The Download Blog

Opera Unite was going to change the Web, according to the hype from the Norwegian browser maker. Despite only being available for a number of months in a beta separate from the main Opera build--and the Internet looking more or less like the same place in the aftermath--the release of Opera 10.10 beta for Windows, Mac, and Linux indicates that Unite is about to become a standard Opera feature.

File sharing from the first Opera Unite beta in June 2009.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

Unite is basically a peer-to-peer system designed through the browser, but its API allows users to create feature-rich apps using only HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. By default, Unite comes with six apps: photo sharing, an instant messenger based around My Opera, file sharing, a Web server, a media player, and "the fridge," a communal place to share short notes with friends. When Unite was released during the pre-Opera 10 beta testing period over the past summer, it was generally stable and didn't significantly impact Opera's performance. A free My Opera account is required to use the Unite features.

Users interested in creating Opera Unite apps can check out Opera's tutorials. If you've used Unite, or built an app for it, tell us about it in the comments below.

Microsoft on Thursday said the next version of Office for Mac will arrive by the 2010 holiday buying season, and it added that the new version will include a version of Outlook.

Outlook for Mac will replace Entourage, the current e-mail and calendar program in the Mac Office suite. Although it will still differ from the Windows version of Outlook, it will add support for more Exchange features, such as public folders and rights management features.

Office for Mac had a version of Outlook in its pre-Mac OS X days, but Microsoft switched to the Entourage program with Office for Mac version X because that version lacked a good connection with Exchange.

The software maker has worked over the past several years to add better Exchange capabilities to the e-mail software.

Apple, too, has worked to support Exchange within its own mail program and has said it will add improved Exchange capabilities from within Mail as part of its forthcoming Snow Leopard operating system. Eric Wilfrid, general manager of Microsoft's Macintosh business unit, said on a conference call that he couldn't really talk about how Outlook for Mac will compare to Snow Leopard, in terms of Exchange support, since Apple hasn't yet released the new operating system or detailed how the Exchange support will work.

Wilfrid also said he had nothing to say about rumors that Microsoft might be working on mobile versions of Office for the iPhone.

"That's been a popular question," he said. "No, there is no news today about any iPhone work."

On Wednesday, Microsoft announced a partnership with Nokia that will see it creating mobile versions of the Office applications for Symbian phones.

Microsoft also plans to bring Visual Basic support back in the next version of Office for Mac, but it didn't share more about the features that will be part of Office for Mac. In addition, it said it will launch a new "business edition" of its Office for Mac product that adds improved connections to SharePoint and Exchange Server.

The new product is slated to join the existing Home and Student edition on retail shelves on September 15, reducing the number of versions Microsoft sells from three to two. The new business edition, which will sell for the same $399 as the standard edition of Office.

Updated: At 2:50 p.m. we added links for Opera 10 beta 3 with Unite, and added a statement from Opera about the crash logging feature.

Opera 10 beta 3 was released Wednesday for Windows, Mac, and Linux users. With a strong European following, the preview version has been able to keep this popular alternative browser competitive by offering page rendering quality comparable to Google Chrome, while offering a robust list of features.

Opera 10 beta 3 offers more tab and toolbar control.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

Opera is touting the stability and performance enhancements in the third beta, but in casual testing it appeared to have the slowest JavaScript engine when compared with Chrome and Firefox. Opera notched 3237.4ms in the SunSpider JavaScript test, while Firefox completed the test in 1142.4ms and Chrome was more than twice as fast as that, reaching 508.2ms.

However, JavaScript speed isn't everything, and Opera's built-in feature set offers much to users who like a strong out-of-the-box experience. There are far more options available now for tweaks tabs. Through the menu bar View and then Customize, you can move your visual tab bar to the sides of the browser as well as the top or bottom. You can also toggle showing only favicons or text, or force the tab bar to use multiple row, or just a single one. These options are available for all toolbars in Opera, making toolbar customization more streamlined than in other browser.

Opera 10's crash recovery window.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

There's now a crash logger that Opera says will make the browser "rock-solid," although what that meant was unclear at press time. Opera spokesman Thomas Ford has since clarified the statement, saying that, "It works like the logger that Windows has when a program stops responding. We can more easily identify and then remediate the root cause of crashes." It is not a sandboxing feature, so crashes that originate in one tab will still affect the entire browser.

