Today Opera release an upgrade to the Windows and Linux version of it’s Version 8 Opera browser, labelled as 8.01. At the same time they released version 8 Opera browser for the Macintosh operating system. We don’t mind the Opera Browser to be honest, but find Firefox superior for our purposes for two reasons: (1) Firefox is free and Open Source versus Opera that is proprietary and either a purchased or advertisement supported and (2) we love the Firefox extension system. However, we certainly prefer Opera to Internet Explorer because of much tighter security and better W3C standards compliance. Some sites make a big deal that this is a security upgrade being quietly released. Frankly, all browser upgrades now include some security enhancements and unfortunately if they say that is a major cause of the release, people try to trumpet how they had flaws. Darned if they do and darned if they don’t. Recent and regular updates are the key — and of course they include security enhancements if it is a decent company.
In other browser news, AOL has released an update for Netscape 8 which fixes an IE XML problem and several bugs. You can download the free updated browser here. Microsoft also released a patch to IE in their last patch Tuesday which you should already have if you use XP, but if not you can get it via Windows Update.
