Opera Officially Releases Opera 9 Browser

News From PC Magazine: Opera Officially Releases Opera 9 Browser:

On Tuesday, Opera Software officially announced the release of Opera 9, the new browser which includes support for 'widgets,' adds a security toolbar, and integrates support for the BitTorrent file-distribution system.

The official release follows a preview version, where Opera tipped its plans to add widgets, small snippets of code that serve as plug-ins, as well as the BitTorrent support.

Meanwhile, Opera's new widgets can be downloaded from Opera's widgets site, where the company has already collected a few examples, such as a circular version of Tetris, several clocks, and a built-in reader for comics sites.

Other features, such as the security toolbar, however, appear to be new. That feature is designed to stop phishing attacks, and is similar to the other anti-phishing plugins introduced by rivals, including Google. The company also said that it had strengthened its pop-up blocker.

Other features to enhance usability include the ability to save sessions and restart at the site when the browser was closed, as well as a "trash can" to restore a saved browser session.

http://www.opera.com/

Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner said that it has reached a new record with downloads of the desktop browser.

The previous download record for Opera was when it removed the ads with Opera 8.5, which had more than one million downloads in the first two days.