Back in October, I had written a post about fixing an issue with the iTunes store in Google Chrome, where app store links or "View in iTunes" link did not open the iTunes app. The same problem existed in Opera too and many users have been emailing and asking me about how to fix it for Opera.

So as promised, here is a quick way to fix the "View in iTunes" link not working for the Opera browser, I have borrowed this trick from Pallab’s earlier post on using Google Instant in Opera.

Here are steps to fix this issue:

1. First of all open any app in iTunes, you could click on this link to open the app in iTunes.
2. Now right click on an empty spot on the page and select "Edit Site Preferences" from the context menu. Alternatively you could use the hotkey F12 and select it.
3. Navigate to the "Network" tab and change the "Browser identification" option to "Mask as Firefox" from "Identify as Opera"
4. Reload the page and you should now see a prompt to Open iTunes.

If the "Mask as Firefox" does not work, you can try out the other options available for Browser Identification.

After Google Chrome, Opera is my secondary browser and I use it very frequently. I use Opera to visit websites and check on stats among other things. Now, many of the websites I visit are news sites which have auto-refresh turned on. Sometimes, this provides me with a bad experience since the page auto-refreshes while I am in the middle of reading an article.

On the other hand, I find it unproductive to reload stats pages every time I want to see new data. Thankfully Opera has a nice little which will allow you to stop auto-refresh on certain websites while allow you to refresh certain websites after a time-interval.

In order to stop a webpage from auto-refreshing, right click on that page and select "Never" from the "Reload Every" submenu. On the other hand, you can use the same menu to also auto-refresh certain webpages after a certain time interval.

This feature is pretty useful since it is built into the browser itself and does not require third-party extensions. Pretty neat and useful.

Further Reading: Auto-refreshing of webpages is done through a meta tag, you can read more about it here.

Do you love transparency effects? Do you have a fixation with Aero Glass? Do you love Opera (Browser)? If the answer to any of those questions is no, stop reading. This post does not concern you. However, if the answer to all of them is yes, you must try out the new Z1-Glass skin for Opera.

Opera 10.5 introduces a new skinning parameter which allows it to support transparency for various internal elements. To see it in action, download the Z1-Glass skin from here and place the ZIP file in the Opera/skin directory. Select the skin from Tools–>Appearance.

Tab bar at the left

Due to current limitations in Opera’s skinning architecture, the skin works as intended only if your tab bar is positioned on the left or right (or at the bottom without visual tabs). While, the skin is usable with tab bar at top, the speed dial area would appear as solid black (instead of being transparent).

Tab bar on top

The skin was mainly created to demonstrate what is possible with Opera 10.5 and contains an overload of glass effect. It may not be to your taste. Also keep in mind that this is created for a pre-alpha build and as such contains some usability issues. One of them is that you would have to reset your configuration on each start-up in order to fix transparency issues (for tab bar at left configuration). Use this button for a quick fix.

Web browsers store history about the sites you have visited in a window or tab to let you easily go back and forth, you can use the back button or use a shortcut key Alt with either the right or left arrow key to navigate the history (learn more Alt, Shift, Ctrl shortcut keys).

However IE8 and Firefox offer users with a arrow to view the history as a drop-down list, however the arrows are missing in both Google Chrome and Opera.

However the missing arrow key for drop down navigation does not mean that the feature in itself is missing, to access the backward or forward history as a drop down list in Google Chrome and Opera click and hold on the forward or backward button instead of simply clicking on it.

Once you click and hold for a second you will see the history as a drop down list, you can then select which webpage you want to navigate too from the list.

Opera has a annoying habit of popping up a new Transfers tab, everytime you start a file download, this could be intrusive at times, since this tab may be set to steal focus on the browser, bring it to the foreground.

If you are looking to disable the transfers tab or open it in the background, you can follow the steps listed in this post.

Step 1: Click on the Tools > Transfers or use the shortcut key Ctrl + J to open the Transfers tab.

Step 2: In the Transfers tab, click on the view button to open up the options and select, Never Show When Starting Download, if you want to completely disable the Transfers tab, or select Show in Background when starting downloads, if you want to see the Transfers window, but do not want it to steal focus and come into the foreground.

