Raving Opera

I've lately been diving more actively into what Opera is up to in the browser market, and I have to say that it has been an interesting experience. To be candid, the offering from Opera with their desktop 9.5 alpha launch and opera Mini, is something competition should not take lightly.

The desktop Opera 9.5 is getting praise for not only lightning fast performance and slimness, but also configurability and personalization. If I would make a new browser and concentrate on something, these 2 areas would be the clear winners. Performance is just such obvious, with the continuous struggle for all browsers, and personalization is the most important thing for the future. A sole browser is nothing special, but how it works as the window to exactly your Internet is the key.

Opera Mini on the other hand, keeps making strides in the purely Mobile phone targeted browsers with their server side optimizing delivering a casual and quick to use browsing experience. Even the New York Times got into the show, by talking about Mini in their business travel section.

At the moment Opera is doing exactly the right things to hit into the niche that has been left open by the open source based browsers. Low-end mobile phones, and lightning fast desktop performance.