What’s on your Speed Dial?

Beta of new Opera browser puts visual favorites front and center

Oslo, Norway – March 28, 2007

Opera today unveiled the beta release ofSpeed Dial, a new feature that lets people transform their top sites intonine visual bookmarks that are immediately available in any new tab. SpeedDial is a new feature in the forthcoming Opera 9.2, available in beta as afree download from labs.opera.com. Speed Dial came about from carefulconsideration of individual browsing preferences.

“Speed Dial is based on the idea that people generally have five to 10sites they browse regularly throughout the day,” said Johan Borg, teammanager for Opera’s desktop browser. “Speed Dial is made for almostinstant access to those sites. We want developers and the curious-mindedto discover Speed Dial. When they do, we hope they’ll help us withanother rigorous round of testing before the final release.”

With each blank tab, Speed Dial presents a thumbnail preview of the topnine sites as selected by the user. In addition to fast access through theSpeed Dial, users can also enter the number corresponding with eachbookmarked Speed Dial page in Opera’s address field to access the page.

“I was curious if Speed Dial would work for me, but since I’ve startedusing it my workflow has improved because there is no need to type in theaddress anymore or go through the bookmarks for the sites I always need,”said Remco Lanting, a Web developer and long-time Opera user. “I can’tbelieve what I was missing all this time. Fast, easy to use and doingexactly what it was designed for, making the internet experience evenbetter.”

Speed Dial continues the streak of innovation Opera has maintained sinceits early days. Throughout its history, Opera has pioneered many featuresnow considered “must-haves” in the browser including tabbed browsing,integrated search and the ability to start where you left off. For more onOpera – and to get Opera Mini on your phone – visit http://www.opera.com/.