“The world's fastest browser for Windows,” claims Opera Software

Mar 2, 2010 09:37 GMT  ·  By

The final version of what Opera Software claims to be "the world's fastest browser for Windows" is here. Opera 10.50 Final was made available for download today, March 2nd, 2010, but only for customers running Microsoft’s proprietary operating system, with Mac OS X and Linux users having to wait a tad longer for their releases. As far as Windows is concerned, Opera 10.50 Build 3296 Final is optimized for Windows 7, allowing users to take advantage of the Aero graphical user interface advances that the successor of Windows Vista brings to the table.

"Opera 10.50 is the fastest browser in almost all speed tests," Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera, revealed. "But, more important than any speed test is the real-world speed during use. We designed Opera 10.50 to be easy to use, while making our unique features stand out, so you can get more out of the Web."

Opera 10.50 is the first third-party browser to truly embrace Windows 7’s new GUI. While Google is essentially ignoring Windows 7 integration for Chrome, locking users into Windows XP-level UI features, Opera 10.50 plays extremely nice with Aero Glass. Users will find that running version 10.50 of Opera means that they will be able to enjoy Windows 7 features such as Aero Peek and Jump Lists, and even access Speed Dials and tabs from the platform’s Taskbar.

While rival browsers such as Internet Explorer are still far from offering support for modern web standards, Opera 10.50 is already offering developers the possibility to build websites leveraging technologies such as HTML5 and CSS3. After all, Opera 10.50 managed to reach a perfect 100/100 score on the Acid3 test while the browser was still under development.

Users will be able to notice immediately that Opera 10.50 comes with an overhauled graphical user interface. The GUI revamp was introduced in order to enable end users to enjoy a superior browsing experience, according to Opera Software. The traditional style menu has been scrapped and replaced with a Ribbon/Fluent GUI version menu. Opera 10.50 features a button that allows users to access the browser’s menu, much in the same manner as Office 2007 and Office 2010, and Paint and WordPad in Windows 7.

Important changes in terms of user privacy capabilities make it possible for customers to run in Private Mode. However, while rival browsers only allow Private Browsing to happen in new windows, in Opera 10.50, users can also open different tabs in Private Mode.

Core improvements to the browser also ensure that Opera 10.50 has gotten a boost in terms of speed and performance. Version 10.50 brings to the table a new JavaScript engine dubbed Carakan, as well as a new graphics library, Vega.

"Opera has pioneered or introduced many of the features commonplace in Web browsers today, such as tabs and Speed Dial. But, a few just cannot be found anywhere else:

"Opera Turbo - Whenever your bandwidth slows to a crawl, just turn on Opera Turbo, and let your worries eat your dust. Opera Turbo compresses Web pages on our powerful servers. Because you transfer less data, Web content gets to you faster.

"Opera Unite - Share content immediately, without uploading files or posting to a social network. Opera Unite combines the flexibility of a Web application with the capability of a Web server, easily accessible from your browser.

"Opera Link - Take your data with you. Synchronize your Speed Dial, notes, search-engine preferences and more; then, just log into any other Opera Web browser or even Opera Mini, the world's most popular mobile Web browser," Opera Software added.

UPDATE: Those interested in personalizing Opera 10.50 Speed Dial with different backgrounds have a few images to choose from via this link.

Opera 10.50 Build 3296 Final is available for download here.

Photo Gallery (9 Images)

Opera 10.50
Opera 10.50Opera 10.50
+6more