The history of the

Opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

web browser began in 1994 when it was started as a research project at

Telenor Telenor ASA ( or ) is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwi ...

, the largest Norwegian telecommunications company. In 1995, the project branched out into a separate company named

Opera Software Opera (formerly Opera Software AS) is a Norwegian multinational technology corporation headquartered in Oslo, Norway with additional offices in European Union, Europe, China, and Africa. Opera offers a range of products and services that inclu ...

ASA Asa may refer to: People and fictional characters * Asa (given name), a given name, including a list of people and fictional characters so named * Asa people, an ethnic group based in Tanzania * Aṣa, Nigerian-French singer, songwriter, and reco ...

, with the first publicly available version released in 1996. Opera has undergone extensive changes and improvements, and introduced notable features such as Speed Dial. Until version 2.0, the Opera browser was called MultiTorg Opera (version 1.0) and had only a limited internal release—although it was demonstrated publicly at the Third International WWW Conference in April 1995. It was known for its

multiple document interface A multiple-document interface (MDI) is a graphical user interface in which multiple windows reside under a single parent window. Such systems often allow child windows to embed other windows inside them as well, creating complex Hierarchy#Nested hi ...

(MDI) and 'hotlist' (sidebar), which made browsing several pages at once much easier, as well as being the first browser to completely focus on adhering to the

W3C The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in ...

standards. In February 2013, Opera Software announced that their in-house rendering engine, Presto, would be phased out in favour of

WebKit WebKit is a browser engine primarily used in Apple's Safari web browser, as well as all web browsers on iOS and iPadOS. WebKit is also used by the PlayStation consoles starting with the PS3, the Tizen mobile operating systems, the Amazon K ...

. Opera 15 saw the browser being fully rewritten, with this and subsequent releases being based on

Blink Blinking is a bodily function; it is a semi-autonomic rapid closing of the eyelid. A single blink is determined by the forceful closing of the eyelid or inactivation of the levator palpebrae superioris and the activation of the palpebral por ...

and

Chromium Chromium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in Group 6 element, group 6. It is a steely-grey, Luster (mineralogy), lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium ...

Original versions

Version 2

Version 2.0, the first public release of Opera, was released as

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. ...

in 1996. Due to popular demand, Opera Software showed interest in programming its browser for alternative operating systems such as

Apple Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

QNX QNX ( or ) is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. The product was originally developed in the early 1980s by Canadian company Quantum Software Systems, founded March 30, 1980, and l ...

and

BeOS BeOS is a discontinued operating system for personal computers that was developed by Be Inc. It was conceived for the company's BeBox personal computer which was released in 1995. BeOS was designed for multitasking, multithreading, and a graph ...

. On October 10, 1997, they launched "Project Magic", an effort to measure user interest in the development of new Opera releases for other operating systems, in order to fund the development of a new version appropriately. On November 30, 1997 they closed voting for which operating system to develop with. Project Magic then became a news column for updates for alternative operating systems until version 4.

Version 3

Opera 3 was the first version of Opera with

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...

support, but

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

was still missing. It was released for multiple operating systems on December 31, 1997.

Elektra versions

Version 3.5/3.6

In 1998, Opera 3.5 was released, adding Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) support,

TLS 1.0 Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network, such as the Internet. The protocol is widely used in applications such as email, instant messaging, and voice over IP, ...

the Elektra rendering engine, and file upload capability. Since version 3.5, Opera has supported CSS, and

Håkon Wium Lie Håkon Wium Lie (born July 26, 1965) is a Norwegian web pioneer, a standards activist, and the chairman of YesLogic, developers of Prince CSS-based PDF rendering software. He is best known for developing Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) while work ...

, one of the inventors of CSS, is the CTO at Opera. Up to 6.0 Opera supported most common web standards, Netscape plugins and some other recent standards such as WAP and WML for wireless devices, but its implementation of advanced

ECMAScript ECMAScript (; ES) is a standard for scripting languages, including JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript. It is best known as a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different web browsers. It is stan ...

(of which "JavaScript" is an implementation) and the

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

Document Object Model The Document Object Model (DOM) is a cros s-platform and language-independent API that treats an HTML or XML document as a tree structure wherein each node is an object representing a part of the document. The DOM represents a document with ...

was poor. Version 3.6 was released on May 12, 1999. The 16-bit version of Opera for Windows 3.62 is the last version to support Windows 3.x. Further releases would require

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...

. Opera 3.62 adds EPOC support.

Version 4

On June 28, 2000, Opera 4 was released, introducing a new

cross-platform Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...

core, tabbed browsing making it so that the serch bar only represented the selected tab, and a new integrated email client.

Version 5

Opera 5, released on December 6, 2000, was the first version which was ad-sponsored instead of having a trial period. Version 5 also supported

ICQ ICQ was a cross-platform instant messaging (IM) and VoIP client founded in June 1996 by Yair Goldfinger, Sefi Vigiser, Amnon Amir, Arik Vardi, and Arik's father, Yossi Vardi. The name ICQ derives from the English phrase "I Seek You". Originally ...

, but this was dropped from later versions. Opera supported

OS/2 OS/2 is a Proprietary software, proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, ...

for the first time, requiring WarpIN and

Odin Odin (; from ) is a widely revered god in Norse mythology and Germanic paganism. Most surviving information on Odin comes from Norse mythology, but he figures prominently in the recorded history of Northern Europe. This includes the Roman Em ...

to be installed. Opera 5.10 (April 2001) was the first version to recognize mouse gestures, but this feature was disabled by default.

