When Opera 10 launched without one of its most-hyped features, Opera Unite, browser geeks had to install a separate build to test it out. Opera developers have now merged the two, integrating Unite into the main browser in Opera 10.10 Beta.

As we've reported before, Unite is a "web server within a web browser" that allows you to download and run various web applications. What does this mean for the average user? You can access your files from anywhere, and easily share them with friends.

The first Unite apps are all about sharing. There's a media player to share music, a general file storage app, a web server app to host sites, and even a "fridge" app where you can leave notes for your friends. Media Player will probably get a lot of the early hype, as it lets you stream music from your machine to another computer with iTunes, WInamp, or your other player of choice (as long as it supports streaming playlists). Unite is still in the early stages, but no other browser has even attempted to do what Opera is doing in this space.

Following on from their teaser at the weekend, Opera have now released a Beta of version 5 of their Opera Mini Java based web browser.

Touted as the 'best and easiest way to get connected on your mobile phone', the new release adds tabbed browsing, speed dial, an enhanced user interface for both touch and keypad based devices and an integrated password manager, as well as a considerable speed boost.

Opera Mini 5 can be downloaded for free by pointing your phone at http://m.opera.com/next.

[Via MoDaCo]

Just about everyone has a usb flash drive by now. Apart from all that data you're packing (which you no doubt have encrypted in case your drive gets lost -- but that's a post for another day), why not pack up your favorite web browser and take it along for the ride.

There are a lot more options than you think - here are 13 different options for users of Windows PCs. Don't see your choice on the list? Share it with us in the comments!

Mozilla

Portable Firefox (current) [download] and Portable Minefield [download]
John T. Haller's Portable Apps project is always right on top of the latest Firefox updates, so it's the place to go if you need the Fox in your pocket. The most recent unstable branch is provided as well, in case you want to test it without installing.

PocketFlock v2 [download]
The kicked-up Firefox remix for social networking types is also available in a portable version, thanks to enthusiast Dave Ferrite.

The Nintendo Wii has had an optional web browser almost as long as the gaming console has existed. But for some baffling reason, you had to pay $5 (or rather, 500 Wii Points) to use the browser, which was built by the fine folks at Opera. In order to use a web browser. You had to pay.

Anyway, it looks like those dark days are behind us. Nintendo has set the web browser free, so anyone can download it without using up any Wii points. You'll need to have space either on your Wii or an SD card to install the browser. And of course, your game console will have to be hooked up to an internet connection.

If you already shelled out the 500 Wii Points for the browser, your $5 wasn't spent in vain. Electric Pig reports that Nintendo will roll out a virtual coupon that lets users who paid for the browser download a Virtual Console title worth up to 500 points starting in October.

[via Gizmodo]

I admit it: Download Squad has been talking up Opera 10 all summer. We told you about its wicked-fast new JavaScript engine and the much-hyped Opera Unite, and then Lee told you why he hopes this latest version of Opera will get your attention. Now the day of reckoning has arrived: Opera 10 is here, for Windows, Mac and Linux. How does it stack up to our expectations? Well, there's some good news and some bad news. Good: the Turbo feature for faster browsing on slower Internet connections is in full effect. Bad: two of the most-wanted features - Opera Unite and the Carakan JavaScript engine - didn't make it into this release.

Is Opera 10 still worth going for? Well, it's definitely fast. I gave it a spin on some resource-intensive sites, and without any formal testing, I can say that page load times on my Mac felt at least as fast as those in Safari and Chrome. It also passes the Acid 3 Test with flying colors. Combine that with the slick-looking (and quite space-efficient) new UI and the Turbo feature, and you've got a legitimate candidate for your new favorite browser. And, when Unite finally arrives as a separate download, it should only get better.

Have you tried Opera 10? Will you be switching? Leave us your impressions in the comments.

While Lee has been lamenting the lack of attention to the latest desktop version of Opera, the browser's mobile version is far from obscure. In fact, Opera Mini is burning up the mobile market: not only is it the most-downloaded mobile browser, it's the most-downloaded mobile application, period. This is according to open apps repository GetJar, which has recorded 25 million downloads of Opera Mini. The number is so high partially because Opera Mini is so versatile, with versions available for Java, Android, BlackBerry and WIndows Mobile.

The 25 million figure might not be quite right, though, as GetJar's download page for Opera Mini only shows a little over 18 million downloads. According to a GetJar press release, Opera was only the 3rd most-downloaded app on the site in July. Perhaps the higher figures are a combination of Opera Mini and Opera Mobile, or there's some other reason why they don't mesh with the number I see on GetJar, so I'll give Opera the benefit of the doubt. Even 3rd place and 18 million downloads is a stronger showing than most people imagine when they hear "Opera."

On the other hand, it's interesting to see Opera claiming Most Popular Mobile Application status when there's still some debate as to whether it has more users than the mobile version of Apple's Safari. Of course, Safari wouldn't be included on GetJar, so this popularity contest is already rigged in Opera's favor. Opera recently retook the #1 spot in the mobile browsing market from the iPhone browser, but that's not including Safari users on Apple's other mobile device, the iPod Touch. All in all, Opera Mini is definitely popular, but to call it the most popular might be misleading.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Microsoft plans to launch stripped down, web-based versions of its Office applications including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint soon. When the company first unveiled the upcoming web apps, Microsoft announced that they would work with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. Now, in an official blog posting, Microsoft has stated that those three browsers will be the only ones officially supported by the Office Web Apps.

