Tumblr 101: Tips And Tricks To Get Started
Sebastian Thrun: Google's Driverless Car
Opera 10.5's new Carakan Javascript engine is fast - Google Chrome fast.
The bottom line: it's fast. Carakan should serve as proof to the world that Opera is serious about building a competitive browser.
Putting Opera 10.5 through the paces with my everyday web apps, it's obvious that the new engine is a huge leap forward. GMail, Google Reader, and Seesmic Web are much more responsive than they are in 10.10, as are other Javascript-heavy web apps. Google's Chrome Experiments? If Opera was able to load a particular one (like Crystal Galaxy), Carakan ran it nicely.
On Google's V8 benchmark, 10.5 posts a very respectable 2263 overall. That's a far cry from the 182 put up by version 10.10 on my laptop. As you can see, Carakan actually managed to best Google Chrome's V8 on the RegExp test.
If you want to try out Opera 10.5 and the new Carakan Engine yourself, head on over to Opera's web site. Installers for Windows and OsX are available at the bottom of this page and you can also read more about Carakan.
As for me, I'm going to spend a week with the alpha and reserve judgment until then. It's certainly made a good impression so far.
Comments
22
Subscribe to commentshmmDec 22nd 2009 3:50AM
Unfortunately, its crashing for me. Dropdown menus have disappeared, though their placeholders still work. Middle mouse click doesn't work. Back to 10.2 alpha for me.
hmmDec 22nd 2009 4:19AM
Though its more stable than the leaked build. RSS feeds now work fine. Is faster than Chrome on Sunspider on my comp.
Jason DashDec 22nd 2009 4:33AM
It performs admirably on Peacekeeper too against Google Chrome, beating it on half of the tests (namely rendering, Complex Graphics and Data, I guess their new Vega graphics library is paying off). I can't wait till they get their hardware accelerated implementation in there, and continue optimising their javascript engine.
For me it's always had the fastest "feel", i.e it never seemed to lag between switching tabs and the interface was always delightfully snappy and responsive, compared to other browsers. But now it can be back on its throne as officially the fastest, goood times :P
preekieDec 22nd 2009 4:51AM
DUDE, why are you using the V8 benchmark?
nikola.vDec 22nd 2009 7:43AM
http://i45.tinypic.com/b8pz75.png
and it beats the crap out of firefox in html5 canvas test which are not included in results...
kaiDec 22nd 2009 5:41AM
Yeah, V8 benchmark is known for being heavily biased, yet Opera performed beautifully well. If you look at some more meaningful benchmarks you will see that there's not that much difference in performance between Firefox and Chrome.
Here are some Sunspider results on my machine (Intel Core 2 Duo):
Opera 10.50 pre-alpha: 672.8ms
Chrome 4 Dev: 760.4ms
Firefox 3.6 beta 5: 1249.6ms
Opera 10.5 is still a pre-alpha and yet it already beats the fastest browser in the world :)
DapxinDec 22nd 2009 5:42AM
will wait for the beta releases to even bother to try.
speed, is over-rated :)
hmmDec 22nd 2009 6:49AM
Funny how at different points in time, this argument has been used against,for,against Opera(some other browsers too).
DapxinDec 22nd 2009 7:02AM
hmm, yeah....I know about that. I use Opera, so I should :)
kaiDec 22nd 2009 7:22AM
Yeah, the pre-alpha has got lots of bugs, but it's fun to play with.
Pallab DeDec 22nd 2009 8:13AM
Opera beats Chrome in Peacekeeper and Sunspider. Chrome only manages to win in V8 which is developed by Chrome team. So, Opera is actually faster than Chrome.
My benchmark results: http://www.pallab.net/2009/12/22/opera-10-50-released-opera-is-once-again-the-fastest-browser-on-earth/
kaiDec 22nd 2009 8:19AM
Yeah, and even in V8, Opera performs beautifully well (compared to Firefox)
KeithDec 22nd 2009 12:23PM
Opera 10.50 whipped the pants off Firefox, and was even faster than Chrome for me on SunSpider.
DapxinDec 22nd 2009 12:40PM
Shame on me, I couldn't wait as I boasted initially. :)
I got a portable version of the pre-alpha from the ever dependent http://portableappz.blogspot.com/2009/12/opera-10503172-pre-alpha-10201895-alpha.html and test-running this now.
Its blazing....I mean Blazing. well done to the devs meeen.
awa64Dec 22nd 2009 3:03PM
How did you get Reader working on the Alpha? I love it, but I can't replace my old Opera install until I can get Google Reader to work right.
AnthonyDec 23rd 2009 12:49AM
Anybody tested it against Safari's Nitro Javascript engine? I'm afraid to try the pre-alpha as I've already had software that was even in beta crash my computer so bad that I had to wipe everything.
preekieDec 23rd 2009 3:36PM
Yes, Opera 10.5 destroys Safari with Nitro (since it also wins over Chrome, which wins over Safari).
BugMeNotDec 28th 2009 2:17AM
Just tested it vs. Chrome 4.0.266.0 on Sunspider, and it put in an admirable 757.4ms vs. Chrome's 712.8ms. Not quite beating Chrome for me yet, but pretty damn close.
Good work, Opera team -- was my browser of choice until Chrome came out... I have to consider switching back again (been missing Opera's MRU Ctrl-Tab).
I'm curious... how much of the speed improvement is via incorporating features from chrome's open source codebase? Here's to open source and friendly competition between the major browser developers!
PabloDec 29th 2009 2:37AM
I've been trying the alpha, it really is impressive.
Could anyone answer please if you can make Google Reader work with this?
Maybe some user script? I'm totally lost
DanielDec 29th 2009 5:42PM
You are aware Google created the V8 benchmark to make Chrome look good. It is the only test Chrome beats Opera at. Why not use an unbiased benchmark like Peacekeeper rather than feeding your readers skewed results?