Users on slower or dial-up connections should see performance improvements in Opera Turbo, too, although they didn't specify what those changes were or what kind of benchmarks users should expect. If you're seeing dramatically better numbers for Opera Turbo on a slow connection, let me know in the comments.

Notably, Opera Unite remains in alpha development and continues to be a separate entity from the main build of the Opera 10 beta. There's no word on how soon integration will occur, although it is apparently planned for before the public release of Opera 10. Opera 10 beta 3 with Unite can be downloaded for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Opera 10 continues to chug along, and the beta build of the browser has updated for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The publisher has declined to put its proprietary Web server service, Unite, in the build, indicating that it's not yet ready for beta consideration. Still, the enormous number of fixes to the Opera 10 beta should make many fans happy.

Several of the visual tweaks include an icon for when Opera Turbo is activated, a "Synchronize Opera" button on the Speed Dial page, and inverted tab icons for panels viewed as tabs. The Opera Wand has been renamed Password Manager, Transfers have been renamed Downloads, and hitting enter to select an item in a dropdown box will no longer submit a form.

There are other bug- and stability-fixes, as well. Changelogs are available separately for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Opera 10 beta 2 with Unite can be downloaded for Windows, Mac, and Linux, too.

Opera's newest feature turns your browser into an app-extendable Web server. That's right: Opera Unite, the latest out of Norway for Windows, Mac, and Linux, runs counter to the cloud-based direction that most other programs are heading toward.

But is client-based serving a recipe for the future, or a return to the past? And is Unite truly client-based? See what the latest Opera 10 beta build can do in this First Look video.

You wouldn't know it by eyeballing most of the latest browser news, but there is more to browsers than JavaScript speed. Mozilla introduced its add-on alternative called Jetpack, and on Tuesday Opera debuted Unite for Windows, Mac, and Linux, which turns your browser into a Web server and the Norwegian publisher hopes will "reinvent the Web."

That's fast become the browser equivalent of the cliched comic book tag, "In this issue: Everything Changes!" So United uses your browser as as Web server, but what does that mean?

The File Sharing interface in Opera Unite.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

"The initial applications offered by Opera Unite are just simple demos (such as a "messenger" application and a media player) that replicate existing services and online functionality, showing them working in the context of Opera Unite," wrote Lawrence Eng, a product analyst for Opera, on Opera's blog Tuesday morning. OK, so they're basic features, essentially still in beta and meant more to highlight what's possible than to actually offer strong experiences at the moment. Keeping that in mind, let's look at what's available and how they work.

Unite adds a tab to Opera's widget sidebar, and comes with six apps to share your content: File Sharing, a Fridge, Media Player, Photo Sharing, The Lounge, and Web server. Specific URL-based, most are self-explanatory. Two are not.

The Fridge is for note-sharing, kind of like Facebook's Wall but without the interactivity. Once you share your Fridge URL, users can write short messages and post them to your "fridge door." Messages must be short, although I couldn't determine a specific character-limit as there is on Twitter. The Fridge app also wouldn't work in Firefox 3.5 pre, although it functioned fine in Google Chrome.

Inside Opera Unite--screenshots

The Lounge is an interactive chat room that you host on your computer. You can determine who gets to enter by sharing the URL, but if that's not private enough you can password-protect entry, as well. Where the utility of the Fridge escaped me, I can see a point to having a private, mobile, self-hosted chatroom.

The Web server is interesting, as well. Being able to host a Web page from your desktop computer, without having to worry about paying somebody for the privilege, has the potential to usher in a new age of Web hosting where the only cost is what you pay your ISP and there's no middle-man to go through. However, the most popular things to do online that require your own site--sharing media and writing blogs--can be done effectively and cheaply from third-party hosts. Still, Unite-based Web-serving has potential.

Access is granted on three levels: Public, Limited--which means password-protected, and Private. When you set an app to Limited, you're provided with a password that you can change, and then when you hit the e-mail button to share it the password gets appended to the end of the URL. When you customize a password, it can contain only alphanumeric characters--no exclamation points allowed. Clicking on the link automatically enters the credential. The transition from administrator setup to end-user e-mail was not only a smooth experience, but it involved a minimal number of steps.

What an end-user sees when they receive a link to a Unite media player.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

File Sharing and Photo Sharing are redundant services. They look the same, except that Photo Sharing presents files in a large-icon thumbnail format, and File Sharing shows a file tree with tiny, non-thumbnailed icons. The way that an administrator can adjust the access level granted doesn't vary from app to app, making for a consistent experience that potentially takes some of the edge off of the learning curve. Hopefully, this will remain as third-party developers build their own Unite apps.