In other words, if you use Google Chrome, Opera, or another web browser, you may be out of luck. It's worth pointing out that Microsoft hasn't said that other browsers won't work. It's just that the company isn't going to take the time to support additional browsers.

According to the blog post, the Office Web apps will be designed to work without any plugins installed, but Microsoft recommends installing Silverlight, which will help the web apps load faster and perform better. The text will also be easier to read, and PowerPoint animations will be smoother with Silverlight installed.

[via InfoWorld]

The folks behind the Opera web browser continue their march toward Opera 10 today with the release of Opera 10 beta 2. The latest version of the browser includes a ton of bug fixes and a number of tweaks including:

• A "Synchronize Opera" button in the speed dial page
• A context menu to reload images in high quality
• Password manager with context-menu support
• Speed dial can have a custom favicon
• The Windows, OS X, and Linux skins have been updated

You can read the complete list of updates for the Windows, Mac, and Linux versions for more details. If you're wondering why Opera Unit, the new web-server-in-a-browser tool hasn't been included in the latest beta, it's because the developers haven't deemed it beta-worthy yet. But you can download a custom build of Opera 10 beta 2 that comes with Unite if you want to give it a try.

I also noticed another nifty feature today. I have no idea how long Opera has been able to do this, but I discovered when I was trying to create the screenshot at the top of this post that Opera 10 beta 2 will automatically resize images when you resize the browser window. This makes it easy to fit an entire web page into your browser without the need to scroll left and right no matter what size the window is.

According to May numbers from analytics service StatCounter, Opera is once again the most popular mobile browser in the world, narrowly overtaking the iPhone's built-in Safari browser. Of all the webpages that were loaded in mobile browsers in May, Opera had a 24.6% share to the iPhone's 22.3%. Nokia came in 3rd with 17.9%.

Opera started the year ahead of the iPhone browser, but Apple's product passed it in February. Although they're both mobile browsers, we're comparing two very different products here.

Opera is supported on a huge number of devices from different mobile carriers worldwide, while Safari only runs on the iPhone. In effect, the competition doesn't tell us as much about which browser is the better product as it does about how popular the iPhone is compared to other devices.

The Opera web browser may not have the name recognition of more popular software like Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari. But you know what it does have? History. The first line of code for the Opera web browser was written 15 years ago today.

Back in 1994, Firefox wasn't even a twinkle in the eyes of the team working on the popular Netscape browser. And Microsoft didn't release Internet Explorer 1 until 1995.

Over the last 15 years, Opera has continually added features that were later adopted by other browsers, including tabs, mouse gestures, speed dial bookmarks, and full page zoom.

To celebrate the anniversary, Opera has put together a portal with a comic strip, 15 reasons to try Opera, and a list of innovations that showed up first in the Opera browser.

You might also want to check out Opera.com today for a quick refresher on what the web looked like 15 years ago.

There wasn't a whole lot remarkable about my Sunday this week. We're still thawing out here in the Great White North, so my son and I were relaxing and watching The Super Friends on TV. The longer we watched (and the more blown away I became with just how awesomely bad that cartoon really was), my mind started to wander.

"I must be reading too many blog posts," I said to myself, "because I'm starting to imagine the characters as web browsers." As the train of thought steamed ahead unimpeded, here's what I came up with.

Firefox as Batman
Like the Dark Knight, Firefox doesn't actually have super powers. What he does have is experience, a little kung fu, and a vast arsenal of tools he can clip to his belt before heading into battle. I don't know if any evildoer really killed Firefox's parents, but you sure don't hear much from Netscape anymore.

Unlike Batman, however, Firefox is actually good friends with The Penguin.

I'm not really one for joining causes online (Facebook has rid me of any desire for that), but as far as geeky technical causes go, Bring Down IE6 by the folks at .NET Magazine is a good one. Internet Explorer 6 is the bane of pretty much every web designer or developer's existence. Things that work beautifully in all of the standards-compliant browsers (and even for the most part in modern versions of IE) require time-consuming and painful work-arounds just to get them sort of working.

The frustrating thing is that if Microsoft wanted to do something about the situation to ease the pain of the countless numbers of people building websites, they have it in their power to do so. The problem for web developers is that IE6 is still used by a frighteningly large percentage of people online. How can this be? Well, many unfortunate corporate workers are stuck using Windows 2000, and do not have permission to install or even use a portable version of a standards-compliant alternative browser like Firefox. These people are using IE6 because it is the only option available to them.

As much as Microsoft would like to force everyone to upgrade to XP / Vista / Windows 7, the truth is that for many companies, the Windows 2000 licenses that they already own work just fine for their needs.

What Microsoft should do is acknowledge that Windows 2000 is still being actively used, and make later versions of Internet Explorer available as an update for Windows 2000. Yes, I realize that Windows 2000 is no longer an officially supported platform by Microsoft, but that just points to the disconnect between what Microsoft wishes people would do, and what they are actually doing.

Also, if you're in IT at a company that is still clinging to Windows 2000, for the love of all that is good, please add a modern browser to your standard install image. They're free, and they're a hell of a lot more secure than IE6 is. Pick one; Firefox, Opera, Safari, or even Google's currently-in-beta Chrome browser. Any of these is a better choice than IE6.

And if you're a web developer, consider using a simple script to provide a gentle reminder to IE6 users that they need to upgrade.

Let's all let IE6 die the death it so richly deserves.