Opera releases new browser beta

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