The most useful of the apps is the Media Player, which lets you share music from your hard drive in a stripped-down but effective interface. Click on an artist's name to be taken to the album name, which requires another click to get to the songs. One final click will get the song playing. Not surprisingly, it's very much like a slightly visual file browser. However, like many of the apps, it doesn't work perfectly or at all, all of the time. Several of my CNET colleagues tested it with me, with decidedly mixed results.

I was able to stream music from one computer to a second one at my desk. Single-song playback worked well, but the row of buttons at the top--Autoplay, Shuffle, Repeat, Sort A-Z, and the search box--never functioned. The song playback doesn't automatically play songs in order--users will only get songs served up once, and then the player stops. One colleague could only view songs--playback never worked.

A broken image on the Unite landing page in Chrome.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

Browser compatibility was inconsistent, as well. The media player wouldn't work in Google Chrome but functioned fine in Firefox 3.5 pre. The Fridge wouldn't work in Firefox, but did in Google Chrome.

The promise of user-shared content melded to Web 2.0 socialization is an interesting step to take, given the current development climate. The strongest point behind Unite is that it provides a socialization-ready widget platform, without forcing Opera to completely reinvent its browser. In today's blog post, Eng cited the potential for game development, and hinted that Unite will play a large role in the browser's future.

Unite tended to use a bit less than double the memory of the regular Opera 10 beta, about 140 MB compared with 88 MB.

For now, Unite is available only in a separate build from the main Opera 10 beta, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, but there are plans to eventually integrate the two. Whether Opera can motivate developers to take to it as Firefox developers have taken to that platform remains to be seen.

Inside Opera Unite--screenshots

On Tuesday, Opera Software introduced a technical preview of Opera Unite, a component of its Opera 10 browser. Earlier this morning, I sat in on a Webcast where Opera's Chief Development Officer, Christen Krogh, ran through a demo and answered questions. Opera Unite, which uses your Opera ID to log in, is a Web server housed within the Opera browser. With it, you'll be able to host a Web site, and share files, music, video, notes, and chats with others.

The sharing process begins when you select the hard drive where your files are stored, and then select the individual files you'd like to share. You'll then set your sharing preferences--either public, private, or password-protected--and Opera Unite will create a direct URL, which you can share with others. Guests can view the content from any browser, not just Opera's.

Opera Unite doesn't yet extend to mobile phones and other Opera-powered browsers, but that will eventually be part of the plan.

Security has been a concern so far. Opera Unite is as secure as Opera Widgets, Krogh said. It features native apps running in a sandbox on top of Opera's Web browser, and using local storage. CNET's sister site ZDNet UK explores the security of Opera Unite in an article.

When you load Opera 10 with Unite, you'll enable Opera Unite it by clicking this icon.

(Credit: CNET)

Opera Unite shares similarities with the now-defunct AllPeers, an add-on for Mozilla's Firefox browser. While Mozilla hasn't announced intentions to build a similar sharing or hosting service, it is offering developers a chance to create more robust code packages using Mozilla Jetpack, a recent Labs project.

The technical preview version of Opera 10 is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. You should consider the software experimental; you may encounter bugs or other imperfections while using it. To see more detail about how it works, peer inside via our gallery of screenshots.

Open beta versions of Opera 10 browser that do not have Unite installed are available for Linux, Mac and Windows.

Opera has released an early version of a browser-based sharing and collaboration service called Unite, which has been criticized by some security experts as having a level of protection that is too low.

Opera Unite, an application platform that turns the user's PC into a Web server, was unveiled in an alpha version by the Norwegian company on Tuesday. Components of the browser-based service include file sharing, photo sharing, a shared media player, a chat lounge, and the ability to run Web sites hosted on the user's PC.

Inside Opera Unite--screenshots

View the full gallery

While the user hosting the content needs to be running a particular version of Opera 10 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, those viewing the content can do so from within any browser, including Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Opera is trying to encourage developers to create new applications that use Opera Unite. "It all happens through the browser, so no additional software has to be downloaded, and it will work wherever Opera works (Windows, Mac, Linux and later mobile phones and other devices)," Opera product analyst Lawrence Eng wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. "Opera provides the platform and you provide the applications -- what you create is limited only by your imagination."

