Speed, HTML5 gains in new Opera beta
The latest browser betas from Opera have been released, emphasizing speed improvements and better HTML5 compliance. Opera 10.60 for Windows, Mac, and Linux gives fans of the alterna-browser a bucketload of HTML5-related improvements, along with the claim that the company has made the browser 50 percent faster than the previous version.
According to an Opera representative, Opera 10.60 beta 1 should be 50 percent faster than the current stable Opera, version 10.53, when tested on the Peacekeeper test. ZDNet Asia's sister site, CNET, conducted tests and results revealed a strong improvement, but not that strong. An average of three cold runs for Opera 10.53 scored 5104, while Opera 10.60 beta 1 scored 6792.67. (On Peacekeeper, higher is better.) That's a 33 percent increase, which is still impressive.
On the SunSpider JavaScript test, which Opera did not test against, CNET tests showed version 10.53 completing three cold runs in an average of 398.13 milliseconds. Version 10.60 beta 1 finished in 375.13 ms, or 5.6 percent faster.
The beta also adds support for many nascent HTML5 features. These include support for the next-generation video and audio codec WebM, geolocation compatibility, Web Workers and App Cache.
Slight interface tweaks were also made in this beta. Search suggestions for several sites that have partnerships with Opera have been added, such as Wikipedia. Tabs get custom thumbnails, too. The full changelog for Opera 10.60 can be read here.
This article was first published as a blog post on CNET News.