Opera 11.10 Web Browser Speeds up Surfing on Slower Internet Connections
Posted: 12th Apr, 2011 By: MarkJ
Opera has today released the latest version of their FREE v11.10 website browsing software which, aside from all the usual improvements, also brings with it a significantly enhanced Turbo Mode to help those on slower internet (ISP) connections.
Turbo mode has actually been around in Opera since 2009 but it hasn't changed much since then. However, the updated code in 11.10 is said to be approximately four times faster, thanks in part to their adoption of Google's WebP (pronounced "weppy") image format.
WebP can apparently compress images down to be some 39.8% smaller (file size) than a traditional JPEG and yet still return an image of almost equal quality. In fairness this depends a lot on the quality of your JPEG compressor but that's a separate debate.
Opera Statement
When Opera Turbo is enabled, webpages are compressed via Opera's servers so that they use much less data than the originals. This means that there is less to download, so you can see your webpages more quickly.
The point here is that those of you who still survive off slower internet connections or have very restrictive usage allowances (e.g. Satellite ISP customers) could stand to benefit from using Opera instead of IE, Firefox or Chrome. Opera's Mobile browsers will also benefit.