Opera 10.53 Beta 1 for Linux and FreeBSD

Opera Software has released the first beta for version 10.53, code named "Evenes", of its Opera web browser for Linux and FreeBSD systems. As Opera 10.53 uses its own toolkit called Quick and is not built with GTK, there are no dependencies on either GTK or Qt/KDE, allowing it to run on virtually all versions of Linux.

Opera 10.53 features a new "more elegant look and feel", a new "O" menu and includes support for a number of skins, allowing it to better integrate with different desktop environments, such as KDE or GNOME. Other enhancements include the ability to run widgets outside of the browser itself via Opera Widgets, which is installed as a separate application, and, like on its Mac and Windows counterparts, the inclusion of private browsing and the Carakan JavaScript engine.

According to a post on the Opera Desktop Team blog by Opera software engineer Arjan van Leeuwen, the End User License Agreement (EULA) has been changed as "part of an effort from Opera to make it easier to distribute Opera in the package repositories of various open source operating systems." The developers also note that, in order to "ensure a consistently high quality browser across our most popular desktop platforms", they have decided to drop support for Solaris.

More details about the release can be found in the change log. Opera 10.53 Beta is available to download for Linux and FreeBSD from Opera's Next page.

(crve)