On Thursday, Opera Software released version 12.00 of its web browser. The new version, a 23.3 megabyte download, boasts the following fixes and changes:
New Features:
– Opera now runs plug-ins as a separate process, allowing for more control when a plug-in misbehaves. This feature will enhance security and stability.
– The 64-bit version of Opera will offer performance improvements for some functions and allow Opera more freedom in allocating memory.
– New, lightweight themes make it easier to customize the browser. Install or change themes at the click of a button, without restarting the browser.
Numerous improvements to the address bar have been made:
– Improved address field and address bar drop-down suggestions.
– Smart URL shortening in the address field drop-down.
– The page title and the page excerpt will be used for full page search results
URL and page content columns in the address field drop-down have been combined
Hardware acceleration allows Opera to offload graphics rendering from the processor (CPU) to the graphics card (GPU), making graphics intensive operations such as animations faster.
– RTL support will bring additional stability for certain languages. Persian, Urdu, Hebrew, and Arabic languages added.
– Extensions will now be able to interact with tabs, create tab groups, and manage windows.
– Opera Unite and Opera Widgets will be off by default in Opera 12.00, and will eventually be phased out of the Opera browser in the future. Voice support will be removed as of Opera 12.00, as the voice-detection library is no longer supported by the third-party vendor.
– Opera 12.00 will include changes in the Opera Presto 2.10 engine up to core-integration-point 289.
– Initial support for real-time communication has been added. Allowing the source of HTML5
– Drag and drop enables webpages to have elements that the user can drag from one page to another, or from their desktop to the webpage.
– Support for animations and transitions has been updated and expanded.
– Added support for the Do Not Track (DNT) HTTP header.
– An innovative new set of CSS constructs that allow webpages to be split up into paged media, revolutionizing the Web reading experience.
– CORS enables more secure and flexible communications between websites.
Improvements:
– General and User Interface.
– Appearance dialog improvements and cleanup.
– Sandboxing enabled for Mac App Store builds.
– A custom user agent preference has been added to opera:config.
Display and Scripting:
– Improved pipelining, JavaScript, and Turbo.
Fixes and Changes:
– Mail, News, Chat.
– Removed IRC client, start bar, navigation bar, main bar, and BitTorrent support.
Security:
– Fixed an issue where hidden keyboard navigation could allow cross site scripting or code execution, as reported by Jordi Chancel.
– Fixed an issue where a combination of clicks and key presses could lead to cross site scripting or code execution, as reported by Jordi Chancel.
– Fixed an issue where cross-domain JSON resources may be exposed as JavaScript variable data.
– Fixed an issue where carefully timed reloads, redirects, and navigation could spoof the address field, as reported by Jordi Chancel.
– Fixed a moderate severity issue; details will be disclosed at a later date.
– Fixed an issue where pages could prevent navigation to a target page, spoofing the address field, as reported by Code Audit Labs of vulnhunt.com.
Opera 12.00 is available for free and requires and Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 or later to install and run.
One reply on “Opera web browser updated to 12.00”
I sincerely hope you messed up in part of that changelog, and that they did not “Removed IRC client, start bar, navigation bar, main bar, and BitTorrent support.” as there are a very large number of people that use them.