Opera Software has released a beta 9 version of its free
internet browser.
Opera 9 Beta includes widgets – small web applications
delivering multimedia, newsfeeds or other material onto the users’
desktop – and support for BitTorrent file downloading
technology.
Other features include content blocking and site specific
preferences that can be set to remove advertisements or images,
improved rich text editing for use with web mail or blogging
services, a customisable search box and thumbnail previews on
browser tabs.
The widget system allows web developers to create their own
widgets and share them with others, across operating systems.
Opera has only a tiny slice of the browser market – just 0.54%,
compared with the dominant Internet Explorer’s 84.7% and 10% for
the open source Firefox – but is making a push into the mobile
browser arena.
The firm announced a tie-up with voice over IP specialist Jajah
to integrate the Jajah web telephony product into Opera Mobile and
Opera Mini browsers. The Jajah technology will be included as a
widget in Opera 9.
Opera 9 Beta is available for download at
http://www.opera.com