Webware

(Credit: Opera)

Have you ever wanted to browse the Web on your Wii? Well now you... have been able to do it for a few months. Okay, so the Internet Channel has been available for a while now. That's not really the point. The real news is that Opera has released the final version of the Internet Channel. The browser released in late December was a beta version so Opera could tweak it before releasing the final product.

This final version of the Internet Channel adds several new features to the program. The most notable changes are the addition of a search bar to the browser's starting page and toolbar. You can now choose to search with either Yahoo! or Google, directly from the browser's toolbar. Opera also added a new option in the settings menu to let you choose whether the toolbar is shown, stays invisible, or automatically hides when you're browsing pages. This is a major improvement over the beta's toolbar. Besides these changes, the Internet Channel also got a fair number of smaller tweaks, such as an improved zoom function, a scrolling guide for new users, new interface graphics and sound effects, and even support for multiple pointers. Only one pointer can browse at any time, but you can use your other Wiimotes to point at interesting things on the page you're looking at. Or just to really irritate whoever is doing the browsing.

Just like the beta, the final version of the Internet Channel is free for now. Opera will start charging for the browser on June 30, but if you download it for free before then, it will stay free for as long as you have your Wii. It's not a bad deal, really.