Opera’s betting that speed counts in the browser game. The Norwegian software shop has upped the ante in the browser wars, releasing version 10.5 of its namesake offering, which it boasts is now the fastest product on the market.
At the same time, Opera remains a fringe player in the browser sector, as the latest market-share figures show Google Chrome continues to see its popularity grow. Datamation has the story on the new features in Opera’s update and the ascent of Google Chrome.
Opera Software today released version 10.5 of its namesake Web browser for Windows, with a new JavaScript engine as well as a new graphics library intended to make browsing faster than its competition. But it’s got a lot of catching up to do before it can rival its competitors’ market share — a feat that’s looking more difficult to pull off considering that Google Chrome continues its month-to-month gains.
At the heart of the new Opera 10.5 is the Carakan JavaScript engine, which has been in development for over a year. The first public alphas of Opera 10.5 including Carakan debuted at the end of 2009.
Thanks to Carakan and the new Vega graphics library, Opera is now claiming that its browser is the fastest.
“Opera 10.50 is the fastest browser in almost all speed tests,” Opera CEO Lars Boilesen said in a statement. “But more important than any speed test is the real-world speed during use.”
The race to have the fastest JavaScript engine is one that has consumed most of the major browser vendors over the last several years.