Opera 8.50: Now Completely Free Of Charge

[Samurai]

Opera Homepage

In what could be considered a very surprising move, and one that easily could shake the browser market, Opera has made it's award winning browser available to the masses for free, void of it's built in Advertisement Banner, giving people the choice of one of the most powerful, flexible and a very secure web browser.

Opera Software today permanently removed the ad banner and licensing fee from its award-winning Web browser. The ad-free, full-featured Opera browser is now available for download - completely free of charge – at http://www.opera.com.

"Today we invite the entire Internet community to use Opera and experience Web browsing as it should be," said Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. "Removing the ad banner and licensing fee will encourage many new users to discover the speed, security and unmatched usability of the Opera browser."

Opera was previously available free of charge with an ad banner. Users had the option of paying a licensing fee to remove the ad banner and receive premium support.

"Opera fans around the globe made this day possible," said von Tetzchner. "As we grow our userbase, our mission and our promise remain steadfast: we will always offer the best Internet experience to our users - on any device. Today this mission gains new ground."

In contrast, seeing as how Opera made their browser available for a day on their 10th anniversary, some may have seen this move coming. Regardless, Being one of the fastest and the most standard compliant browser, Opera may well have opened a new chapter in the browser wars

Download: Opera.com

Download: Opera.com - Torrents

Changelog:

At a Glance

• Advertisement banner removed
  
• Registration options removed
  
• Updated end-user license agreement
  
• Browser javascript fixes broken Web sites on the fly
  

Changes since 8.02

User Interface

• Removed advertising banners and all dialogs and menus related to advertising, registration, and license codes.
  
• Solved issue with Opera reverting explicit user setting to use program as handler rather than plug-in.
  
• Removed support for branded banners.
  

Security

• Fixed issue reported in Secunia Advisory 16645: Attachment URLs now used instead of cache URLs for viewing attachments.
  
• Fixed drag-and-drop vulnerability allowing unintentional file uploads. Issue reported by mikx.de.
  
• Improved handling of must-revalidate cache directive for HTTPS pages.
  
• Fixed display issue with cookie comment encoding.
  

Miscellaneous

• Included Browser javascript by default. On first run after install/upgrade, Opera will fetch a fresh browser.js file and start using it.
  
• Multiple stability fixes.
  
• Opera is giving the following to the customers who have paid for the browser:
  
• Premium support until opera 9
  
• Their money back if they registered in the last 30 days and they want it back (they won't get support)
  
• The good feeling that they helped opera reach the point that it could go free
  

[vin3e]

Just when i was happy with FF again, out pop opera :lol:

Maybe i need to try it again ... *looks at Lite* Should i :lol:

[Samurai]

I would. It's a great browser :lol:

[Guest oxygenuk]

all its missing is a thing like google toolbar, or a nice autofill feature like googles.

i like that other feature firefox has too, u type a search in the address bar and it searchs as googles 'im feelin lucky'

thats why i stick with FF

but i really like opera :wacko:

[Lite]

I can see a rise in the number of opera users. I mean, its the worlds fastest browser, easy to use, feature rich.

[Chicano666]

I have Opera installed but don't use it frequently, it is with no doubt the world's fastest browser (IMO), although I prefer FF :lol:

[preso]

Opera is faster than FF, based on my experiences, but its user javascript...huuuaaa, FF is much better. I use Opera only on secure sites, e.g. here.

[Rudeboy2025]

I didn't know that you had to pay for Opera. I guess thats because I never really tried it. :)