Browser-server now baked into Opera
Amid promises to "reinvent the Web," the browser Opera debuted a new beta feature earlier this year called Unite that has been deemed stable enough to offer to all users. Opera's own hype aside, the Unite service provides people with the capability to serve files, host and stream music, and send messages to each other from inside the browser itself--a feature that is unique among the big five browsers. Opera 10.10 is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Much like Opera's built-in e-mail client, Unite is basically a cloud-based, customizable server that includes multiple services, but its open API allows you to write and share your own services. The initial offering includes the default Unite Home, which is the Opera Unite Web page that is given to each user, a media player for creating your own publicly available music stream, the "fridge" for a Facebook-style message wall, an instant messenger with a public/private toggle, a photo sharing app, and file serving and Web hosting capabilities.
Besides including Unite, Opera 10.10 also includes an array of bug fixes, mostly aimed at smoothing out the Unite experience, tweaking mail, news, and chat features, and fixing three security problems. Two are relatively minor, one concerning an error message leak and the other a buffer overflow. The third error Opera is refusing to disclose at this time, but stated that it was discovered by the Google Security Team's Chris Evans. The full changelog for Opera 10.10 is available.
As I've tested Unite over the past few months, it's generally been a stable experience, with a few hiccups to be expected by the beta. However, it hasn't exactly set the browsing world on fire, either, and its target audience is still hard to define. Do you have an opinion on Unite? Let me know in the comments.
Seth peers into the deep, dark corners of software so that you don't have to. He has yet to suffer a single nightmare about OS/2. You can follow him on Twitter. 
- by Neolmas November 29, 2009 7:11 PM PST
- I've been using Opera as my primary browser for almost a year now, after finally abandoning FF. I had used Mozilla since 2000 (always did like it better than FF) and finally just got fed up with all the problems I was having.
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<br />I love Opera, it's perfect for me. Functionality is great, if I have a problem with a page I'll just open it in Chrome, not a big deal, but even then it doesn't happen often. I love the default look, and the themes you can get are even better, plus you can specify the colour palette on each one. Every problem I've had with Opera (gmail glitches, mail client problems) has been solved relatively quickly. I regularly use the mail client, rss reader, search bar, "wand" (which I'm glad they changed to a key), inline spellcheck, and more stuff I just take for granted. Sensical things like the "new tab" button. I used the recently closed tabs feature frequently. I LOVE speed dial, and had "hacked" it until, lo and behold they introduced the customization feature! I hope it's a feature they continue to expand, because I would love to be able to have dialing "categories" like shopping, news, weather, etc. Much better than bookmarks, being able to customize a large UI with thumbnails to navigate to your destinations.
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<br />Thanks for the . and / search tip, I missed the search button and wish page searching were better integrated.
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<br />I would also like bookmarks to be easier to manipulate in the organizer, and to not be so rigid as to import and display alphabetically. But show me a single browser that ever got bookmarks right.
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<br />I also wish for formatted emails in the client. For now I still use the gmail interface since they added the themes there, because it's prettier, I like the UI, and not all images show up in Opera's reader. I still have Opera receive the mail though, to have a copy in the browser.
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<br />So yesterday mine updated to 10.10 and I discovered Unite. This software is incredible, and I can't believe I'm not hearing more about it. In a matter of seconds I turned my laptop into a server, one that is attractive and simple to use, customizable, on and on. Say I'm over at a friend's house and I'm telling them about a song and considering burning them a cd that will never get made. Now, I can tell them to pull up a browser, hop over to xx.neolmas.operaunite.com, and they can stream the song (or music video) right there, and download it too. All they need is the password to get in. They can also see my photography, or I can let a prospective client see samples of web page packages I've made. Speaking of, Opera is my favourite browser to design for and test with.
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<br />People can trash on Opera all they want, and they can also hype it up too. For me, it's the best choice by a long shot, and I don't see myself switching. I feel the inevitable downsides and problems are almost negligible.
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