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The cult favorite Opera browser is moving into the next cycle of "the browser ring." After beta testing, and before the final version, we get the release candidate for Windows and Mac OS. What does this mean for fearless Opera fans?

The new skin for Opera 9.5.

(Credit: Opera Software)

There's a massive spate of bug fixes in this update, so if stability issues kept you from using previous 9.5 betas, this version should be much more appealing. Other improvements include fixes for downloading e-mail message bodies from all POP accounts, the introduction of a new skin, and smoother upgrading from Opera 9.2. Mac-specific improvements include skin changes and better support for OS X 10.2.

Opera is a Download.com favorite, if you're looking for an alternative to Firefox and Internet Explorer, in no small part because of cross-platform compatibility with mobile devices.

However, if Opera's own message boards are any indication, there are still stability issues that plague this update, and there will likely be another release candidate before the final version sees daylight.

Wednesday's beta release of a software development kit for Opera widgets brings the Norwegian company one step closer to its lofty goal of world browser domination.

This Opera widget could appear on your laptop, desktop, or Wii.

(Credit: Opera Software)

Opera Software if offering the SDK for widget authors to deploy their Web applications on the spectrum of devices that support the Opera browser.

The Opera widget SDK was designed on W3C standards to support CSS, JavaScript, Ajax, and HTML languages. The kit itself contains an emulator, libraries, and documentation full of nuggets on best development practices. Along with the emulator, developers may find the included Opera Dragonfly debugging tool most useful; though in alpha stage, Dragonfly could require some debugging itself.

The development kit builds on individual help articles and style guides circulated through Opera's development community site. It also draws on previous work for a widget wizard, the Widgetizer, which has been used to create simple apps.

In addition to a fine desktop browser, Opera surfs on Windows Mobile and Symbian cell phones with Opera Mobile and on the Nintendo Wii. Developers who take advantage of the SDK can create one widget to work on any of these browser flavors using many more workflow tools than were previously available.

Only Opera Opera Mini 4.1 for Java cell phones is excluded from the crop. As a diet Web browser, it doesn't yet have the capacity to support the widgets.

Opera may not have cornered the desktop browser market, but as the company continues to prove, it sure knows a thing or two about getting its products out there as many ways as it can. If you're a widgets developer, maybe your products, too.

On Tuesday, Opera sewed up a short beta run of Opera Mini 4.1. After a mere month and a half, the Norwegian software company declared the cell phone browser build stable enough to institute as the latest product standard.

Opera Mini 4.1, like Opera 9.5 Beta 2, can now guess the URL you want when you enter a search term in the address bar, a praiseworthy ability. It can also highlight terms on a Web page to let you zero in on most-wanted data bites. You'll use this Find feature, common to desktop browsers, by hitting the Menu button and selecting Find in Page.

While everyone can save entire Web pages for offline viewing and enjoy Opera Mini 4.1's improved compression speeds (Opera claims it's 50 percent faster,) only Java-enabled cell phones supporting JSR-75 will be able to take advantage of uploading and downloading any file via Opera's mobile Web. The good news is this will apply to most phones released in the last few years. BlackBerry devices older than 4.2, for instance, won't be able to support this promised windfall of a feature. Users will still need to equip the phone with the right media players and readers to view the downloaded files.

The wide world of Opera browser products can admittedly get a little confusing. As a refresher, Opera Mini 4.1 works well on most Java handsets, including BlackBerry, and on Palm phones running a Java environment. Those who download Opera's browser to Windows Mobile and Symbian phones will get Opera Mobile, a more advanced, commercial browser with a 30-day trial.

If you can't remember the URL of a site you've once visited, what do you do? You can either scour your history, willing the evasive address to remain listed, or you can search in Google by the keywords you remember and hope the site you want floats near the top of the results.

The latest version of Opera Software's 9.5 Beta browser, released Thursday for Windows, Mac, and Linux, makes fishing for past Web addresses much easier with a new feature called Quick Find.

Can't remember a URL? The Quick Find feature pulls up suggestions based on keyword.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Quick Find essentially bundles the keyword search directly into the Opera browser's address field. Typing in a few keywords produces a list of URLs from your past. Simply clicking the selection opens the Web page. I tested it out, and so far it works as advertised--as a fast, useful time-saver that gives your brain license to forget specific URLs.

Those familiar with Opera Mini will recognize Quick Find as the sister to the "find in page" feature in Opera Mini 4.1.

There are other updates to the beta build, but Quick Find remains the only new feature that users will engage with directly. The official Opera announcement also unveils faster e-mail rendering for its built-in client, support for EV (extended validation) SSL certificates, and more complete antiphishing protection thanks to collaboration with PhishTank and NetCraft's databases.

Then there's the unofficial announcement, leaked by Huib Kleinhout, Opera's desktop team manager, on Opera's blog. Through Opera Link, users will soon be able to synchronize notes in real time between Opera browsers for desktops, mobile phones, and devices.

That feature is in development, an Opera representative contact confirmed, and has not been released in this morning's build. For now, Opera Link behaves as it has been, populating each Opera browser you use (desktop, cell phone, Wii) with bookmarks added from any other.

While Google's mobile phone platform, Android, and its Open Handset Alliance have been on the brink of significantly changing the mobile landscape since mid-November 2007, little has come out of the young software developer kit with its still-developing community and code.

On Thursday, Opera Labs announced a technical preview release of the Norwegian company's popular Opera Mini mobile browser for the Android platform. Not only are developers encouraged to scoop up the just-released app, Opera is itching for programmers' feedback to help smooth over any rough edges for an upcoming beta release.

