Opera releases version 9.5

In its plan to gain back usage share it has steadily been losing to Firefox in recent months, Opera this morning released version 9.5 of its Web browsers for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Initial BetaNews tests show Opera 9.5 in Windows XP SP3 has some of the necessary polish to make it a respectable candidate for everyday use. Though its standard skin is perhaps better suited to Vista, we like the thick, black, responsive tab bar.

Still, we'd like to be able to make necessary adjustments like adding some width to the Search drop-down, which currently closely hugs the right-hand side next to the Address Bar. Let's face it, we don't search for one-word items on Google; we have long queries that extend into the stratosphere. But there doesn't appear to be an easy way to move the boundaries between toolbar components. We could add a "dynamic spacer," which created a gap between the address and search boxes -- precisely the opposite of what we wanted -- but in our initial tests, we couldn't resize one to make room for the other.

And since you can do that pretty easily in Firefox, we consider that a problem. Perhaps a more regular Opera user may tell us about some hidden method for this that we're just not seeing.

We do like the ability to put a handy toolbar along the left or right sides of the application window. Regular readers may know I'm usually a Firefox user, though one of my regular add-ons is the third-party All-in-One Toolbar. That device was reportedly inspired by Opera, which had the ability to customize toolbar locations early on, as well as to click an indicator to hide that toolbar in the margin when necessary. That feature's still present in Opera 9.5 without the need for any add-ons; and with the slick, stylish default skin, it looks quite attractive.

The File menu offers the Synchronize Opera command, which appears to enable storage of bookmarks and personal settings in the "cloud," for easy portability between different Opera installations. That same command was recently added to Opera Mini 4.1 for smartphones, so we'd like to get a chance soon to test that feature's effectiveness at exchanging personal settings between Windows and BlackBerry browsers.

Over the years, Opera has been adapting itself to better suit the tastes of the Internet user who cares a little more about the constitution and layout of her Web pages. We've noticed one way Opera 9.5 reports its progress in loading Web pages is by counting the number of elements it has yet to render, as opposed to showing a little progress bar -- what old-time developers used to call "band-aids." It may be more information than the typical user might need, but Opera isn't necessarily for the typical user.

But those atypical users are precisely the folks who will expect the new Opera to follow prescribed Web rendering standards to the letter, and who were excited by last March's news that betas of the new Opera were passing the Acid3 test with 100% scores. In BetaNews tests this morning, however, the final release of Opera 9.5 on Windows XP SP3 scored only an 83%. However, that's better than Firefox 3.0 RC3 on the same reference system, which today scored only a 71% in BetaNews tests.