*Opera* is an *internet browser* that came along long before big hitters like
Firefox and Chrome. Opera 11.50 keeps the general design and functionality of
the highly-praised Opera 11.10, but adds convenient improved features like an
improved Speed Dial, Password Syncing across devices and a faster rendering
engine. As regards the interface, Opera 11.50 features a slightly cleaner GUI
with a focus on webpages instead of buttons and menus. Overall, Opera 11.50
isn't a huge change compared to the last version, but it has been improved
with some nice new features. The big innovation in the last version of Opera
was *extensions* and while the choice of browser enhancements is still fairly
limited, when you install or uninstall add-ons, you don't have to restart
your browser like you do with Firefox. Opera 11.50 runs just as quickly as
*Google Chrome* (the developer claims it's even faster) and the rendering
engine has been tweaked slightly to offer an even faster browsing experience.
The forward-thinking *Unite* is still here, allowing you to share your stuff
directly with friends and more. Visual Tabs and Tab Stacking is useful if you
often have too many open, and there are now visual mouse gestures. These are
well implemented, and accessed by holding the right mouse button which brings
up a translucent guide to mouse gestures. This is a great introduction for
people who've never used gestures, and hopefully allows for greater use in
the future. There's still an integrated mail client, which continues Opera
11's move towards doing everything you need in one application. The newest
improvements and features of note in 11.50 are Speed Dial and Password
Syncing. The most notable improvement has been to Speed Dial which instead of
simply giving easy access to your favorite sites, now allows you to embed
your Speed Dial with dynamic information - in other words, web apps within
Opera. Meanwhile Password Syncing allows you to sync passwords across
machines and devices - just sign-up for an account and Opera does the rest.
There have also been some HTML5 improvements for developers such as Session
History, Navigation and the W3C File API. *Opera 11.50 is a definite
improvement on Opera 11.10 although the changes aren't revolutionary.
However, if you're looking for a new browser, this is probably the most
innovative currently on the market and is well worth installing.*Download
*Opera 11.52.100* in Softonic
