tab. Duplicate tab is duplicating/opening new tab with the same browsing history as the active tab, while follower tab is a tab that will open the link that you clik on the active tab.
   
• Open With
  
  “Open With” is the most democratic feature from Opera. You can easily open the current URL using this feature. Simply right click on the page, select Open With and you will see a list of your browser(s) and choose wich one to use. Fair enough, rite?

Well, sorry not to write other Opera features because I think you’ve read them somewhere in the net. Now let’s wait until tomorrow to see what Firefox had prepared to compete with Opera.

This morning I checked my web based application (it generate PDF for reporting purpose) located at my client’s office. They said that PDF report no longer viewable by browser but open download dialog instead. I got information that they just reinstall some application because of virus attacks.

I checked the browser (Firefox) configuration, nothing seems wrong.  I checked Adobe Acrobat and nothing’s seem wrong either. Then I found a simple trick to solve the problem, thanks to Google.

Go to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat\Reader\Browser and you will see a file with .DLL extention. Copy the DLL file into Firefox’s plugin folder, it’s something like C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\Plugins. Then restart Firefox and try to open a PDF file or drag and drop a PDF file into Firefox.

Problem’s solved.

Opera has released their mobile browsing report, yesterday. The report was made by analyzing the uses of Opera Mini (small but powerful –java based– mobile browser) by the users all around the world. The fact was an amazing thing, they found that social networking sites take 40% of total Opera Mini usage all over the world. Even at USA and Indonesia, the number is increased into more than 60%.

Here’s a quote from Mr Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO at Opera Software:

I invite you to see some this transition for yourself in our first “State of the Mobile Web” report. We looked at the aggregate, anonymous traffic of more than 44 million cumulative Opera Mini users worldwide to see where they chose to spend their time when using the Web on their mobile devices. I hope you find this report useful, actionable and interesting.

They also wrote the top ten sites visited using Opera Mini for users located in Russia, Indonesia, China, United States, India, South Africa, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Germany and Poland. Please jump to http://www.opera.com/mobile_report/ for details.

Ars Technica just wrote an interesting article about their experience using Mozilla’s mobile browser which its codename is Fennec. It’s still on their early stage of development so we can’t give it a try. Thanks to Ars Technica for following screen capture of Fennec Mobile Browser:

They reported that Fennec suit on Nokia N810 for the showcase. There’s no further information on which platform they will play. Will it be Linux, Windows Mobile, Symbian OS or even Java based?

Mozilla said that they want to ”transfer” the feel of browsing using Mozilla Firefox into this handheld browser and featuring synchronization between Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Fennec.

Based on Wikipedia, Fennec is a small fox found in the Sahara Desert of North Africa (excluding the coast) and in some parts of Arabia.

From Opera Mini’s official blog saying that new beta for Opera Mini is coming soon. They’re not giving us list of new improvements but they gave a clue that the new improvements are wanted by most users.

There’s no statement about the release date. All we can do is just waiting for the next information, for both Opera Mini and Opera Dragonfly, hopefully.

You might questioning what happen with Opera Mobile version 9 and why Opera Mobile jumps its version from 8.65 to 9.5.

Opera Mobile is intended to be a replacement for Opera Desktop in a mobile device. To achieve the same browsing experience between desktop and mobile, both browsers must have the same method to display the website. Since the latest version of Opera Desktop is 9.5 so Opera Mobile should have the same version and same rendering engine. Opera Mobile 9.5 using the same rendering engine as Opera Desktop 9.5 called Presto.

By this way, Opera hopes that there’s no difference between browsing using PC or mobile gadgets. Opera also said that this version is a lot faster than previous and the GUI was completely rebuild to increase user experience. And hey, it runs widgets just like Opera for desktop!

Now I’m waiting for Opera Mobile 9.5 to be available for Symbian UIQ 3.

I’ve made a simple pool for my blog readers. I ask them why don’t they use Opera as their main browser, and here came across some answers:

• At first time they used Opera, they found that Opera’s cache is too strong. And it’s a problem for a web developer because they can’t see the change right away. Well, if they know about Shift+F5, it’s not a problem at all.
   
• They wonder if they can found something like Firefox’s plugins. They don’t want to switch to Opera because they afraid of loosing the plugin’s benefit.
   
• Some people using glubble to protect their kids from unwanted page, and Opera doesn’t have this such thing.
   
• Because Opera is not open source. Well, they don’t really need the source code but they afraid if someday Opera company will be closed. Thus, Opera users will be dumped away. But if Opera were open source, there will be another group who would give Opera a re-birth.
   
• A friend was afraid of intergalactic law violation when using a little trick to open Google Docs

Last but not least, a little sweet girl was saying that this question is the same as “Why Mac users aren’t as many as Windows users”.

From this pool, now I have idea why don’t they use Opera: because they don’t know much about Opera. Then it’s a task for Opera company to spread more information about Opera and its benefits.

I also wrote this at My Opera blog and forward to Daniel Goldman.

Latest news from Opera, they had launched Opera Mini 4 beta 2 with many bug fixes and some new features. This version will not overide your previous Opera Mini installation, so you can still use them both for comparison.

Here’s an overview of some of the notable changes/additions with Opera Mini 4 beta 2 (since beta 1), yeah I copy and paste this from Opera page:

• Now you can add the search engine of your choice to the start page, just like in the Opera desktop browser. Hey, now you could put Google Search on the start page.
• Shortcut keys
• Browse in landscape mode — view the Web on a wider screen (Shortcut key: ‘*’ and ‘#’)
• Native menu for BlackBerry phones
• Lots of optimizations for BlackBerry phones
• Content folding – Collapses long menu lists (like those found on sidebars of webpages), so you don’t need to scroll through them to get to the page content. Note: This only works in “Fit to width” mode, not desktop.
• Supports secure connections for banks, eBay, etc.
• Small fonts have been enabled
• Simplified setup process
• Improved image quality
• Improved cookie support
• Ability to edit the current URL
• Added ‘Full screen’ mode
• Dialogs now use web 2.0-ish look and feel
• Added support for more phones
• Fixed a ton of bugs

Too bad I can’t try this Opera Mini since my mobile phone is old enough.. *sigh!*