Opera Unite harnesses the power of today’s fast connections and hardware, allowing all of us to help define the future landscape of the Web, one computer at a time. Read about how Opera Unite is going to change the way we interact on the Web on labs.opera.com.

Having been a loyal Firefox user for many years I see now that both Google Chrome and Opera makes fantastic alternatives. However, I keep asking myself, WHY does people still use IE when the competition is so clearly miles ahead??? Please feel free to share your take on this as is doesn’t make sense to me at all.

On a side note I bet all the IT staff in big corporations/companies use something other than IE, they’re simply not taking the step forward as it could require working overtime due to users not being able to adapt to any SW changes. And there’s also the obvious connection between MS Office and any of their other products – but I’m sure the competition could handle it all.

Just have in mind that, like Opera states:

This is a beta version of Opera. Please use it only on properly backed-up computers. It is a stability release and records additions, fixes, and improvements made to Opera 10.0 beta 2. For your reference, please see the previous Opera 10.0 beta 2 for Windows changelog which was released on July 16, 2009.

I haven’t had any issues but others definitely had (thus the stability update). To try it on yourself simply visit their “next” download section.

Happy surfing!

Visit the news room to read the full press release.

I’ve only tested it for a few days but must admit it looks nice. Also I believe it is slightly faster than previous versions. Start-up time also appears to be quicker.

If you’ve tested it let me know which of the new features you like the most.

As a result, NVIDIA will offer an optimized Opera 9.5 browser in its suite of pre-integrated, in-house and third-party software for the NVIDIA® Tegra family of computer-on-chip Windows Mobile and Windows CE solutions.

In an unformal comment Tor Odland at Opera says “our phones will behave like an iPhone on speed”. If it’s true and the rest of the specifications like storage and battery life can compete (or be even better) this seems like a VERY good alternative.

For more information on NVIDIA Tegra solutions, visit www.nvidia.com/tegra/, and, for more information on Opera Browser solutions for devices, visit www.opera.com/products/devices/.

It also fixes a less critical vulnerability that is caused due to an error when handling certain canvas functions and can be exploited to read random memory (potentially disclose sensitive information).

Opera 9.51 also includes several bug fixes and are available for all platforms as always.

What’s new in Opera 9.5 according to themselves:

Opera Link: Your bookmarks, Speed Dial and even notes taken in the Opera browser can follow you anywhere. Opera Link keeps you synchronized between any Opera 9.5 desktop browser and Opera Mini, Opera’s free browser for your mobile phone.

Find anything: If you can remember a word from a page you’ve read earlier, you can find that page easily with Quick Find. Just enter a word in the address bar to find matching text from any page you have visited.

Looking sharp: Opera makes a move to modernize its look and feel to a sharp new skin with clean lines and clear icons. The ‘New Tab’ button and other elements have been modified to make the switch to a better Web experience more intuitive. Also supports platform-specific skins.

Strengthened defence against malware and phishing: Powered by Haute Secure, Netcraft, and PhishTank, Opera’s Fraud Protection technology automatically blocks offending Web pages to keep you out of harm’s way.

Speed: Opera continues to lead in performance. Opera 9.5 makes dramatic speed improvements to the e-mail client, RSS feeds and the browser itself, so you can spend more time getting things done online.

“Opera 9.5 represents the culmination of two years spent listening to our community and transforming our browser to add features and capabilities they have requested,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. “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. We invite everyone to join us as we continue to shape the way the Web will evolve.”

My first impressions according to myself:

The bookmark thing is probably a good thing but I tend to get reminded of important things by my wife, through twitter, news feeds etc. Also the Quick find thing doesn’t seem as fantastic as I’m not comfortable having the browser keeping track of all the pages I’ve visited…

However, my biggest disappointments are design and speed. The browser still uses WAY TOO MUCH space to display the most useful toolbars. Almost twice the space compared to Firefox. Also it appears that rendering fast also means rendering inaccurate. If image size is not set you will have to reload the page several times before it looks “normal”.

Browser security is definitely a good thing, but if you have a decent anti-virus program and firewall it might just be slowing things down. Most threats are directed against IE anyway, so until Opera’s market share grows this doesn’t seem too important.

The most positive news is that it scores 83/100 on the new Acid3 test – congratulations Opera!

Feel free to comment, disagree, argue and share

More info here, here and here.