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Opera 9 Beta

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allen:
Opera 9 has been under development for a while, and preview builds have been available -- but for those too cautious to use pre-beta software but not cautious enough to avoid betas, Opera 9 beta is now out.

Opera Software today announced the first public Beta of Opera 9. This version includes Widgets, small Web programs running in their own windows that are fun, easy-to-use and live on users' desktops. The Opera 9 Beta also features support for BitTorrent, a popular file downloading technology, in addition to an easy-to-use content blocker and thumbnail previews of tabbed sites.
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Press Release
Windows Beta Download

I made an admittedly simplistic widget for it.

Redhat:
Thanks, Allen! Got it running smooth on this Ubuntu box  :Thmbsup:

Harrie:
I am loving Opera!  I'm having so much fun learning about it - it has some simply great features.  I have Opera 9, Build 8212.  Allen, I saw this the other day and then looked at your site and read about your widget, etc.  I enjoyed it all.

I'd like to say now, though, that I love the idea of the widgets, but really, if they'd only snap into place or somehow otherwise "sit" right.  The few that I've tried (not yours yet), they just seem so obtrusive.  Is this a lone opinion?  For instance, I got Knowledge Mate last night, but after running it, it just grew too much and I couldn't find a way to adjust it. 

allen:
Opera is great -- and the longer you play with it, the more obvious it becomes -- beyond the obvious, there are a lot of configuration options you can take advantage of hidden throughout various files -- with a little time and a lot of love, Opera can be optimised to be the perfect browsing environment for any user.

That said, the widgets are interesting.  It took me a while to adopt them at all, as I too found them obtruse and, essentially, trivial.  The widget I made is by no means an exception -- it's nothing more than a frontend for my regex find/replace utility.

That said, for me the best approach to widgets is on-demand.  While I often keep the weather widget pinned (always on my desktop) the rest are usually hidden.  When I need to use a widget, I just hit F6 and they all toggle on.  Use what I need and toggle them back off.  There are a lot that can be handy but when push comes to shove, there just isn't enough desktop space for a bunch of widgets that I'm only using once or twice a day if that on top of everything else I keep open.

The widgets are novel and have great potential as they evolve, but at this point there far from being one of Opera's stronger features in my opinion.

zridling:
Count me in. I completely ditched and deleted Firefox for Opera 9. Not because it's free, but because it's just... so damn good.

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