Opera's Chris Mills provides a technical back story in his introductory article, in addition to links to the latest build of Google's Android SDK and a direct download link to the Android-Mini preview. Mills is quick to note that Opera Mini for Android is a compound neophyte in the Android universe--the method of running Opera Mini's code base within Android is still experimental, and as Android itself is far from completion, layers of back-end change are inevitable.

Users will no longer have to hack their Helio to use Opera Mini.

(Credit: Heliocity.com)

For mobile service Helio, it's a sure sign you're doing something wrong if the most popular app among your user community is a hack. For Opera Software, the fact that it's your app is a sure sign you're doing something right.

Since last August, users at the Helio community site Heliocity have been peddling a re-engineered version of the Opera Mini browser that was specially hacked with the Ocean smartphone in mind. Seven months later, Rod Hamlin, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Opera Software, got on the phone to confirm that starting Wednesday, Opera Mini will be officially available on Ocean phones.

"We've always been really impressed with the Ocean as a device and (with) Helio for really listening to their user community," Hamlin said of the partnership. "Opera Mini became a popular hack, so the Helio folks came to us and wanted to make it an official download."

While Norway-based Opera has benefited from deals with American manufacturers--Opera Mobile and Opera Mini have shipped with select Motorola phones since 2003--this agreement with Helio marks the first time that the company has inked a deal with a U.S. mobile service provider.

Opera Mini for Helio Ocean will be available on Wednesday via the Ocean's on-deck Web portal and will also ship on Helio Ocean phones. According to Hamlin, the two companies may soon discuss support for other Helio models.

Opera Software's Hakum Wium Lie says Microsoft's plans to improve Internet Explorer's support for Web standards is a step in the right direction.

But, adds Wium Lie, the chief technology officer at Opera, more work is needed. Lie told CNET News.com on Wednesday that Microsoft's move addresses only one of several concerns that the browser maker had raised with the European Commission.

"Microsoft's announcement is good news for the web. Microsoft is now back in line with other browsers. It means that IE8 will do less damage for standards on the web than we feared earlier. It can still do damage -- it seems that Microsoft will implement their misguided "version targeting" scheme where pages can request to be rendered by a certain IE rendering engine," Wium Lie wrote in an email response.

Opera CTO Hakon Wium Lie

With IE 8, Microsoft plans to have three rendering modes: the new standards-compliant mode, the IE7 rendering engine, as well as an option for displaying older Web sites. Because of the default shift, Web sites that want IE 8 to use its IE7 engine will have to add a tag to their site's code.

Wium Lie said Microsoft's standards support in IE 8 "partially addresses" concerns that Opera voiced to the European Commission.

Opera had also called upon Microsoft to support browser interoperability tests, known as Acid2 and Acid3. "IE8 also has the opportunity to do good things for the web," Wium Lie wrote. "For example, it may pass the Acid2 test by default and the IE team may have started working on Acid3. We don't know yet if this is the case. It seems that Microsoft doesn't use the word "pass" and "Acid2" in the same sentence."

"We have seen several interesting announcements lately, " Wium Lie said, referring to the IE 8 standards pledge. "However, they have a long record of saying the right things while doing something different. It remains to be seen what their products look like when they ship."

Microsoft last month also pledged better interoperability with open-source software, just days before the EU slapped the company with a $1.35 billion fine for making interoperability information too expense and difficult to access.

Opera Mobile is getting Google as its default search option.

(Credit: Opera)

Opera has switched out Yahoo and made Google the default search engine for its Opera Mobile and Opera Mini Web browsers designed for mobile devices.

In January 2007, Yahoo and Opera announced that Yahoo would be the default search engine on Opera Mobile and Mini. Now, though, the mobile versions are getting what the desktop version of Opera has had for seven years--a built-in Google default.

Opera and Google "are extending this collaboration to give our users immediate access to the quality and convenience of Google's search results," Opera Chief Executive Jon von Tetzchner said in a statement Wednesday.

Yahoo said the change was on its own initiative, though it didn't offer details on what exactly it didn't find desirable about having its OneSearch mobile search service be selected by default.

"Yahoo has elected not to continue its mobile search partnership with Opera at this time," the company said in a statement. Yahoo has 29 carrier partnerships, and its "ability to partner with leading mobile operators and handset manufacturers enables us to lead and further the global mobile ecosystem."

Google search will be presented on the Opera browsers' start pages--except in Russia and other former Soviet republics, Opera said.

Opera Mini can be downloaded for free on mobile phones, and Opera Mini users collectively browse 1.7 billion Web pages per month, the Oslo, Norway-based company said.

Update 6:30 p.m. PT: I added Yahoo's comment that it chose not to continue the partnership and edited wording accordingly.

Skyfire, in closed beta

(Credit: Skyfire)

Opera should be bracing for impact.

Quite possibly for the first time, Opera Software will receive real pressure in the mobile-browser space from Firefox Mobile and Skyfire.

Like Opera's cell phone browser, Opera Mini (video), both newcomers are free. However, Opera Mobile, which serves Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 phones, is a commercial product that smartphone users may not want to pay for when handed alternatives gratis.

How does Opera plan to keep current customers and attract new ones when consumers face a choice between paying $24 and $0? I asked the Opera folks if they would consider making Opera Mobile free in anticipation of or in response to oncoming competition.

"The mobile Web is blossoming, and we are strongly positioned to take advantage of its growth," Tatsuki Tomita, Opera's senior vice president of consumer products, responded. "While we watch the industry closely, we have not yet determined the end-user model for Opera Mobile."

What a nicely toned, safely vague statement! It's one any company would be expected to make when challenged on two fronts by a competitive freeware surge. Yet with actual working, marketable products for a range of devices and a business plan that reaches into corporate pockets, Opera is well-positioned. For now.