Opera Appeals for Cross-Browser Extensions Standard

Browser maker Opera has announced several announcements, including the new version of Opera 11 which will get support for browser extensions and the beta of Opera Mobile for Android. The Oslo, Norway based company said that it's time to consider implementing cross-platform extensions standard through which the wed will be advanced.

The coming Opera 11 will feature extensions for the first time, which will be similar to those found in other browsers, and the company says that one of its goals is to make it easy to port them from "certain browsers." Developers will be able to create Opera extensions using open standards—HTML5 for page contents, CSS for formatting, JavaScript for processing–as extensions in Google's Chrome, Apple's Safari 5, and Mozilla Firefox's upcoming Jetpack. The first iteration of Opera 11 will support injectable Java, callouts, some UI items, and a basic tabs and windows API..

"We think extensions are ripe for standardization," Håkon Wium Lie, Opera Software's chief technology officer, said.

Opera extensions may or may not have interface elements—some will simply run in the background. A standard for extensions will accommodate programmers with easier development for avoid rewriting extensions for each browser. However, there are obstacles, including the facts that the Web technology extension approach is relatively new, and different browsers expose different interfaces to the extensions.

"It's still a bit too early for that, but we're indicating willingness to do so," Håkon Wium Lie, said. "We think it would be fairly easy to write up that specification, if there is willingness."

Of course, all of this depends on the willingness of other browser makers to cooperate. Even so, there may be quite some time before a standard extensions platform is adopted. Mozilla, for example, is working on a similar implementation with the Jetpack platform which may be implemented in Firefox 4.

Meanwhile, Opera also has a cousin of Opera 11 for mobile phones, Opera Mobile onto the Android operating system. "Opera Mobile for Android is the real McCoy. It's the full web browser on the phone," Opera chief development officer Christen Krogh said in Oslo, Norway.