History of the Opera Browser

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MultiTorg Opera

Opera began in 1994 as a research project at Telenor, the largest Norwegian telecommunications company. In 1995 it branched out into an independent company named Opera Software ASA.^[1]

The Opera browser was, until version 2.0, called MultiTorg Opera and was not available to the public — although online documents show it at The Third International WWW Conference in 1995.^[2] It was known for its multiple document interface (MDI) and 'hotlist' (sidebar), which made browsing several pages at once much easier, as well as being the first browser to completely focus on adhering to the W3C standards.

1 Timeline
2 References
3 See also
4 External Links

[edit] Timeline

Opera 3.62 displaying Opera's website

Opera 7 in displaying Opera's website

1996: The first public release was Opera 2.0 for Windows, released as shareware.^[3]
10 October 1997: Due to popular demand, Opera Software shows interest in programming its browser for alternate operating systems such as Apple Macintosh, QNX and BeOS. They launch "Project Magic", an effort to determine who would be willing to purchase a copy of their browser in their native OS, and to properly distribute funds to develop or outsource for such operating systems. ^[4] On November 30, 1997 they closed voting for which operating system to develop with. Project Magic then became a news column for updates for alternate operating systems until version 4.^[5]
31 December 1997: Opera 3 was released for multiple operating systems.
1998: Opera 3.5 was released, providing the first implementation of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) support in the Opera browser.
28 June 2000: Opera 4 for Windows was released, introducing a new cross-platform core, and a new integrated e-mail client.
6 December 2000: Opera 5 was the first version which was ad-sponsored instead of having a trial period.
29 November 2001: Opera 6 released with new features including Unicode support, and offering a single document interface as well as the multiple document interface allowed by previous versions.
January 2003: Opera 7 was released and introduced a new layout engine "Presto", with improved CSS, client-side scripting, and Document Object Model (DOM) support.
August 2004: Opera 7.6 began limited alpha testing. It had more advanced standards support, and introduced voice support for Opera, as well as support for Voice XML. Opera also announced a new browser for Interactive Television, which included a fit to width option Opera 8 introduced. Fit to Width is a technology that initially utilized the power of CSS, but it is now internal Opera technology. Pages are dynamically resized by making images and/or text smaller, and even removing images with specific dimensions to make it fit on any screen width, improving the experience on smaller screens dramatically. Opera 7.6 was never officially released as a final version.
12 January 2005: Opera Software announced that it would offer free licenses to higher education institutions^[6] — a change from the previous cost of $1,000 USD for unlimited licenses. Schools that opted for the free license included Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, University of Oxford, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Duke University. Opera was commonly criticized for having been ad-sponsored, since this was seen as a barrier to gaining market share. In the newer versions the user was allowed a choice of generic graphical banners, or text-based targeted advertisements provided by Google based upon the page being viewed. Users could pay a licence fee to remove the advertisement bar.

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19 April 2005: version 8.0 was released. Besides supporting SVG Tiny, multimodal features and User JavaScript,^[7] the default user interface has been cleaned up and simplified. The default home page is an improved search portal.^[8] The changes displeased a number of existing users since some advanced settings became hidden.^[9]

20 September 2005. With the release of Opera 8.50, Opera announced that their browser would be available free of charge and without advertisements from then onwards, although the company still sells support contracts.^[10] Enhancements included: automatic client-side fixing of web sites that did not render correctly, and a number of security fixes.
On February 7, 2006, Opera Labs was founded to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the latest technology and products, and where any preview/beta versions will be posted.^[11]
February 16, 2006, Opera announced with Nintendo that it will be developing and publishing an internet browser for the DS in Japan ^[12] and in Europe 6 October 2006. ^[13]
10 May 2006, Opera announced that they are partnering with Nintendo to develop a version of their browser that will be available for Nintendo's new console, Wii.^[14]
20 June 2006, Opera version 9.0 was released.^[15]
2 August 2006, Opera version 9.01 was released,^[16] focusing on solving bugs introduced with the major Opera 9 release, as well as IMAP and NTLM improvements.
21 September 2006, Opera version 9.02 was released.