Opera Software, the company behind the slightly popular Opera web browser, today launched a beta version of their upcoming browser software, surprisingly versioned at number 8. This is surprising because for the last few months Opera have been running a beta for their 7.6x browser software, which was supposed to be the next big release of the Opera browser.
Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera Software, had the following reasons for releasing a new code version:
We were preparing for the 7.60 release, but as work progressed and we kept adding improvements and functionality, it became very evident that we now have a browser that is so powerful, secure, and easy to use that it exceeds the next logical version number and warrants a major release. The new Opera version has dramatic improvements under the hood, in addition to some very helpful new features to welcome more and more users to take advantage of browsing the Internet in a fast, safe, and customizable way.
The cynics amongst you may think that this is all a cunning ploy by Opera Software to wrangle licensing money out of existing customers, as Opera is not free software. However, even though this new release is of a new major version number, Opera Software will be giving existing users free upgrades. Which is nice of them.
Talk of version numbers aside, you are probably wondering what is so exciting about this new browser that warrants all this discussion. To start with, the browser features tools such as Fit-To-Window-Width and Fit-To-Paper-Width. No more annoying scrolling around windows to see what you want, you can have the browser resize windows for you automatically if you desire.
However, the most interesting feature of the new Opera browser is it's built in speech engine, which has both speech input and speech output features. Web browsing can now be done by talking to the browser, and you can ask the browser to read you e-mails or the content of web sites. We're not sure how much use this will actually be to your average web user, but it sure sounds like fun. It is also, of course, going to be tremendously valuable to visually impaired users.
Other features of the new software include an improved RSS feed reader and a new start bar system for faster navigation. All of this and the download is under 4 megabytes, so it's even plausible for those of you on dial-up.
Currently available as a free download from the Opera Software site, it's no doubt worth a bash if you want to try something new. If you try it out, let us know what you think with our comments system below.
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