Version 6

On November 29, 2001, Opera 6 was released with new features including

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

support, and offering a

single document interface A multiple-document interface (MDI) is a graphical user interface in which multiple windows reside under a single parent window. Such systems often allow child windows to embed other windows inside them as well, creating complex nested hierarchies ...

as well as the

allowed by previous versions.

First MSN.com controversy

On October 24, 2001,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

blocked users of browsers other than Internet Explorer, including Opera, from accessing

MSN MSN is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps provided by Microsoft. The main webpage provides news, weather, sports, finance and other content curated from hundreds of different sources that Microsoft has partnere ...

.com. After accusations of monopolistic behavior, Microsoft lifted the restrictions two days later. However, as late as November 2001, Opera users were still locked out from some MSN.com content, despite Opera's ability to display the content had it been served.

Presto versions

Version 7

On January 28, 2003, Opera 7 was released, introducing the new " Presto" layout engine, with improved CSS,

client-side scripting A dynamic web page is a web page constructed at runtime (during software execution), as opposed to a ''static web page'', delivered as it is stored. A server-side dynamic web page is a web page whose construction is controlled by an application ...

, and

(DOM) support.

Mac OS 9 Mac OS 9 is the ninth and final major release of the classic Mac OS operating system for Macintosh computers, made by Apple Computer. Introduced on October 23, 1999, it was promoted by Apple as "The Best Internet Operating System Ever", highlight ...

support was dropped. Version 7.0 saw Opera undergo an extensive rewrite with the faster and more powerful

Presto layout engine Presto was the browser engine of the Opera web browser from the release of Opera 7 on 28 January 2003, until the release of Opera 15 on 2 July 2013, at which time Opera switched to using the Blink engine that was originally created for Chromium. ...

. The new engine brought almost full support for the HTML DOM meaning that parts of, or a whole, page can be re-rendered in response to DOM and script events. A 2004 review in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' described Opera 7.5 as being excessively complex and difficult to use. The review also criticized the free edition's use of obtrusive advertisements when other browsers such as

Mozilla Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...

and

Safari A safari (; originally ) is an overland journey to observe wildlife, wild animals, especially in East Africa. The so-called big five game, "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, African leopard, leopard, rhinoceros, African elephant, elep ...

were offered free of charge without including advertisements. In August 2004, Opera 7.6 began limited alpha testing. It had more advanced standards support, and introduced voice support for Opera, as well as support for Voice XML. Opera also announced a new browser for Interactive Television, which included a ''fit to width'' option Opera 8 introduced. Fit to Width is a technology that initially utilized the power of CSS, but it is now internal Opera technology. Pages are dynamically resized by making images and/or text smaller, and even removing images with specific dimensions to make it fit on any screen width, improving the experience on smaller screens dramatically. Opera 7.6 was never officially released as a final version. On January 12, 2005, Opera Software announced that it would offer free licenses to higher education institutions, a change from the previous cost of $1,000 USD for unlimited licenses. Schools that opted for the free license included

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT),

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public university, public research university and Institute of technology (United States), institute of technology in Atlanta, ...

, and

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

. Opera was commonly criticized for having been ad-sponsored, since this was seen as a barrier to gaining market share. In the newer versions the user was allowed a choice of generic graphical banners, or text-based targeted advertisements provided by Google based upon the page being viewed. Users could pay a license fee to remove the advertisement bar.

Second MSN.com controversy

In 2003, MSN.com was configured to present Opera browsers with a style sheet used for old versions of Microsoft

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...

. Other browsers received either a style sheet tailored to them, or at least the latest Internet Explorer style sheet. The outdated style sheet that Opera received caused Opera to move a significant amount of MSN.com's content 30

pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a Raster graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...

s to the left of where it should be, distorting the page and making it appear as though there was a bug in Opera. In response, the

company created a special " Bork" edition of Opera which displayed gibberish instead of MSN.com but not on any other web site. They said they did this to make a point about the necessity of a harmonious relationship between web browsers and web sites. After the complaints, Microsoft changed their servers to present the latest version of Opera, version 7, with the style sheet served to the latest version of Internet Explorer, which resolved the problem. However, Microsoft continued to serve the outdated style sheet to the older Opera 6.

Hotmail controversy

In November 2004,

sent an electronic message to

, complaining that Opera users were sent an incomplete

file when using

Hotmail Outlook.com, formerly Hotmail, is a free personal email service offered by Microsoft. It also provides a webmail interface accessible via web browser or mobile apps featuring mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and ...

(now Outlook.com). The incomplete file prevented Opera users from emptying their "Junk E-mail" folders. The Opera Software company later sent a physical letter to Microsoft. Nevertheless, as of February 11, 2005, Microsoft had neither replied to the messages nor corrected the issue.

Version 8

On April 19, 2005, version 8.0 was released. Besides supporting SVG Tiny, multimodal features and User JavaScript, the default user interface was cleaned up and simplified. The default home page was an improved search portal. The changes displeased a number of existing users since some advanced settings became hidden. Version 8.0 introduced support for

Scalable Vector Graphics Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML-based vector graphics format for defining two-dimensional graphics, having support for interactivity and animation. The SVG specification is an open standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium sin ...

(SVG) 1.1 Tiny. This marked the first major web browser to natively support some form of SVG. Version 8.5 was released on September 20, 2005. Opera announced that their browser would be available free of charge and without advertisements, although the company still continued to sell support contracts. Enhancements included automatic client-side fixing of web sites that did not render correctly, and a number of security fixes.

