Fans of the Norwegian-based Opera browser have something new to play with today. Version 11 beta 1 has officially hit the interwebs. Besides the obvious speed increase, the biggest feature currently on the table is Extensions. Yes, other browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, and more recently Safari, all already make use of Extensions or “Plugins” — basically mini programs/scripts that run in the browser. One other intriguing feature that Opera is debuting...

I never thought I’d utter the words, “Microsoft’s IEx is faster than Chrome, Opera, and on par with Firefox. Such things just don’t sound right in a world where we constantly mock Microsoft for their sub standard browser offering. But the IE9 preview is changing those past misconceptions. When thrown head to head with Firefox 3.7 and latest version of Chrome and Opera, IE9 actually topped all but Firefox in pure HTML5 speed. That’s pretty...

A few weeks back, the Google Chrome team released a video showing how fast the new release of Chrome was. It was pretty clever actually, featuring speed tests using lightning, sound, and even potatoes. In the spirit of competition, Opera would like you to know that they too have a speedy browser. Except their video is a bit more of a parody than a quote on quote, “real” speed test. But it’s freakin’ hilarious. Have a good laugh after taking the...

iPhone/iPod Touch users who spend a pretty good minute on the web, today is a day to remember, for it is the day in which Opera submitted their iPhone version of Opera Mini to the App Store. The reason for the whole show is simply because, there’s a fair chance that the ever so intelligent and common sense filled (/sarcasm) App Store approvers will reject the app. The reasoning if Apple does in fact do so isn’t anything new. They’ll simply label it as...

Well, it seems that the Windows Web Browser Choice Screen mandated by the European Union to splash on all versions of Windows is working great! According to the latest data from Opera, one of the options given on the main choice screen, their downloads across European Countries has skyrocketed! Opera says it’s “dramatic uptake on downloads.” They are telling us that their download rates have doubled since this browser download and activation pop-up was...