Opera unveils mock-desktop browser

Opera has just taken the wraps off the latest version of its browser, the cunningly entitled Opera 9.5, with attendees at 3GSM able to get the first look at the new software. According to Opera, the new browser comes with zooming and panning functions that make it easier to navigate webpages as well as Opera Widgets.

Opera is gunning to replicate the experience of desktop browsing on a mobile, the company says. One of the ways it’s hoping to do that is with the Opera Presto rendering engine which “accelerates the handling of Web pages” and “dramatically improves page responsiveness on pages with heavy use of languages such as JavaScript and Ajax”. There’s also Web address auto complete, password manager and FlashLite for YouTube fans. Phew.

But what’s really tasty here is what Opera 9.5 is doing with the offline world, both for consumers and business. For the average user, there’s ability to save pages for offline browsing – nice when you want to save on your data bill or your connection’s playing up – and for businesses, there’s the ability to serve Web content directly on the idle screen, which will no doubt go down a storm with advertisers and operators.