Version 9

Version 9.0 was the first Microsoft Windows, Linux, and BSD browser to pass the

Acid2 Acid2 is a webpage that tests web browsers' functionality in displaying aspects of HTML markup, CSS 2.1 styling, Portable Network Graphics, PNG images, and data URIs. The test page was released on 13 April 2005 by the Web Standards Project. The ...

test. This version, released on June 20, 2006, added XSLT and improved SVG to 1.1 Basic level. This was the first version to be on the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...

. Beta versions of Opera 9 included an

Easter egg Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian holiday of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are commonly used during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The ...

that, when triggered, affects the Acid2 test. After the page has been open for a while, the eyes of the smiley will follow the cursor around and when the user clicks on the eyes, a

alert will read "Because just passing is not enough ;)". The changes to the Acid2 code were applied using Opera's browser.js feature, and remain available in a separate User JavaScript file. Opera introduced Widgets, small web applications, a built-in

BitTorrent client The following is a general comparison of Glossary of BitTorrent terms#Client, BitTorrent clients, which are computer programs designed for peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent, BitTorrent protocol. The BitTorrent protocol coordinates se ...

, improved content blocking and a built-in tool for creating and editing search engines. Opera also added ability to read

MHTML MHTML, an initialism of "MIME encapsulation of aggregate HTML documents", is a web archiving file format used to combine, in a single computer file, the HTML code and its companion resources (such as images) that are represented by external hyp ...

and to save the web page as archives. Version 9.1 (released in 2006) introduced fraud protection using technology from

GeoTrust GeoTrust is a digital certificate provider. The GeoTrust brand was bought by Symantec from Verisign in 2010, but agreed to sell the certificate business (including GeoTrust) in August 2017 to private equity and growth capital firm Thoma Bravo L ...

, a

digital certificate In cryptography, a public key certificate, also known as a digital certificate or identity certificate, is an electronic document used to prove the validity of a public key. The certificate includes the public key and information about it, informa ...

provider, and PhishTank, an organization that tracks known

phishing Phishing is a form of social engineering and a scam where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware such as viruses, worms, adware, or ransomware. Phishing attacks have become increasingly sophisticate ...

web sites. Version 9.2, codenamed ''Merlin'', introduced Speed Dial, 3 × 3 small

thumbnail Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures or videos, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words. In the age of digital images, visual search engines and image-o ...

s which are shown instead of a blank page. Version 9.5, codenamed ''Kestrel'' (after the

Kestrel The term kestrel (from , derivative from , i.e. ratchet) is the common name given to several species of predatory birds from the falcon genus ''Falco''. Kestrels are most easily distinguished by their typical hunting behaviour which is to hover ...

falcon), was released to span the gap between Opera 9.2 and Opera 10. It included some of the rendering improvements due to be made in Opera 10 and also aimed to provide better integration with various

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

s. The first

alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter ''aleph'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...

build of Opera 9.5 was released on September 4, 2007. The first public

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

was released on October 25, 2007, and the final version was released on June 12, 2008. The final release was downloaded more than 4.5 million times in the first 5 days. Opera 9.5 has improved support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), including many more CSS3 selectors and the CSS2 text-shadow property. Support for other

web standards Web standards are the formal, non-proprietary standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of st ...

was also improved. For example, Opera 9.5's

(SVG) implementation supports 93.8% of the

's SVG test suite, and built-in support for Animated Portable Network Graphics (APNG) and

MathML Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) is a pair of mathematical markup languages, an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. Its aim is to natively integrate mathematical formulae ...

. Opera 9.5 also supports high-security

Extended Validation Certificate An Extended Validation (EV) Certificate is a certificate conforming to X.509 that proves the legal entity of the owner and is signed by a certificate authority key that can issue EV certificates. EV certificates can be used in the same manner as ...

s and added malware protection through partnership with Haute Secure. The interface underwent a few alterations as well, using "Sharp" by default, a new

skin Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation. Other animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have different ...

designed to be more intuitive, though the classic skin was still available as a user preference.

Screen reader A screen reader is a form of assistive technology (AT) that renders text and image content as speech or braille output. Screen readers are essential to blindness, blind people, and are useful to visually impaired people, Illiteracy, illiterate, ...

support has been added back in. Opera's mail client, Opera Mail, has been updated, with an improved indexing feature and many bugfixes. Opera 9.5 also lets users save bookmarks, notes, the Personal Bar and Speed Dial settings to the

Opera Link Opera is a form of Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a lib ...

service. These preferences can then be synchronized with another Opera browser, such as a copy of

Opera Mini Opera Mini is a mobile web browser made by Opera. It was primarily designed for the Java ME platform, as a low-end sibling for Opera Mobile, but only the Android and Mocor OS builds was still under active development. It had previously been d ...

running on a mobile phone. Alongside the new features, Opera 9.5 had new performance improvements. For example,

x64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit extension of the x86 instruction set. It was announced in 1999 and first available in the AMD Opteron family in 2003. It introduces two new operating modes: 64-bit mode an ...

-bit editions of Opera for compatible

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

and

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), also known as Berkeley Unix or BSD Unix, is a discontinued Unix operating system developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley, beginni ...

operating systems. On the other hand, SPARC Linux support has been dropped. Version 9.6 improved Opera Link with the new opportunity to sync custom search engines and typed history. Feed preview and an updated Opera Mail client were additional changes.

