Opera 9.5, code-named Kestrel, on Thursday became available for download for Windows and Mac.
The new version of the browser, whose release candidate was released earlier this week, is a security-enhanced version of Opera 9. It includes antiphishing protection from Netcraft and malware protection from Haute Secure, as well as support for Extended Validation Secure Sockets Layer (EV SSL).
The browser also has a new "eurotechno" look and feel, a QuickFind address bar feature, better synchronization with its mobile cousin, and a Speed Dial feature for visually bookmarking nine of your favorite sites.
Scandinavia-based Opera Software still finds its browser in fourth place, behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox, and Apple's Safari, in terms of overall browser market share.
On Friday Opera announced that version 9.5 of the browser (download Opera 9.5 beta for Windows or Mac) will include built-in antimalware protection from Haute Secure (download for Windows 32-bit or Windows 64-bit).
This is, of course, to counter the antimalware protection built into Firefox 3, currently available as a final release candidate (download for Windows or Mac). Firefox uses data from Google and StopBadware to block a site before it loads on your browser.
Haute Secure counters that its offering is better because it relies upon a community of dedicated users to inform the product when to block and when not. In testing at CNET, the latest version of Haute Secure still misses some recently published phishing sites, while Firefox 3 RC2 blocked them immediately.
How did that happen? Haute Secure explains that the APIs provided by antiphishing sites such as PhishTank won't update until the site is confirmed to be bad, whereas Google can make that determination on its own. Still, Haute Secure prevents malicious sites (as opposed to mere phishing sites) from loading, and provides more information about those sites than does Firefox 3.
Haute Secure was founded by a group of former Microsoft employees, and its flagship product came out of beta in March.
New Web threats today come not necessarily from sites built to host malicious content, but also from legitimate sites that have been compromised. A new safe Web surfing product, Haute Secure, is out of beta and available for free home use with both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Founded in 2006 by former Microsoft security engineers, Haute Secure hopes to distinguish itself in a crowded field of products, including Grisoft Linkscanner and Finjan SecureBrowsing.
Haute Secure is a free 32-bit or 64-bit download when used for home use; businesses will be charged to have their Web pages checked for malicious code. At the moment there is little technical support offered beyond a few FAQs and a users' forum.
While we were pleased with the product's ability to block threats on compromised Web sites, Haute Secure did, however, fail to identify a few recent non-exploit-related phishing sites, which surprised us. Using five sites recently reported to a reputable, independent phish-tracking site (most were active an hour or less), we noted that none were flagged as active by Haute Secure. Perhaps that's because the pages themselves do not contain malicious code. Yet the pages do contain forms which, when filled out and sent in, could compromise your identity. Although Haute Secure uses phishing reports from Stopbadware.org and others, and will warn you of known fraudulent sites, we found the native anti-phishing protection in Internet Explorer and Firefox did a better job at flagging recently reported phishing sites.
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