Ramblings and Thoughts Related to Software and Website Development. I Moderate This Blog With An Iron Fist. There Will Be No Mercy!
Dear Opera Dev, WHAT Were you thinking?
Published on June 26, 2008 By andrew_ In Internet

Well it looks like the infinate wisdom of the people resposible for the Firefox 3.0 Download Manager has infected the developers of Opera. Opera 9.50 with all of its speed, rendering and UI improvements has managed to infuriate me. Why? Because I'm a web developer responsible (at the moment) for 20 something major websites, all of which need to be tested locally before we publish them into the wilds of the intertubes.

For those of you who don't know, the HOSTS file on Windows can be used to point website domains at IP Addresses of your choosing. For most of our websites, when we're developing, we use the HOSTS file to point websites to 127.0.0.1 which is the address representing your local machine. Opera 9.50 has a new 'security feature' which effectively blocks navigation to domains/addresses pointed to 127.0.0.1. So I suppose that I should just turn that feature off - oh. wait. There isn't an option to do that. So ok, the localhost ip address doesnt work. What about your local network address you say? Oh, well that won't work either. You get a lovely 'Network not available' message instead of a blank page.

From a 'senior Opera Developer':

If you are using your hosts file to redirect to 127.0.0.1 (localhost) then you are encountering a new security feature that blocks public servers from loading content private servers as part of their documents.

FYI: Blocks of 127.0.0.1 will now (in upcoming versions) be handled the same as Connection Refused from a 127.0.0.1 host with a non-"localhost" name. They will then be handled as if the content-length is 0, for example resulting in blank frames.

Way to go Opera! You've just effectively limited my debugging ability.

Now, I'm not just ranting wildly. I've done my research and troubleshooting. This problem can be evidenced by looking at the threads posted here http://my.opera.com/community/forums/search.dml?term=127.0.0.1&id=&x=26&y=5

What this means is that I cannot effectively debug our websites for Opera using the latest version. What this means for our users who use Opera is that we cannot make sure that their experience is accurate. I have no choice at this point but to downgrade to Opera 9.27 for testing our websites.


Comments
on Jun 26, 2008
All hail Firefox 3.0...the lord of less rertrictions....
on Jun 26, 2008
That does sound kinda strange opera would do that especially with the emphasis they've been putting on "dragonfly". Enough people seem to be concerned over this "feature" though so I'm sure they'll do something about it. I'm not sure if you keep up with the development builds ( http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/ ). Amazing they'd drop the ball like this the same time FF3 was released, but Opera has always been that really smart kid that goes around tripping on his own feet... so kinda expected.
on Jun 26, 2008
All hail Firefox 3.0...the lord of less rertrictions

rertrictions

infinate


with a built in spell checker
on Jun 26, 2008
Thank god for IE6
on Jun 26, 2008
Thank [insert random name] for IE7
on Jun 26, 2008
Hmm, really bad. Since the Opera team wants to be a developers dream, and they remove the feature to test the site locally.

Birger
on Jun 26, 2008
All hail Firefox 3.0...the lord of less rertrictions


Oh yeah...I usually ignore the spell checker because it's too distracting...
on Jun 26, 2008

What's wrong with using http://localhost/yourtestsite/? I just run Apache as a service on my dev box - no problem debugging in Opera 9.50 using this method.

on Jun 27, 2008

robinnorth, when you have a web app (like the forums that stardock run) which switch data/variables/display based on hostname, it's kinda hard to use http://localhost/anything. Additionally, when you have sripts/images/css based off of the root of a website using the localhost/appname schema can be incredibly irritating.

This effects web developers who are doing things slightly more advanced to the point where a localhost address just wont do.

on Jun 27, 2008

Well, if you're hard-coding environment variables, it is a pain. If you have some kind of site config file with a variable like $hostname, localhost is normally fine in my experience. It is, of course, always a pain when a new version stops you using the workflow you're used to though

on Jun 27, 2008
pixeleo is really Zubaz. Too bad, Zubaz, your ploy didn't work! Guess what gave you away?

on Jun 27, 2008
Opera 9.5 is superfast and the new UI looks mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Used to use firefox but opera is just much much better imo in terms of speed and i aint had any sites freeze on me like i have on FF2+3
Go Opera 9.5!!
I hate the fact people dont notice this browser as much as FF and IE They should advertise some more.
on Jun 27, 2008
pixeleo is really Zubaz. Too bad, Zubaz, your ploy didn't work! Guess what gave you away?


on Jun 27, 2008
Andrew have you looked into web2 and maybe a solution there?
Believe I've seen something along the line of new address being used.
But a bit of a let down - it was for Vista and other newer systems being developed.
May be a work around for this thing... will present it and see?

on Jun 27, 2008
O 9.5 is great! FF 3 has super extensions and add ons. Who'd a thunk there'd be such cool stuff around back in the Windows 3.1 days? I thought that looked good, too.
I guess I have no taste.