Version 10

Version 10 (Peregrine) debuted in a first beta version on June 3, 2009 and scored 100/100 on the

Acid3 The Acid3 test is a web test page from the Web Standards Project that checks a web browser's compliance with elements of various web standards, particularly the Document Object Model (DOM) and JavaScript. If the test is successful, the results ...

test, but failed the smoothness criteria. There was also a preview build that scored 100/100, released on March 28, 2009. Among other features, it also came with speed optimizations, inline spell checking for forms, an auto update feature, HTML mail formatting, web fonts and SVG font support, alpha transparency support using the RGBA and HSLA color models, and an updated version of the Opera Dragonfly web debugger. Opera Turbo, a mode which uses Opera's servers as proxy servers with data compression, reducing volume of data transferred by up to 80% (depending upon content), and thus increasing speed, was introduced. Opera 10 was officially released on September 1, 2009. Within a week of release, 10 million downloads had been recorded. The 10.5x versions (codenamed Evenes) also came with a new

engine, Carakan, and a new graphics backend dubbed Vega (replacing the previously used Qt), that have increased its speed measurably. Then version 10.60, which Opera Software claims to be 50% faster than Opera 10.50, which also brought up new features like

Geolocation Geopositioning is the process of determining or estimating the geographic position of an object or a person. Geopositioning yields a set of Geographic coordinate system, geographic coordinates (such as latitude and longitude) in a given map datum ...

WebM WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML video and the HTML audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponsored by ...

support, AVG

malware Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...

protection, Speed Dial improvements, etc. Opera 10.63 is the last version to support

Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a line of discontinued Microsoft Windows operating systems released from 1995 to 2000 and supported until 2006, which were based on the kernel introduced in Windows 95 and modified in succeeding version ...

and

Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the data server and personal workstation markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, and was released to manufacturing on July 3 ...

, as later releases would require at least

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...

Version 11

Opera 11 (codenamed Kjevik) was released on December 16, 2010 with new features including

extensions Extension, extend or extended may refer to: Mathematics Logic or set theory * Axiom of extensionality * Extensible cardinal * Extension (model theory) * Extension (proof theory) * Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values t ...

, tab stacking, visual mouse gestures, new installer (Windows only) and safety improvements to the address field. In addition, the content blocker list now can be synchronized through Opera Link. It also passes the Acid3 Test as of January 22, 2011. On April 12, 2011, Opera 11.10 (codenamed Barracuda) was released. It contains many fixes "under the hood", such as improved Turbo Mode, a plug-in installation wizard and a rewritten Speed Dial. Opera 11.10 was updated to use the new Presto 2.8 Rendering Engine. On May 18, 2011, the final version of Opera 11.11 was released with improvements to security. On June 28, 2011, Opera 11.50 (codename Swordfish) was released. Equipped with the rendering engine Presto 2.9.168 featuring up to 20% faster rendering of CSS and SVG, support for HTML5 tag , Session History and Navigation, it also features extensions in the Speed Dial, support for password sync in Opera Link and an updated UI. On December 6, 2011, Opera 11.60 (codename Tunny) was released. Updated with the newest rendering engine Presto 2.10.229, this update features several changes including a UI revamp of the email interface, a new address field with star feature, and several "under the hood" as new HTML5 tags and parsing implementations, full ECMAScript 5.1 support. This version also implemented the JSON API geo-location of Google. On January 24, 2012, Opera 11.61 was released with improvements to security and stability. On March 27, 2012, Opera 11.62 was released with security and stability improvements, bug fixes and performance improvements. On April 17, 2012, Opera 11.63 was released. It was a Mac-exclusive release, contrary to belief that Apple had prematurely flipped the switch, making this release available for Mac users ahead of Windows and Linux customers. On May 10, 2012, Opera 11.64 was released, with stability, bug fixes and security improvements.

Version 12

Opera released version 12 Pre-Alpha Build 1017 on June 7, 2011. Its code name was Wahoo. Opera 12 has hardware acceleration, support for WebGL and the new Opera Reader-feature. On October 13, 2011, a version 12 Alpha build 1105 was released. Includes several speed and memory improvements, themes implementation, full hardware acceleration with WebGL, full ECMAScript 5.1 compliance, and a new HTML5 parser named Ragnarök. On June 7, 2012, the RC1 version of Opera build 1448 was released. It offers native 64-bit support and out-of-process plug-ins. On June 14, 2012, the final version of Opera 12.00 was released. Opera 12.01, with some minor yet important security and stability upgrades, was released on August 2, 2012. Opera 12.02 was released on August 30, 2012. It is the last version to support

, but the succeeding versions would need at least

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...

and

Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003, codenamed "Whistler Server", is the sixth major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft and the first server version to be released under the Windows Server brand name. It is part of the Windows NT ...

