Opera Software, the Norwegian company which builds the Opera web browser has just come out with the final release for the Opera version 10.5. With this, they claim to have re-established Opera as the fastest browser on the planet.
With the introduction of a new JavaScript engine, Carakan, and a new graphics library, Vega, both of which are expected to help in increasing the speed of web browsing, Opera seems to have beaten the stiff competition from Apple Safari, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, for the time being, at least.
With the 10.5 version, Opera has also introduced the feature of tabbed private browsing. Other browsers, like Safari and Chrome, do offer private browsing but they open up a new window for the private browsing feature. This is the first time that any browser has introduced the option for tabbed private browsing.
The new version is also integrated with the Aero features of Windows Vista/7 so that you can easily access Speed Dials, tabs, etc from the Taskbar.
There has been a lot of competition going on in the fastest browser race in the recent times. Things have changed a lot since the time when internet was synonymous with Internet Explorer. First came Mozilla and established itself as the fastest browser. Then there was a deluge with Safari, Opera and then Chrome joining in. Since then, there has been consistent competition between Safari, Chrome, Mozilla and Opera for that tag. This round, clearly, has been won by Opera. The ball is now in other browsers’ court.
Opera 10.5 for Windows is available for download from here. Linux and Mac users will have to wait some more for their share of the pie.
