Opera Browser supports Java
Jonathan Revusky
I just made a little discovery that I thought was interesting enough
that I should announce it here.
The Opera Browser now supports Java applets. It does so via the Sun Java
plugin. Okay, this is not such a big deal prima facie, since Netscape
and IE also work with the plugin. But there are certain aspects of this
that I should point out. Since Opera has no java implementation of its
own, it uses the plugin as its java and thus, there is no need for any
fancy alternative HTML to use the plug-in. It uses it with the standard
<applet> tags. Thus, when you navigate the web with Opera, it
automatically uses the plug-in as its JVM. I think that this means that
Opera (with the plug-in installed) is without a doubt the most robust,
compliant java-enabled browser now available.
There are various reasons that this could be of great interest,
particularly to anyone who wants to deploy java applets on an intranet.
In Netscape, there has been some problem with the plug-in at times, in
that the JDK 1.1 patch they had interfered with the use of the plugin.
With MS, were I to deploy an applet using the plug-in, I would be
watching my back, in case a service pack "upgrade" somehow rendered the
java plug-in inoperable. Of course, these problems are not really
possible with Opera since Opera has no java implementation of its own.
All their motivation would be to make sure the Java plug-in works as
well as possible with opera. Given the technical excellence of the
product so far, I would bet on it.
In other matters, the opera browser is just plain better -- as a browser
-- than either the Netscape or MS bloatware. It has a much crisper feel
to it has a much more ergonomic and customizable user interface. It's
only $35 per license (bulk discounts are available apparently) and IMHO
makes up for the price by not hogging all kinds of system resources as
its bloatware competitors do.
(I have absolutely nothing to do with this company.)
I should also make clear that I am talking about version 3.50 of Opera
which is currently in beta. The shipping version, 3.2.1 does not support
the plugin.
Jonathan Revusky
(About to grudgingly give them their $35)
--
Java and Delphi Consulting
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Joseph T. Adams
:
: The Opera Browser now supports Java applets. It does so via the Sun Java
: plugin. . . .
I hate to be a pain in the rear, but I have to ask (since it's the only
thing that could tarnish what otherwise I'd consider absolutely
astounding news): how fast is it?
Joe
jrev...@bigfoot.com
Well, my initial non-rigorous testing suggests that speed is *not* a problem.
In general, opera seems to load and display web pages much faster than
Netscape or IE. It also uses far less memory. It seems to load Java-enhanced
pages pretty fast too -- or at least fast enough that it is the download
speed that is the critical factor. As for the speed of the java itself, well,
that is determined by the java implementation of the plug-in itself, which is
currently JRE 1.1.6 with a recent Symantec JIT. Sun will doubtless bring this
into line shortly with their recent release of 1.1.7.
I guess at this point, whatever glitches one finds there is the excuse that
this is a beta release. But it seems to work pretty well. So I'm really
thinking that this could be a breath of fresh air to people who want to
deploy Java applets in a corporate context.
Jonathan Revusky
--
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Reinout van Schouwen
jrev...@bigfoot.com wrote:
> this is a beta release. But it seems to work pretty well. So I'm really
> thinking that this could be a breath of fresh air to people who want to
> deploy Java applets in a corporate context.
I have to remark here that a very similar approach is taken by Netscape
for OS/2, only utilizing IBM's OS/2 JDK instead of Sun's Java Plugin.
And it has been working quite well since the first version. So this is
not a new idea.
On a side note: this week, Netscape Communicator 4.04 for OS/2 was
officially released. And it carries the 'Java compatible' logo!
--
Groeten / Regards,
-=-Reinout
[ have a look at my homepage: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~rmvschou/ ]
Michael Hermann
>
> Jonathan Revusky (jrev...@jet.es) wrote:
> :
> : The Opera Browser now supports Java applets. It does so via the Sun Java
> : plugin. . . .
>
> I hate to be a pain in the rear, but I have to ask (since it's the only
> thing that could tarnish what otherwise I'd consider absolutely
> astounding news): how fast is it?
The browser or the plug in ?
The browser is faster than either NS or IE. Don't know which
virtual machine is faster IE or Activator (probably IE for
now..)
-Mike