Opera Software has just released Opera 9 Technology Preview 2 for the masses, and there has been a few new toys added. They have added Bittorrent back into the mix, they now support Widgets, have a Content Blocker, and a new Search dialog tool. I knew it was coming out, and as always, I was greatly excited to see all the new changes/improvements. After actually playing with it a bit (not too much though), I am not overly impressed with most of the new stuff. I have been using μtorrent for awhile now, so the trimmed down bittorrent functionality that was added seemed unimpressive, though I plan on playing with it a lot more of the next couple of days so that opinion may change. The Widgets are, well, widgets. I don't need an analog clock hovering over in the corner and an RSS aggregator that is specific to one page in another. I am not slamming people who use widgets, I just have yet to find any that impress me enough to actually use. The Content Blocker is what will get the most attention from people. It is kinda like adding FireFox's coveted AdBlock extention. And even though I don't really agree with filter and censoring the net, I like the fact that now when people use AdBlock and FiltersetG as their reasons why FireFox is cool, I can simply say Content Blocker and smile as they realize that they are not cool anymore.
Now the one thing I am excited about, so much in fact I started another paragraph to set it apart from the other stuff, is new Search toys. In the past, I could dig around in the .ini files and set up custom searches for the search dialog box, and I could even set a letter to do custom searches in the address bar (for example, if I were to type i scarlett johansson in the address bar, I would get her IMDB profile, or gi scarlett johansson would get pictures of her hotness at Google Images). They have quite a few built in, with g for Google being the default. Then one day I noticed they added the ability to add/delete/edit these in the Preferences menu, and it was good, but you still had to get the query string and set it up right. Once you did it once, it was easy, but like a lot of the cool stuff with Opera, you have know how before it will work. Now, they have one upped themselves. Now, if you find a site with a search you like, you can right click on it, hit Create Search, and set it up with ease there. I am now a happy camper. More than anything, I think bringing Opera functionality to light is the central focus of Opera 9. Opera has had content filtering for a long time but now they added a graphical way to edit it, Technology Preview 1 added opera:config to edit most configuration choices in a graphical way, and my much loved new feature of the search dialogs is just a graphical way of doing what I could already do for quite a while now.
Now, there are a slew of other changes and modifications made, but I figured I would just go into my thoughts on the ones most people will be talking about. I might post more later about other stuff, or furthur experiences with the ones already mentioned here. As for now, it is time for the homework I have been putting off all day. :)