. On November 5, 2012, Opera 12.10 was released with improvements, bugfixes and security updates. On November 20, 2012, Opera 12.11 was released. This release was mainly a stability and security improvement over the previous version. On December 17, 2012, Opera 12.12 was released. This release is a recommended security and stability update over the previous version. It is the last version to work on XP RTM & SP1, and Server 2003 RTM. The succeeding versions would need at least Windows XP SP2+, and Server 2003 SP1. On January 30, 2013, Opera 12.13 was released as a recommended stability and security update. A week later, on February 5, 2013, Opera 12.14 was released after the users discovered an autoupdate crash loop bug. On April 4, 2013, Opera 12.15 was released. This release is a recommended security and stability update over the previous version. On July 4, 2013, Opera 12.16 was released. This release is a recommended security and stability update over the previous version. On April 23, 2014, Opera 12.17 was released as a platform-specific security update for Windows to fix the

Heartbleed Heartbleed is a security bug in some outdated versions of the OpenSSL cryptography library, which is a widely used implementation of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. It was introduced into the software in 2012 and publicly disclos ...

bug in the installer and autoupdater of Opera. The browser itself is not threatened by Heartbleed. On February 16, 2016, Opera 12.18 was released for the Windows platform. It adds support for elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) as well as Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) for encrypted connections to enable Opera 12 to connect to servers that don't allow other encryption modes anymore. In addition a security issue in the mail client was fixed.

Blink versions

Opera 2013

On February 12, 2013, Opera Software announced their intention to transition from their Presto layout engine to

, building upon the base of the Chromium project. Opera will become a contributor to the Chromium project. After Google announced its transition of the Chrome/Chromium browser from WebKit to

, Opera confirmed it would also switch to Blink instead of WebKit. The version identifier 13 was skipped, thought to be related to

superstition A superstition is any belief or practice considered by non-practitioners to be irrational or supernatural, attributed to fate or magic (supernatural), magic, perceived supernatural influence, or fear of that which is unknown. It is commonly app ...

, while 14 was used to refer to a

-based release of Opera for Android. On May 28, 2013, a beta version of Opera 15 based on Blink was made available for Windows and Mac computers. It removed many distinctive Opera features, including some ubiquitous features like bookmarks (with an expanded Speed Dial intended to replace this feature). The features confirmed to be restored in the near future were synchronization, theme support, geolocation, and a "feature rich" tab bar. The previously-bundled M2 email client was released as a standalone application, Opera Mail. Extensions for the previous browser versions are no longer supported; instead developers are provided with facilities for converting old extensions to Chrome extensions, supported in Opera 15. On July 2, 2013, the final version of Opera 15.0 was released. This release was not pushed through the automatic update system, as it was deemed some features important to current users had yet to be implemented. On July 19, 2013, Opera 16 entered the Next stream. This build included the return of

geolocation Geopositioning is the process of determining or estimating the geographic position of an object or a person. Geopositioning yields a set of Geographic coordinate system, geographic coordinates (such as latitude and longitude) in a given map datum ...

support and automatic form filling, and added a ''flags'' page allowing experimental features to be enabled. On August 27, 2013, Opera 16 was released. On August 8, 2013, Opera 17 entered the Developer stream, reintroducing rocker gestures, tab pinning, start-up options, and search engine management. On September 6, 2013, Opera 17 transitioned from the Developer stream to the Next stream in anticipation of its impending release. On October 8, 2013, Opera 17 was released. On September 11, 2013, Opera 18 entered the Developer stream, with initial features including tab management, theme support and engine updates. On November 19, 2013, Opera 18 was released. On October 24, 2013, Opera 19 entered the Developer stream. The final release was released on January 28, 2014, with features including the new bookmarks bar, extended theme support and an additional level of settings for hardcore users.

Opera 2014

Opera 20 was released on March 4, 2014, based on Chromium 33. Speed dial entries were made resizeable and support was added for dragging tabs to the bookmarks bar. This was the last version for processors without SSE2 instructions. Stash screenshots were also improved. Opera 21 was released on May 6, 2014, based on Chromium 34, and using Chromium's Aura UI framework. A broken padlock is now shown when sites present invalid security certificates and an option to display the full URL in the address bar was added. Opera 22 was released on June 3, 2014, based on Chromium 35. Support for high DPI displays was improved and the default theme was changed. Opera 23 was released on July 22, 2014, based on Chromium 36. A ''heart menu'' was added to the address bar, allowing the current page to be added to Speed Dial, Stash, or the bookmarks bar. An option to load insecure content on secure sites was also added. Opera 24 was released on September 2, 2014, based on Chromium 37. This release introduced tab previews, which are displayed when tabs are hovered. It also included several improvements specific to Windows: the frame of private windows was darkened and support for high DPI displays was improved again. Opera 25 was released on October 15, 2014, based on Chromium 38. This release introduced a visual bookmark manager and the inclusion of a built-in PDF viewer. Support for desktop notifications was added. This was the last release to support

OS X Snow Leopard Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6) (also referred to as OS X Snow Leopard) is the seventh software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc., Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Snow Leopard was publicl ...

, with later releases requiring

OS X Lion OS X Lion, also known as Mac OS X Lion, (version 10.7) is the eighth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers. A preview of OS X 10.7 Lion was publicly shown at the "Back to the Mac" Apple Speci ...

or later. Opera 26 was released on December 3, 2014, based on Chromium 39. This is the first new stable version on Linux since 12.16, released on July 4, 2013. This version introduced the ability to import data from other browsers, including bookmarks and passwords. It also features the ability to share selected bookmarks via a URL, and integrated a print preview. Bing was removed from the default search engine list, and can thus no longer be set as the default. This release also transitioned the Mac version of Opera to the 64-bit architecture.

