Opera Using Secret Sauce for Speed
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: Opera, Web, Browser | Themes: The Internet
Opera Software is struggling to gain ground on the browser front, so now the company is digging in, coughing up a chunk of "mystery code" in order to increase browser speed.
In the same manner that Ronald's "special sauce" makes the Big Mac super tasty, Opera Software's super secret mystery code - a server-side data compressor called Opera Turbo - will supposedly boost download speeds of its Opera browser by a hefty - if not doubly meaty - 80 percent. According to a press release issued today, the Opera Turbo technology is able to compress network traffic and reduce the size of the transferred page without actually transcoding the page. The company said that the compressor offers full support for dynamic Web technologies such as Ajax and Flash, and intends to offer Opera Turbo to ISPs and mobile operators soon.
Opera Software's Chief Strategy Officer Rolf Assev was reported saying that the turbo compressor will make its appearance in Q2 2009, slated for the Opera Desktop, Opera Mobile, and the Opera Devices SDK. The Opera Mini browser already benefits from a similar server-side compressor, and as shown on the company's whitepaper (PDF), apparently the new compressor will even boost laptop speeds by 71 percent on average.
"Web sites are becoming bigger and bigger, demanding more and more resources," Assev told The Register. "That's fine on fixed line in the Western World. But on mobile broadband and in other markets, that's a big problem. Things are getting too slow. So, we're speeding things up."
For Opera Software, things are definitely looking slow, especially its momentum in the current browser wars. As of January 2009, the company only racked in 2.3 percent of the browser market, overshadowed by big players consisting of Mozilla's Firefox (45.5 percent), Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 (25.7 percent) and Internet Explorer 6 (18.5 percent). The Opera saw its largest numbers to date back in December 2008, winning over 2.4 percent of the browser market; the browser only achieved 1.6 percent the prior year. However, with the Opera browser built into Nintendo's Wii console, it would be easy to assume that console owners made up a marginal chunk of January 2009's percentage.
But if ISPs and mobile operators catch on to the Opera Turbo technology, Mozilla and Microsoft might have a run for their money. Currently consumers can download v9.63 of the Opera web browser for Windows; version 4.2 of Opera Mini is also available for download. Opera Software said that the Opera Turbo compressor will make an appearance at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from February 16-19, 2009.
"As part of Opera's commitment to provide the best experience on any device, Opera has developed the Opera Turbo solution. The Mobile World Congress serves as a forum for us to educate others on the wonders of Web technology," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software.
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I doubt that Opera could catch on. It requires web servers sending out compressed data and not all websites would support it. even if they did, you will eventually see those features in firefox or IE.
firefox has a larger market share than ie7 and ie6 combined?
Yeah that seemed a little off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage [...] b_browsers
Maybe the figures were supposed to be growth percentage.
I think that figure is made by percent of web traffic, not unique visitors, meaning FF users generally surf the web more.
well i just hope it works out.. a little more speed never hurts! opera ftw!
so they're using a sort of winrar codec to view/compress data huh?
Websites won't have to adopt Turbo; the ISPs and carriers will. Chances are that, for phone carriers, there will be a strong incentive to do so, a platform where Opera is the dominant maker of Internet browsing software. For carriers that sell their service on a per-day or per-month basis, that effectively cuts their own costs for bandwidth spent by their clients. A similar thing might work with traditional ISPs, though given the sparse number of Opera users, (and the fact that people aren't going to browse on their Wii anywhere NEAR as much as they are on their PC) this may or may not come, and if it does, it'll likely be slower.
OPERA is not winning any browser wars because it keeps introducing bugs in the multitude of upgrades it keeps releasing. I have used it for 7 years and introduced it as my browser of choice to many people, my 3 children have all now dumped it as they have had so many problems with a variety of websites. Don't talk to me about 'hotmail' , 1 minute it works then it doesn't , i now use firefox for that , it does have some great funtionality that the others browsers don't , but for christ sake Opera support , sort out the compability probs or i ditch you as well
I would use Opera if it supported firefox plugins.
How many times do we have to tell Kevin Parrish that his numbers are NOT an accurate reflection of browser usage? This is ridiculous.
Where does he take his browser usage numbers? Any reliable source will tell a different story. Please explain how you got to those numbers...
Where does he take his browser usage numbers? Any reliable source will tell a different story. Please explain how you got to those numbers...
It's been covered in his threads before. He gets them from the w3Schools browser statistics page.
He seems to ignore this bit on the page, though:
"W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers.
These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of the users."
Funny how IE stats are broken up by version and the Firefox stats aren't. But why stop there? Why not also break IE usage up by the service pack and whether its 32 or 64 bit version as well? That would eally make Firefox seem like the bandwagon of choice!
I hate FF, web sites look cheap in that browser for some reason. Not sure if it's the font rendering or what, also it feels slower than IE. I guess IE loads with the OS, but still - IE feels snapier to me.
FF good alternative though, as web designer I wish there was only one browser (or one rendering engine) so we didn't have to test web sites out in so many browsers and versions. The browser people should get together and agree on a common rendering engine, and then build a skin with various features on top of that common, shared base. This would still allow innovation and choice, but keep the web consistent and look great for everyone!
I used to use Opera and I liked it, it has always been the fastest page loading browser. I have the newest version installed and I love the skins and the interface, and it's still faster at loading pages than both IE and firefox. I like IE for the simple fact that it always works, if I have issues in firefox or opera with compatibility it always works in IE. Pages do sometimes look "cheap" in FF, they look nicer in Opera, but don't always work right. I'm all for speed, and if a simple compression at the carrier level helps throw a page up on my side faster.....prove it, then I'm all for it.
Innovation is foward progress, and innovation from the lower percentage end of the "browser war", is good competition. Only reason IE wins is because it's installed by default and 90% of normal PC users don't even know there's another option...If Opera and Firefox came standard on a windows install, with the option for which one to make default, then maybe all three would be more compatible with the world wide web.
The other browsers have all...ahem...borrowed their features from Opera. But even with all their ingenuity Opera can't seem to get it right. Mozilla is mediocre in many ways but doesn't seem to suffer as many show stopping quirks as Opera (think Gmail). I personally use only Opera and with a little tuning it is far above the others. Yet anytime a non-technical friend asks me which browser to use I tell them IE7/8 or Mozilla.
May be Google is working on something bigger for Chrome !!!
Perhaps that is because a webpage that was designed to work correctly in IE6 before IE7 came out has a decent probability of working incorrectly in IE7. (assuming no update to the webpage)
A webpage that was designed to work correctly in FF2 before FF3 came out will most likely still work in FF3. (assuming no update to the webpage)
Internal webpages at my company see this issue a lot as they aren't constantly updated to the latest version of IE. I've been told that some that were updated use different code paths in certain pages depending on which version of IE you use.
I have been surfing the web for nearly 15 years and I have come to have used up all existing browsers on the planet starting with Netscape One. Recently, just a week ago, I again downloaded OPERA. I was expecting a little less from it but as I was using it, I just realized that its not buggy anymore, runs smoothly and you know what, it downloads really really fast. You don't need a Download Manager to download from the web. Trust me guys. A lot of changes was made to Opera. So I guess for me , it's... Go Opera!