Over the weekend, Opera Software released the newest milestone of its browser, Opera 9.5. This is a completely new branch of the browser (Kestrel) and runs much more quickly than 9.2x (Merlin).
New features include:
- Opera Link: synchronizes your bookmarks, Speed Dial, and Notes between Opera installations on different computers, including Opera Mini on your phone. (View demo.)
- Enhanced address bar searches your entire browsing history, including the contents of each page.
- Security enhancements: malware protection, improved fraud protection, and support for Extended Validation SSL Certificates. (Read more about EV certificates here.)
- New rendering engine with improved site compatibility and performance.
- Opera Dragonfly, the long-awaited developer tools that allows for debugging JavaScript, inspecting CSS and the DOM, and more.
- Slick new default skin
Opera 9.5 Changelog (Windows) (The UI changes are really worth a read, especially the part about “Open with” command, spatial navigation highlighting, and Firefox style tab switching behavior, which I wrote about here.)
For the record, Opera 9.5 scores an 83 on the Acid3 test.
Filed under: Announcements, Browsers
