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Opera 9.27-for Windows
Friday, 05.30.2008, 12:43pm (GMT)

Opera 9.27

for Windows

Opera

Since Opera 5, Opera Software has added an advertising function to the browser. This decision was made so that we can offer the Opera browser for free - while still allowing us to receive some form of revenue (from the advertising) in order to help pay our bills and to continue to develop the renowned high-quality Opera products.

All of the code in the Opera browser was written by the developers of Opera Software ASA. This includes the code written to implement the specific banner-serving functionality in the browser. Much care was taken with this development so that user privacy and security would not be compromised. For more information, see the documentation on banner advertising implementation.

What Opera does

Secure and Stable

Keep your online activities safe from outside eyes and viruses. Opera is the most secure Web browser available for both Mac and PC and is W3C Web Standards compliant. Block pop-ups and content you don't want to see

Super Fast and Free

The Opera Web browser is now free and will access your Web pages 30% faster than IE, and much faster than Firefox when using Tabbed browsing.

Shortcuts and Customization

Easily and quickly create Custom Search shortcuts, use Tabbed Browsing, Restore Closed Windows and Tabs, access Zoom and Image Control, use Mouse Gestures and choose from assorted Skins.

Opera communicates with the ad service in order to be able to retrieve advertising content. When you install Opera, your browser connects to a registration server and receives a unique identifying number. This ID is not personally identifying, and is only used to communicate with the ad-related service as the browser occasionally sends and receives banner-related information. Without being able to set a unique ID to your browser, it would not have been possible to sell ads in Opera. When Opera is connected to the internet, the advertising content is occasionally refreshed by accessing an ad server which defines the content to be retrieved and written to Opera's cache on the hard disk of your computer. This communication is done in several steps. What Opera returns to the servers is the demographic information (see below), the info about the banners that were served to your browser, and whether or not the banners were clicked upon. See ads for more details. When you are working offline with Opera, or when Opera is closed, there is no communication with the ad-related servers and no banners are retrieved. Banners that do display when you are working with Opera offline are shown from the stored disk cache.

What Opera does not do

Opera is not spyware: Opera does not collect and send information about you, nor your computer, nor which sites that you visit. Opera does not do anything other than what is specified in this document. The numbers of ads that you view and click are recorded, and sent along with the profile information that you have specified in Opera's preferences, and that is all.
The advertising component of Opera does not have communication with other parts of Opera. For example, it cannot access the info from your Opera Personal information preferences, nor can it read your history files.
Opera does load banners into the cache and communicates (in a benign manner) with the ad servers on occasion, and this activity is not visible to the user as it is happening. Apart from this stated activity, Opera does not utilize your Internet connection in the background.
Although it is possible for cookies to be set via an ad banner, these cookies can function no differently than those cookies served via any normal Web page. You even have the option to refuse them using Opera's cookie manager. See the Opera Privacy preferences and the Help for more information.
If you pay for and register your copy of Opera, this personal data is not shared by Opera Software with any other parties. Additionally, no connection is made between your ad-specific demographic information and your personally-identifying data

“Why would I want a different browser?”

I don’t hear this question as much as I used to, but it’s still worth answering. For some people, the issue is security. Internet Explorer is integrated into Windows, and has an atrocious security record. The entire spyware business came into existence largely because of the security lapses inherent with Internet Explorer and Windows. While Windows XP Service Pack 2 has solved many of these issues, that comes as no help to people who are running older versions of Windows.

For others, it’s simply an issue of speed. To many, Internet Explorer just feels like a huge bloated app that runs slower. Still others like the ease of customization of Opera versus the opacity of Internet Explorer’s “Advanced” preferences which can confuse even experienced computer users.

Personally, I hope that fewer people will use Internet Explorer because its support for web standards is so poor that it makes it much more difficult for people who want to make good web pages. I have serious doubts as to whether Internet Explorer will ever truly be secured, and Microsoft has basically dropped support for older versions of Windows.

But there’s more than just things that you want to avoid. Opera has a whole lot of features that are simply missing from Internet Explorer or are far too difficult to be useful. These are features which take some time to explain. I used to get people asking me all the time why I used Opera, and the answer was that it was a culmination of reasons that really have to be experienced rather than just explained.

So I wrote this series to answer that question.

“How do I get Opera?”

Good question. You really ought to have Opera installed so you can play along as I’m describing things. So head off to http://www.opera.com/download/ and you can download Opera for Windows, FreeBSD, Solaris, QNX, OS/2, Mac OS X, Linux (Sparc, PowerPC, and i386), or BeOS. If you don’t know what any of those other operating systems are, don’t worry. The good news is that just about any computer you are likely to own can run Opera. Also note that the same license can be installed on all of your computers. Do you use a Mac at home but have to use a Windows machine at work? Put Opera on both of them. Aren’t options a nice thing? Better get used to it, Opera has a lot more coming.

A minor detail to some: Opera is smaller by comparison to either Firefox or Internet Explorer. Firefox for Windows is down to about 4.6 megabytes (well done) but the Mac OS X version is almost 9 and the Linux version is over 8. That’s not nearly as bad as Internet Explorer which can top out at 75 megabytes! Sure, you only have to download it once, but every line of code is another opportunity for bugs. Opera, by comparison, is 5 MB for Mac and 3.6 for Windows.

Oh, and don’t forget that with Opera, you get a browser, mail client, RSS/Atom reader, and IRC client. All you get with the other guys is a browser.

So go ahead and download Opera. Installing it should go like any other application (if you’re unsure, just choose the default options. One more thing: if you don’t have a license for Opera, you’ll see this window when Opera first starts up:

[screenshot of Opera's initial screen to choose ad format]

I highly recommend that you choose the first option for relevant text ads. The ad bar is much smaller and the ads are fairly unobtrusive. The ads (known as Google Relevant Ads, or “rads”) work the same way that the ads work when you do a Google search. The strange thing about these ads is that they’re actually helpful. I’ve found good resources with them, and I’ve even heard some people who have purchased a license for Opera and decided not to register it so they could keep the ads. Strange? Perhaps, but true.

If you decide that you want to change the type of ads that you see, goto Preferences and select “Advertising”. You can change back and forth as often as you wish.

Opera is not spyware nor does it contain any, although it is occasionally misreported as such. Opera does not collect any personally identifiable information about you. If you would like more assurances, please visit these pages: