Opera is a web browser developed by Opera Software. The latest versions of Opera use the Blink layout engine. Earlier versions used Opera Software's proprietary Presto layout engine and had additional Internet suite features such as sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent, and reading web feeds. Opera is offered free of charge for personal computers and mobile devices. According to Opera Software, the browser has over 300 million monthly users worldwide.[9]

Opera is the third most popular mobile web browser in November 2013.[10] Opera Mini has been chosen as the default integrated web browser in several mobile handsets by their respective manufacturers.[11][12][13]

Features include tabbed browsing, page zooming, mouse gestures, and an integrated download manager. Its security features include built-in phishing and malware protection and the ability to delete private data such as HTTP cookies. Opera has been noted for originating many features later adopted by other web browsers, a prominent example being Speed Dial.[14][15]

Opera runs on a variety of personal computer operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD. Opera editions are available for devices running the Android, iOS, Symbian, Maemo, Bada, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile operating systems, and Java ME.[16][17][18] Approximately 120 million mobile phones have been shipped with Opera.[19] Opera is the only commercial web browser available for the Nintendo DS, DSi and Wii gaming systems. Some television set-top boxes as well as TV-set use Opera to render HTML-based interactive content. Adobe Systems has licensed Opera technology for use in the Adobe Creative Suite.[20][21]

Up to version 12.02, released on August 30, 2012, Opera was the only one of the major web browsers that still actively supported Windows 2000 in new releases.[22]

Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Features 2.1 Languages and localization
2.2 Usability and accessibility
2.3 Privacy and security
2.4 Standards support

3 Devices 3.1 Smartphones and PDAs
3.2 Mobile phones
3.3 Tablets
3.4 Nintendo DS
3.5 Wii

4 Market adoption
5 Reception 5.1 Awards

6 Opera Developer and Opera Next
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

History[edit]

Håkon Wium Lie, chief technical officer of the Opera Software company and co-creator of the CSS web standard
Main article: History of the Opera web browser

See also: Opera Mobile#History, Opera Mini#History, Nintendo DS & DSi Browser#Launch, Internet Channel#History, and Opera Software#History

Opera began in 1994 as a research project at Telenor, the largest Norwegian telecommunications company. In 1995, it branched out into a separate company named Opera Software ASA.[23] Opera was first released publicly with version 2.0 in 1996,[24] which only ran on Microsoft Windows.[25] In an attempt to capitalize on the emerging market for Internet-connected handheld devices, a project to port Opera to mobile device platforms was started in 1998.[25] Opera 4.0, released in 2000,[24] included a new cross-platform core that facilitated creation of editions of Opera for multiple operating systems and platforms.[26]

Up to this point, Opera was trialware and had to be purchased after the trial period ended. Version 5.0 (released in 2000) saw the end of this requirement. Instead, Opera became ad-sponsored, displaying advertisements to users who had not paid for it.[27] Later versions of Opera gave the user the choice of seeing banner ads or targeted text advertisements from Google. With version 8.5 (released in 2005) the advertisements were removed entirely and primary financial support for the browser came through revenue from Google (which is by contract Opera's default search engine).[28]

Among the new features introduced in version 9.1 (released in 2006) was fraud protection using technology from GeoTrust, a digital