Opera Surges Ahead with Latest Mac Version

Opera 6.0 for Mac beta 1 Released

Oslo, Norway – Sept. 25, 2002

Opera Software today announced the launch of Opera 6.0 for Mac Beta 1, the newest Mac release of the software since version 5 was made available in January.

Mac users who eagerly await its arrival will not be disappointed. This release includes a vast array of new features, including user interface changes, to enhance the overall browsing experience. Great efforts have been made to make Opera look and feel like a proper Mac OS X application.

“Opera 6.0 for Mac is the most advanced browser currently available for Mac OS X in terms of speed, usability, accessibility and language support,” said Dean Kakridas, VP desktop products. “The ultimate goal of our Mac product is to bring the most popular and beneficial features from Opera on other platforms to Mac. We intend to set a new standard for the best overall browsing experience on the Mac.”

In this release, the address entry and search fields are complemented with a zoom bar to increase or decrease the size of the viewing area. Professional features have also been added, such as OperaShow which allows for desktop presentations in full-screen mode. Most importantly, the long-awaited tabbed browsing mode makes its first appearance for Mac, allowing for multiple windows to be opened within the Opera browser.

Other new features added to this version include:

  • Personal bar, an addition to the bookmarks feature for quicker access to the user’s most accessed links.
  • Skinning, which allows the user to fully customize the look and feel of their Opera browser.
  • Inline searching, which accelerates searching in documents.

Unicode support has been added in this version in order to support all major non-Latin-derived languages. Language support for Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean is present and highly functional. In this release, Opera has taken the first step towards filling our promise to Arabic and Hebrew users by adding support for bidirectional (BIDI) languages.Great progress is being made to allow Hebrew and Arabic to display correctly. Most pages are already readable and render properly.

“We are fully committed to delivering a top-quality native Mac browser that offers Mac users from all corners of the world the fastest, most secure, and most usable product possible,” said Kakridas. “This is exactly what the Mac community needs — a great OS X browser.”

You will find more information about Opera’s commitment to keeping the Web open for all in different languages in this press release: Microsoft vs. cultural diversity.

Download Opera 6.0 for Mac Beta 1.

Special offer: Mac users enjoy a 30-day banner-free trial period. After the first 30 days, users can choose to buy the browser, or enjoy the free ad-banner version. Register now and receive an Opera Power Kit complete with Opera Power CD, Opera Mouse Gestures Pad, and Opera sticker, as well as a free upgrade to Opera 7.

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About Opera Software

Opera Software ASA is an industry leader in the development of Web browsers for the desktop and embedded markets, partnering withcompanies such as IBM, AMD, Symbian, Canal+ Technologies, Ericsson, Sharp and Lineo (now a division of Embedix). The Opera browser has received international recognition from end users and the industry press for being faster, smaller and more standards-compliant than other browsers. Opera is available on Windows, Mac, Linux/Solaris, OS/2, Symbian OS and QNX. Opera Software ASA is a privately held company headquartered in Oslo, Norway. Learn more about Opera at www.opera.com.

Contacts

Vivian Tse
Desktop MarCom Manager
Tel: +47 24 16 44 03
E-mail: vivian@opera.com