Opera 2015

Opera 27 was released on January 27, 2015, based on Chromium 40. A tab menu was added on the right of the tab bar, which displays all opened tabs in a list. Hovering the cursor over a name in the list and it shows a preview of the selected tab. Reorganised the navigation on the start page. Includes additional bug-fixes for the PPAPI plugin support and the bookmark manager. Opera 28 was released on March 10, 2015, based on Chromium 41. Starting with this version, bookmarks can be synchronized between Opera on the desktop,

Opera Mobile Opera Mobile is a mobile web browser for smartphones, tablets and PDAs developed by Opera. History The first devices to run a mobile edition of Opera were the Psion Series 5, Psion Series 5mx, Psion Series 7, and then Psion netBook. They ...

on Android and

on Android and iOS. Support for batch operation was added to the bookmark manager and bookmark suggestions now appear when typing in the address bar. Opera 29 was released on April 28, 2015, based on Chromium 42. Among the features added in this release were an improved start page look, an improved history manager, the sync of open tabs, sync and manage Speed Dial start pages, an audio indicator on the tab bar, custom keyboard shortcuts and more mouse gestures. Opera 30 was released on June 9, 2015, based on Chromium 43. Opera 31 was released on August 4, 2015, based on Chromium 44. Opera 32 was released on September 15, 2015, based on Chromium 45. When a website using

Silverlight Microsoft Silverlight is a discontinued application framework designed for writing and running rich internet applications, similar to Adobe's runtime, Adobe Flash. While early versions of Silverlight focused on streaming media, later version ...

is accessed, it gives a message that the Microsoft Silverlight plugin will soon no longer be supported. Opera 33 was released on October 27, 2015, based on Chromium 46. Microsoft Silverlight and

NPAPI Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) is a deprecated application programming interface (API) for web browser plugins, initially developed for Netscape Navigator 2.0 in 1995 and subsequently adopted by other browsers. In the ...

still work and the message from Opera 32 is no longer displayed. Opera 34 was released on December 8, 2015, based on Chromium 47.

Opera 2016

Opera 35 was released on February 2, 2016, based on Chromium 48. Opera 36 was released on March 15, 2016, and was based on Chromium 49. It is the last version to support

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...

, and

Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008, codenamed "Longhorn Server" (alternatives: "Windows Vista Server" or "Windows Server Vista"), is the seventh major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server b ...

. The succeeding versions would need at least

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

and

Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2008 R2, codenamed "Windows Server 7" or "Windows Server 2008 Release 2", is the eighth major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server brand name. It was release ...

. Opera 37 was released on May 4, 2016, based on Chromium 50. It was the last version that would run under

and

OS X Mountain Lion OS X Mountain Lion (version 10.8) is the ninth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Mountain Lion was released on July 25, 2012, for purchase and download through the Mac App S ...

. The succeeding versions would need at least

OS X Mavericks OS X Mavericks (version 10.9) is the 10th major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Mavericks was announced on June 10, 2013, at WWDC 2013, and was released on October 22, 2013, wo ...

. Opera 38 was released on June 8, 2016, based on Chromium 51. Free unlimited VPN service from Opera was added. Opera 39 was released on August 2, 2016, based on Chromium 52. Opera 40 was released on September 20, 2016, based on Chromium 53. Opera 41 was released on October 25, 2016, based on Chromium 54. Opera 42 was released on December 13, 2016, based on Chromium 55.

Opera 2017

Opera 43 was released on February 7, 2017, based on Chromium 56. Opera 44 was released on March 22, 2017, based on Chromium 57. Opera 45 was released on May 10, 2017, based on Chromium 58, and comes with a slightly overhauled user interface and an integrated messenger sidebar supporting

Facebook Messenger Messenger, formerly known as Facebook Messenger, is an American proprietary instant messaging service developed by Meta Platforms. Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008, the client application of Messenger is currently available o ...

WhatsApp WhatsApp (officially WhatsApp Messenger) is an American social media, instant messaging (IM), and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by technology conglomerate Meta. It allows users to send text, voice messages and video messages, make vo ...

, and

Telegram Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas pi ...

It was the last version that would run under Linux 32-bit, with later versions requiring Linux 64-bit. Opera 46 was released on June 22, 2017, based on Chromium 59. It includes support for

APNG Animated Portable Network Graphics (APNG) is a file format which extends the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) specification to permit animated images that work similarly to animated GIF files, while supporting 24 or 48-bit images and full alpha ...

, a feature which was lost upon switching the layout engine in 2013. Opera 47 was released on August 9, 2017, based on Chromium 60. Opera 48 was released on September 27, 2017, based on Chromium 61. Opera 49 was released on November 8, 2017, based on Chromium 62. It was the last version that would run under

. The succeeding versions would need at least

OS X Yosemite OS X Yosemite ( ; version 10.10) is the eleventh major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Yosemite was announced and released to developers on June 2, 2014, at WWDC 2014 and re ...

. It includes support for VR.

Opera 2018

Opera 50 was released on January 4, 2018, based on Chromium 63. It introduces anti-Bitcoin mining tool. Opera 51 was released on February 7, 2018, based on Chromium 64. Opera 52 was released on March 22, 2018, based on Chromium 65. Opera 53 was released on May 10, 2018, based on Chromium 66. Opera 54 was released on June 28, 2018, based on Chromium 67. Opera 55 was released on August 16, 2018, based on Chromium 68. Opera 56 was released on September 25, 2018, based on Chromium 69. Opera 57 was released on November 28, 2018, based on Chromium 70.

