Although Opera doesn’t set out the full technical details, this is a server-side technology, so be aware that any pages you access in Turbo mode are passing through a compression proxy.Īt any rate, we’re not sure how useful this feature is: few of us are still on dial-up connections, where shaving a few hundred kilobytes off a download page might make a real difference. And, as before, a progress meter in the address bar shows how many elements of a page remain to load – a more detailed view than you’ll find in other browsers.Ī different sort of speed enhancement is offered by the new Opera Turbo mode, a system that serves up compressed versions of web pages, with slightly reduced graphic detail, to reduce load times. Of course, JavaScript performance is only part of the story: it’s impossible to realistically measure responsiveness, but Opera 10 keeps the snappy feel of the previous version, with ultra-fast redraws when you scroll or resize a window. The crown in our tests went to the latest release of Chrome, version 2.0.172.30, which completed the benchmark suite in just 0.6 seconds. That sees Opera pulling ahead of Internet Explorer 8 (4.1 seconds), but it still lags behind Firefox 3.5b4 and Safari 4 beta, which took just 1.0 seconds and 0.8 seconds respectively. Inevitably, the developers are touting speed improvements, and the SunSpider JavaScript test bears that out: Opera 9 took 3.2 seconds to complete the benchmark on our test system, while the new beta finished in 2.6 seconds. The rest of Opera 10’s new features are concealed under the bonnet. The latest beta of Safari has a similar option, so it’s good to see Opera catch up so quickly. Where Opera 9 always showed a grid of nine page previews, the new beta will accommodate anything from four to 25 pages.

Either way, they all too often don’t resemble the pages they represent.Īs a final interface enhancement, you can also now customise the Speed Dial grid. Sadly, no matter where you’ve scrolled to, the previews show only the top of the page you’re viewing – or sometimes, a section further down the page if something about the layout confuses them. To find it, you need to drag the toolbar downwards that’s not an intuitive operation, but when you try it you’ll be delighted to see your web page tabs grow into thumbnails of the pages themselves. In fact, the big new interface feature is wholly invisible when you start Opera 10.

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