Eng referred to the initial Opera Unite applications as "just simple demos" and said the platform would allow for "a whole new class of social software on the Web ... [where] people can all connect directly without needing middlemen who control third-party servers." He also said the service will, in time, work on mobile phones and other devices, as well as on desktop computers.

The content is shared via Opera Unite by people sending other people URLs, and the security for protecting access to the content relies entirely on passwords. However, there are two ways to do this, and one method has been criticized by analysts as potentially posing a security risk.

When a person (the host) wants to share content, there are two options: either send a URL that leads to the host's personal landing page on Opera Unite, or send a URL that links to the application within Opera Unite that relates to the content they want to share.

With the first option, the host must send the viewer a password generated by Opera Unite for them to access the application. With the second option, the URL includes the password at the end, so it is in plain view if the URL is inadvertently shared. Also, with the second option, anyone who sees the URL does not need any further details to view the content, as clicking on the link will take them directly there.

"Be a bit cautious"
A spokeswoman for Opera confirmed to ZDNet UK on Tuesday that there is no encryption involved in the Opera Unite.

Asked whether the platform could be used by someone to access data on the host's PC that the host had not chosen to share, the spokeswoman said: "Definitely not -- unless they're a hacker."

"Opera Unite has been tested by a number of people within Opera, so the more people we have using the service, the more we'll know about the service itself," the spokeswoman added. "At this point, [you should] be a bit cautious in the files you're sharing -- only share amongst people you trust."

Greg Day, a McAfee principal security analyst, said Opera Unite was a "smart idea, going back to people self-hosting," and said there was "some value [from a security perspective], insofar as you are in control of your own data." However, he said there are also security risks associated with the approach.

"The [negative] is you have to have enough security integrated into the technology, or have the personal knowledge to put that security in around the technology," Day warned. "The logical evolution of services like Facebook was about simplifying the process, so you rely on a third party who, in theory, has the expertise to host on your behalf and keep it secure."

Andy Buss, a senior analyst at Canalys, said security based on the distribution of passwords was "an avenue to disaster."

"If there is no transport-layer security, it is easy to intercept the information being transported," Buss said. "This will need to be looked at as an option."

Another potential problem is related to intellectual-property violations, where hosts might illegally store copyrighted content on their PC and then distribute this via Opera Unite. Buss predicted that security and copyright issues will be a challenge for the next generation of internet applications, which will move a lot of activity now done on PCs to cloud-based services. "These services are required and useful, but they have to be as secure as possible," Buss said.

Asked about the copyright issue, Opera's spokeswoman said that if a user was found to be distributing copyrighted material, Opera would ask the user to remove the content and, if the person did not comply, would block the account. "This would only happen if the matter was brought to Opera's attention, as Opera does not monitor your data," the spokeswoman added.

Related story: Speedy Opera 10 beta reconfigures as Web suite

David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.

While Apple's market share gains are cause for consternation for many in Redmond, one unit is clearly benefiting.

Microsoft's Mac unit is set to disclose on Tuesday that copies of the new Office for Mac 2008 are flying off the shelves at three times the rate of its predecessor. The company wouldn't disclose sales numbers, but said the sales are the highest in the 19-year history of the unit. That continues a trend that has been going on for some time.

Senior marketing manager Amanda Lefebvre declined to give all of the credit to Apple, but said of the increased number of Macs, "Of course that's one of the components that is helping us."

The company also said it was ready with the first "service pack" update for Mac Office 2008, adding things like reliability and performance tweaks, as well as some changes aimed at boosting security. The update will be available Tuesday for download and will also be pushed out through Microsoft's AutoUpdate system, Lefebvre said.

Finally, the company announced that, for the next full release of Office for Mac, it is bringing back support for Visual Basic scripts. That feature was in Office 2004 but was pulled in the current version as Microsoft worked to add support for Intel processors and new file formats.

Lefebvre wouldn't say what any of the other features planned for the next Mac Office will be, but said the company is looking to get back on a cycle that would have it releasing new products every two to three years. (Office for Mac 2008 took four years.)

For those still using the last release of Office, Lefebvre said that, after several delays, Microsoft is on track to release by the end of June the converters that let that product work with the XML file formats that are part of Office 2007 for Windows and Office 2008 for Mac.

"We're on track for that," she said. "We're happy to be getting those off our plate and developing for the future."