Disabling the Transfers tab is just for convenience, you can always view the transfers window by using the Ctrl + J shortcut key.

There are many times when websites do not add hyperlinks to text thus making the text un-clickable, to open the link, you will have to copy the text and then paste it into the browser address bar.

If you are using Opera, you can easily convert text to links with a User JavaScript called Linkify URL, this script makes URL’s clickable when they are not.

To start using this User JavaScript, just copy it to your user scripts folder and all the text links in a page will get converted to clickable links, additionally you can read the tutorial on installing User JavaScript in Opera.

Related: Convert Text Links To Actual Clickable Links in Firefox 

Download Linkify URL

Opera has a huge base of user scripts available for use, which allow users to add additional functionality to the browser, the user scripts are pretty similar to Greasemonkey scripts for Firefox.

Considering how popular User JavaScript are in Opera, there are bound to be several useful ones which you must definitely try out, and to help users out, the Opera Watch has put up a list of the most useful User JavaScript for Opera users.

The list includes several useful scripts like;

• Autosizer A script that will enhance image viewing in Opera, allowing you to resize images to fit screens and so on.
• Clean URI A script that auto-detects redirect URL and changes it to the direct URL
• Cooliris alike Preview links in current browser window.
• Power drag Adds ability to resize textareas, select boxes, iframes, objects, images and input fields.
• Linkify URL Makes text URL’s clickable, you may also want to check add-ons that convert plain text to links in Firefox.
• View Selection Source -  Allows users to view HTML source of only the selected area on the page.

These User JavaScript’s are definitely worth trying out. If you are new to User JavaScript in Opera, take a look at a tutorial on How To install user JavaScript it Opera.

Useful User JavaScript for Opera [Opera Watch]

Opera allows users to add custom user JavaScript that can add additional functionality to the browser, however the User JavaScript cannot run out of the box, and you will require to tune some settings in order to get it working.

Here is a step by step tutorial that will teach you how to install user JavaScript in Opera.

Step 1: Go to Tools > Preferences or press Ctrl + F12 shortcut key.

Step 2: Navigate to Content in the left hand side menu and click on the JavaScript Options button.

Step 3: In the new options window click on the Choose button next to User JavaScript files and select a folder where you will be storing the JS files. Remember, this folder can be anything and you must store all the downloaded Opera User JS files in this folder for it to work.

To install new User JavaScript, just copy the file to the User JavaScript files directory, to remove the script delete it from the folder.

Opera has a very annoying feature, where it assumes the role of a BitTorrent client without giving the users any easy options to disable direct integration. This would mean that I would have to fire up another browser so that I can download and open the torrent in my favorite client uTorrent.

The problem as I see it is that Opera’s BitTorrent client is OK for users who are still to discover torrents or are not heavy torrent downloader’s, for the advanced users Opera’s BitTorrent client leaves a lot to be desired with settings that look amateurish as compared to other powerful BitTorrent application. If you are annoyed of this in-built feature in Opera, here is a simple way in which you can easily disable direct BitTorrent integration and use your favorite application to open torrent files in your favorite application.

How To Disable Opera’s BitTorrent Client?

To disable Opera’s BitTorrent integration, type about:config in the browser address bar and search for BitTorrent in the quick find, once you see the option click on the BitTorrent text to open the preferences.

Uncheck the box that is next to enable and click on the save button to disable the integrated BitTorrent support. Once you have done that Opera will treat torrent files as regular downloads.

How To Setup Opera to Open Torrent Files in Your Favorite Application?

After disabling Opera’s integrated BitTorrent client, you can then change how opera handles .torrent downloads, but instructing it to open the file in your favorite torrent client. To do that follow the instructions given below.

Step 1 Go to Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Downloads

Step 2 Uncheck the box next to Hide file types opened with Operaand search for torrent. Once you come across the MIME type application/x-BitTorrent, select it and click the edit button.

Step 3 Select the default application for torrents by either using the system default or providing it with the link to your favorite application.

Step 4 Save the settings for the MIME type and close the preference windows. Opera should now directly open torrent files in your favorite application.

That’s it. Hopefully this should solve a annoying problem many Opera users have been facing, since the release of Opera 9.