A new version of the Opera web browser was given its final public release today.
The cross-platform Firefox rival has updated its support for open standards, such as improved support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), including many more CSS3 selectors and the CSS2 text-shadow property, as well as adding new features to enhance its usability.
Opera 9.5 features new operating system (OS) specific skins' or themes, while functionality like the new tab' button has been modified to make for a more intuitive web experience, the developers said.
And new browser functions include Opera link, which synchronises bookmarks, notes or speed dial details between the desktop version and its mobile equivalent, Opera Mini for registered users and Quick Find, which allows the browser to quickly revisit a web page viewed earlier by entering a memorable word from that page into the address bar.
It has also introduced in-built malware protection from providers Haute Secure, Netcraft and PhishTank, to develop Opera's Fraud Protection technology and automatically block offending web pages. And it claims to have made dramatic speed advances in the running of its email client and RSS feeds, as well as to the browser interface itself.
Jon von Tetzchner, Opera chief executive, said: "Opera 9.5 offers new possibilities and capabilities. It's faster, lighter and pushes us further out in front of other browsers, by blending the mobile and desktop worlds together in new and powerful ways."
The new release looks to increase the browser's market share beyond one per cent (according to Net Applications earlier this year), against leaders, Internet Explorer from Microsoft, Firefox from Mozilla and Safari from Apple.
The first public beta of Opera 9.5, which was previously codenamed Kestrel,' was released last October, to update the previous version, 9.2. It's timing for release is also interesting, given it is just a week before Firefox 3 is due for final public release.
Opera is free to download from its website.
