With a number of European governments warning users against the use of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, you might be on the lookout for an alternative.
Trouble is, there aren't many third-party browsers - aside from perhaps Firefox - that offer thorough Windows 7 integration, and if you've become accustomed to features such as Jump Lists and Aero Peek, you might still be clinging to IE8.
However, if you do want to try something new, you might want to try your luck with the latest pre-alpha release of Opera 10.5. Build 3199, codenamed Evenes, which offers a number of improvements and promises to be "less buggy".
Describing the release in a blog post, Opera's Ruari Ødegaard said "we have upgraded our core rending engine slightly, done a little work on video support, improved certain aspects of performance, improved Windows 7 integration, fixed some mail issues and added support for IMAP COMPRESS, added 'inspect element' to the right click menu and finally of course, fixed a number of common crashes!"
Despite being a pre-alpha release that Opera admits is a "work in progress" that "can still crash", the browser's Windows 7 integration is surprisingly competent, with Jump Lists - complete with shortcuts to Opera's Speed Dial - and Aero Peek all working smoothly. Continuing the Microsoft-like design, the browsers main file menu now exists in the form of a single Office 2007-like button in the top left-hand corner that reveals access to all of the underlying menus.
Opera states that it is "shifting up a gear" to get a stable release of 10.5 out in the open, but for those who're interested in seeing what's in store, the pre-alpha release could be worth a try. A Windows build is available from Opera.com and support for other platforms should follow shortly.
