What with the recent release of Opera 9.6 one would think that the developers at Opera would be looking to relax a bit. Instead, however, they are forging right ahead and making plans to release Opera 10 (at least the alpha version) before the end of the year! Could this be because the browser competition has heated up? We have already seen the first casualty, the Netscape Navigator.

Perhaps the advent of Google Chrome has opened everyones’ eyes up. Users now realise thanks to Google’s strong image that there are alternatives available to IE (Internet Explorer). This benefits every internet browser other than IE of course. Developers have also realised that they have to work harder than ever to stay ahead or at least keep up with the competition. As it is, the more common internet browsers are: Apple Safari, Google Chrome (no real exposure yet, but it will get there with Google’s backing), Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera. However there is a host of less known ones too such as: Maxthon, Avant, Flock, K-Meleon, etc. So there is a lot of competition and for users like me a lot of choice too.

Back to Opera 10, it seems current Opera users feel that the look and user interface of the browser are not good enough. So one of the things we are likely to see in the new browser is a redesigned and hopefully simpler and sleeker interface. Other than that we are also likely to see improvements in loading speeds, processing of Javascript, loading of flash and other embedded plug-ins, etc.