Opera 2019

Opera 58 was released on January 23, 2019, based on Chromium 71. Opera 60 was released on April 9, 2019, based on Chromium 73. Opera 59, based on Chromium 72 was skipped. Opera 62 was released on June 27, 2019, based on Chromium 75. Opera 61, based on Chromium 74 was skipped. Opera 63 was released on August 20, 2019, based on Chromium 76. It was the last version that would run under

, with later versions requiring

OS X El Capitan OS X El Capitan ( ) () is the twelfth major release of macOS (named OS X at the time of El Capitan's release), Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh. It focuses mainly on performance, stability, and security. Followi ...

or later. Opera 64 was released on October 8, 2019, based on Chromium 77. Opera 65 was released on November 14, 2019, based on Chromium 78.

Opera 2020

Opera 66 was released on January 8, 2020, based on Chromium 79. Opera 67 was released on February 25, 2020, based on Chromium 80. Opera 68 was released on April 22, 2020, based on Chromium 81. Opera 69 was released on June 24, 2020, based on Chromium 83. Opera 70 was released on July 28, 2020, based on Chromium 84. Opera 71 was released on September 15, 2020, based on Chromium 85. Opera 72 was released on October 21, 2020, based on Chromium 86. Opera 73 was released on December 9, 2020, based on Chromium 87.

Opera 2021

Opera 74 was released on February 2, 2021, based on Chromium 88. Opera 75 was released on March 24, 2021, based on Chromium 89. Opera 76 was released on April 28, 2021, based on Chromium 90. Opera 77 was released on June 24, 2021, based on Chromium 91. This version introduced many major features. Opera 78 was released on August 3, 2021, based on Chromium 92. Opera 79 was released on September 14, 2021, based on Chromium 93. Opera 80 was released on October 5, 2021, based on Chromium 94. Opera 81 was released on November 4, 2021, based on Chromium 95. Opera 82 was released on December 2, 2021, based on Chromium 96.

Opera 2022

Opera 83 was released on January 19, 2022, based on Chromium 97. Opera 84 was released on February 16, 2022, based on Chromium 98. Opera 85 was released on March 23, 2022, based on Chromium 99. Opera 86 was released on April 20, 2022, based on Chromium 100. Opera 87 was released on May 17, 2022, based on Chromium 101. Opera 88 was released on June 8, 2022, based on Chromium 102. Opera 89 was released on July 7, 2022, based on Chromium 103. It was last version that would run under

and

macOS Sierra macOS Sierra (version 10.12) is the thirteenth major release of macOS (formerly known as and ), Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. The name "macOS" stems from the intention to unify the operating syst ...

, with later versions requiring

macOS High Sierra macOS High Sierra (version 10.13) is the fourteenth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. macOS High Sierra was announced at the WWDC 2017 on June 5, 2017 and was released on September 25, 201 ...

or later. Opera 90 was released on August 18, 2022, based on Chromium 104. Opera 91 was released on September 14, 2022, based on Chromium 105. Opera 92 was released on October 19, 2022, based on Chromium 106. Opera 93 was released on November 17, 2022, based on Chromium 107. Opera 94 was released on December 15, 2022, based on Chromium 108.

Opera 2023

Opera 95 was released on February 1, 2023, based on Chromium 109. It is the last version to support

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012, made available for download via Microsoft ...

Windows 8.1 Windows 8.1 is a release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013, and broadly released for retail sale on October 17, 2013, about a year after the retail release of its pr ...

Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2012, codenamed "Windows Server 8", is the ninth major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server brand name. It is the server version of Windows based on Windows ...

and

Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 R2, codenamed "Windows Server Blue", is the tenth major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server brand name. It was unveiled on June 3, 2013, at TechEd Nort ...

. The succeeding versions would need at least

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. The successor to Windows 8.1, it was Software release cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on July 2 ...

, and

Windows Server 2016 Windows Server 2016 is the eleventh major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server brand name. It was developed alongside Windows 10 and is the successor to the Windows 8.1-based ...

. Opera 96 was released on February 22, 2023, based on Chromium 110. Opera 97 was released on March 22, 2023, based on Chromium 111, introduces ChatGPT. Opera 98 was released on April 20, 2023, based on Chromium 112. Opera 99 was released on May 16, 2023, based on Chromium 113. Opera 100 was released on June 20, 2023, based on Chromium 114. It includes major browser changes codenamed "Opera One". Aria is introduced also in this version as native-browser AI. Opera 101 was released on July 26, 2023, based on Chromium 115. Opera 102 was released on August 23, 2023, based on Chromium 116. It was last version that would run under

and

macOS Mojave macOS Mojave ( ; version 10.14) is the fifteenth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. Mojave was announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 4, 2018, and was released to the ...

, with later versions requiring

macOS Catalina macOS Catalina (version 10.15) is the sixteenth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. It is the successor to macOS Mojave and was announced at WWDC 2019 on June 3, 2019 and ...

or later. Opera 103 was released on October 3, 2023, based on Chromium 117. Opera 104 was released on October 23, 2023, based on Chromium 118. Opera 105 was released on November 14, 2023, based on Chromium 119. Opera 106 was released on December 19, 2023, based on Chromium 120.

Opera 2024

Opera 107 was released on February 7, 2024, based on Chromium 121. Opera 108 was released on March 5, 2024, based on Chromium 122. Opera 109 was released on March 27, 2024, based on Chromium 123. Opera 110 was released on May 14, 2024, based on Chromium 124. Opera 111 was released on June 12, 2024, based on Chromium 125. This release has added support for ARM64 architecture. Opera 112 was released on July 11, 2024, based on Chromium 126. Opera 113 was released on August 22, 2024, based on Chromium 127. Opera 114 was released on September 25, 2024, based on Chromium 128. It was last version that would run under

, with later versions requiring

macOS Big Sur macOS Big Sur (version 11) is the seventeenth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc., Apple's operating system for Macintosh computers. It was announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 22, 2020, and w ...

or later. Opera 115 was released on November 27, 2024, based on Chromium 130. Chromium 129 was skipped.

Opera 2025

Opera 116 was released on January 8, 2025, based on Chromium 131. Opera 117 was released on February 13, 2025, based on Chromium 132.

Timeline of releases

Release compatibility

Notes * Windows 10 is only for IA-32 and x64, not for ARM64 and ARMv7. * Only x86-64 builds of Opera for Mac are available at this time. ARM64 builds should soon be available as the Apple transition to ARM processors continues. Sources:

Discontinued versions for devices

Opera Mobile Classic

Opera Mobile Classic, formerly called

, is an edition of Opera designed for

smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...

s and

personal digital assistant A personal digital assistant (PDA) is a multi-purpose mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. Following a boom in the 1990s and 2000s, PDAs were mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of more highly capable smar ...

s (PDAs). The first version of Opera Mobile Classic was released in 2000 for the

Psion Series 7 The Psion Series 7 is a subnotebook computer from Psion that was released in 2000. In size it is fairly original: larger than a palmtop or handheld machine, but smaller than a laptop computer. It was the first and last of the Psion series to have ...

and

NetBook A netbook is a small-sized laptop computer; they were primarily sold from 2007 until around 2013, designed mostly as a means of accessing the Internet and being significantly less expensive than regular-sized laptops. At their inception in l ...

, with a port to the

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDA). Designed to be the portable equivalent of the Windows desktop OS in the emerging Mobile device, mobile/port ...

platform coming in 2004. One of Opera Mobile Classic's major features is the ability to dynamically reformat web pages to better fit the handheld's display using small screen rendering technology. Alternatively, the user may use

page zooming In computing, page zooming is the ability to zoom in and out a document or image at page level. It is usually found in applications related to document layout and publishing, e.g. word processing and spreadsheet programs, and is also found in we ...

for a closer or broader look. However, Opera Mobile's

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

has come under fire for being difficult to use or customize. Opera Mobile Classic was replaced by Opera browser for Android.

Internet Channel for Wii

Internet Channel The Wii system software is a set of updatable firmware versions and a software frontend on the Wii, a home video game console. Updates, which could be downloaded over the Internet or read from a Nintendo optical discs#Wii Optical Disc, game dis ...

is a web browser for Nintendo's

gaming console made by Opera Software and

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

. Internet Channel was free to download from its release on 12 April 2007 until 30 June 2007. After that date, Wii users had to pay 500

Wii Points The Wii Shop Channel is a discontinued digital distribution service for the Wii video game console. The service allowed users to purchase and play additional software for the Wii (called Channels), including exclusive games (branded WiiWare), ...

to download it. However, in late August / early September of the year 2009, the Internet Channel was once again available to download for free and those who paid for the service had their Wii Points returned in the form of a free NES Virtual Console game. Scott Hedrick, an executive of the Opera Software company, explained that the Wii browser was designed to suit a "living room environment". In contrast to Opera's appearance on computer monitors, fonts are larger and the interface is simplified for easier use. Notwithstanding the changes in design, the Wii browser supports the same web standards as the desktop version of Opera 9, including passing the

test.

Nintendo DS Browser

Nintendo DS Browser The Nintendo DS Browser is a port of the Opera 8.5 web browser for use on the Nintendo DS, developed by Opera Software and Nintendo, and sold as a standalone game cartridge. Two versions were sold, one for the original Nintendo DS and one for the ...

is an edition of Opera for the

Nintendo DS The is a foldable handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens worki ...

handheld gaming system. The Nintendo DS Browser was released in Japan on 24 July 2006, in Europe on 6 October 2006, and in North America on 4 June 2007. The Nintendo DS Browser includes the same small screen rendering and page zooming technology present in Opera Mobile. It also includes

handwriting recognition Handwriting recognition (HWR), also known as handwritten text recognition (HTR), is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwriting, handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens ...

software and an

on-screen keyboard A virtual keyboard is a software component that allows the input of characters without the need for physical keys. Interaction with a virtual keyboard happens mostly via a touchscreen interface, but can also take place in a different form when i ...

to enable user input. Additionally, Nintendo partnered with Astaro Internet Security to provide web filtering for the Nintendo DS Browser. The technology is simply a professionally maintained proxy server that blocks web sites related to pornography, discrimination, security hacking,

software piracy Online piracy or software piracy is the practice of downloading and distributing copyrighted works digitally without permission, such as music, movies or software. History Nathan Fisk traces the origins of modern online piracy back to similar ...

, violence, gambling, illegal drugs, alcohol, tobacco,

dating Dating is a stage of Romance (love), romantic relationships in which individuals engage in activity together, often with the intention of evaluating each other's suitability as a partner in a future intimate relationship. It falls into the cate ...

, weapons, abortion, and other content that Nintendo deems objectionable. Users can configure the Nintendo DS Browser to receive web pages through this proxy server, and this setting can be password-protected (by a parent, for example) to prevent circumvention. In August 2007, the Nintendo DS Browser was quietly discontinued in North America.

References

External links

Opera archive

Opera custom download

Opera version history

evolt.org – Browser Archive

Opera Resources
{{DEFAULTSORT:History Of The Opera Web Browser Opera Software