Newest Opera Browser Takes a Bow

After long months of experimenting with the test version, fans of Opera will today be able to get their hands on the official Version 9 release of the popular Web browser that has several new bells and a few interesting whistles.

For one, Opera 9 includes widgets, which are small standalone applications. With widgets, a user can play games, retrieve specified data like stats about favorite sports teams, and perform other functions -- all in slick-looking little windows that can be positioned on the screen independently of the browser.

Opera-based widgets are expected to blossom -- if that's what widgets do -- because they can be developed and distributed by members of the Opera community using open Web standards like JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and Ajax.

Unconfigured Ad Widget