Opera Software has just unleashed the first public preview of its next-generation browser for personal computers and Internet-enabled mobile devices.
Called Opera 10 alpha, the new release is not intended to show off the full feature set of Opera 10.0, which the software maker says is still “a while off.” Instead, the download is intended to give Web designers some initial hands-on experience with significant Opera 10 improvements, especially those relating to page rendering and Web-standards compliance.
“It seems like yesterday we released Opera 9.6, and now you can all get your hands on Opera 10.0,” said Adam Minchinton, an Opera Mac developer.
The Acid Test
Opera 10 alpha gives Web designers a taste of the full power of the new browser’s Presto 2.2 rendering engine, which makes the browsing experience about 30 percent faster than Opera 9.6. Moreover, Opera’s new engine adds alpha transparency to its RGB and HSL color models, which will make it easier for designers to make page elements transparent.
Minchinton also said Opera 10 alpha runs “100/100 and pixel-perfect” on Acid3 — a test developed by the Web Standards Project that expresses how well a browser conforms to Web standards such as the Document Object Model and JavaScript.
When running Acid3, the browser has to render a page exactly like the reference page in the browser. The perfect Acid3 test score achieved by Opera 10 alpha demonstrates that the new browser is primed and ready to run the next generation of Web applications, noted Johan Borg, Opera Software’s vice president.
“My favorite development in this release is the support for new Web technologies, which allows people to explore new ways of using the Internet,” Borg said. “Our 100/100 Acid3 test score is only a first indication of the impact these new Web technologies will have.”
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Opera 10…