Opera 9 Technology Preview Released

Opera Software isn't wasting any time in the development of its flagship Web browser after version 8.5 heralded Opera's conversion to freeware. The company on Thursday released a Technology Preview of Opera 9.0, which introduces a new storage format for e-mail and a multitude of page rendering tweaks.

Most notable on a long list of changes are an enhanced pop-up blocker and initial support for CSS3 selectors and attributes. Version 9 also now identifies itself through the UserAgent string as "Opera." Developers note the preview release should not be loaded on a primary system or over previous Opera installations. Users are asked to report problems accessing sites that worked previously.