Norwegian software house Opera has made available a release candidate of its Opera 10 web browser. The release, available to download at Opera.com/browser/next, is said to be feature complete and paves the way for a final version to be launched on September 1st.
Opera states that the release provides "a surprising array of new features", with performance improvements of up to 40 per cent when compared to Opera 9.6.
New features include Opera Turbo, an improved version of Opera Mail, a resizable visual tab bar, a resizable search field and an inline spell-checker. However, given that Opera 10 is now feature complete, it looks as though Opera Unite - the company's web server software - won't be included as part of the browser.
Commenting on the release, Jan Standal, vice president of desktop products at Opera, had this to say:
"The release candidate pushes us closer to the final launch of Opera 10. We paid special attention to the mail client, which is one of our most enduring and popular features. Now, we are very close to releasing the best browser in Opera's long history. We hope everyone who has helped us test our browser thus far will put the release candidate through its paces. With everyone's help, Opera 10 will surprise a lot of people with its speed, stability and powerful features."
The Opera 10 release candidate is available at Opera.com/browser/next.
