For fast internet browsing at slow internet connection.
The news that Opera is going to launch its new browser, Opera Turbo has spread quickly some time ago. When I heard of that news, I promptly visited Opera’s official website to check that rumor. Yet, they haven’t released the final version, but they already launched its beta version, Opera 10 Beta 1, which is equipped with Opera Turbo technology.
I then download the installation files to try to use it. I want to find out how the new technology works. The installation files of Opera 10 Beta 1 size only about 6.2 MB, its smaller than the other browser, firefox for example sizes about 7.7 MB, and Safari’s size is about 26 MB. The installation process was quite fast. It only needs a few steps, and it’s done. It’s much faster than when I want to install Google Chrome web browser, which requires online access for the installation.
When I open this browser, I feel that it’s easier, and faster to open. Also when I checked the resources that it needed using windows task manager, I found that it doesn’t need much requirements or resources as the other browsers do.
When the browser is already open, I found the similarity with safari web browser, there is speed dial buttons, allowing us to open a website without typing the address in the address bar.
To enable the Opera Turbo technology we only have to click the button on the status bar, on the bottom left corner of the window. When I try to open some websites, I quickly feel the differences. Opera seems to compress the image quality. As the result, it loads much faster. However, when I try to open website containing text only without any images, I feel that there isn’t any big differences. It needs just the same time as its needed when I don’t enable Opera Turbo.
To know the performance of the new technology, Opera Turbo, I did a simple experience with this browser. I tested its speed by opening http://www.sijiwae.net/speedtest, a website to test the connection speed of a computer to the internet. First, I opened the website without enabling Opera Turbo. Sijiwae.net showed that the connection speed was 55.9 Kbps or 6.8 K Bytes/sec. Then I enabled Opera Turbo and Sijiwae.net showed that the connection speed had changed to 112.6 Kbps or about 14 K Bytes/sec. That’s a big difference I think. So, the new technology really works.
Another result of image compression is that we lost the image quality, so the image we see is not perfect, not as good as the original one. So, I think that this technology, the Opera Turbo, is only suitable for those who have limited bandwidth, and care only to the text content, not to the image content. However, it’s not a big problem I think, because we can enable and disable Opera Turbo technology quickly. So, when we have good bandwidth, we disable it, and when we have limited bandwidth, we can enable it.
Besides its advantages, this new technology is still imperfect. I found it when I opened http://www.detik.com, an Indonesian news website. I couldn’t close the floating ads. It was really disturbing, while in any other browsers, just like Firefox, it’s an easy thing to do. I don’t know whether there’s something wrong with the plugin or something else.
Another thing is, when I wanted to open a hyperlink, when I put the mouse pointer over a link, the pointer didn’t turn into link selection pointer. So, when a link is not marked (for example underlined), I can hardly recognize it. Just when I clicked stop button, the pointer turned into link selection pointer.
It’s just the beta version anyway. Just hope that the developer will fix it soon.
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