Opera 9 Released

June 20th marks the release date of the latest version of web-browser Opera 9. The application is available for free download in over 25 languages for Windows, Mac, Linux and other operating systems, and is meant to enhance the online experience in the way the user will access, share and use Internet content.

"For Opera 9, we worked hard to push the limits of what people expect from a Web browser, with increased speed, new Web standards support and innovative features such as widgets and BitTorrent," said Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. "Even though we shaped this browser for the Web's future, we have the powerful features people want and need for their surfing today. I truly feel Opera 9 has something for everyone."

Opera considered the growing need for online security and has consequently improved on the performance of its solutions (especially against phishing and malicious pop-ups), the high level o security being one of the advantages that the Opera browsers have always brought to the table.

Last but not least, Opera 9 allows for a high level of control in order to personalize the browser according to personal preferences by offering new skins, ways to alter the way that individual sites behave or the possibility to block advertisements posted on the web pages.

Let's have a look at the most important features of this release:

- Widgets - Small Web applications (multimedia, newsfeeds, games and more) that make your desktop experience more fun. Any Web developer can create their own Widgets and share them, regardless of operating system. - BitTorrent - Instead of having to use a separate BitTorrent application for downloading large files, users can now simply click a torrent file and start the download. - Content blocker - Choose the content you want to view. Remove ads or images - it is up to you. Right-click on the Web page and choose "Block content" - Thumbnail preview - It's easy to have many tabs open at once in Opera. But exactly which tab had that video you wanted? Hover any tab to see a thumbnail preview.

Here are some screenshots: