Opera 10: Vision of open Internet on any device
The Opera web browser is planning an assault on Internet Explorer 6 and (soon) 7 users, highlighting its enhanced security, customisability, and cross-platform support.
Since Opera 9 came out last month, hundreds of widgets have been produced – little applications that sit on the user’s desktop and do countless tasks, from games and graphics through to calculators, dictionary tools and Internet utilities.
Opera wants to build on this in version 10 to create a browser that works on any device and operating system, including mobile and games consoles. Their vision is a widget-full world where the browser and web applications replace many of the current locally stored software.
They also want to make the browser the one of choice for developers and maintain open standards, not tied in to any proprietary system.
Since its launch, Opera has been downloaded 25 million times, so it’s no pushover. It’ll take a sustained push and grassroots manoeuvres for it to topple the mighty IE, though, particularly with Microsoft’s captive audience.
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