Opera Software today released the Opera 11.10 browser, the newest update to Opera's desktop browser. Amongst a host of new features, Opera 11.10 adds seven new languages including Afrikaans, while also including Azerbaijani, Montenegrin, Malay, Tagalog, Thai and Uzbeck. This brings launguage support to more than 50 languages in total. (As far as South African languages are concerned Opera is still behind Mozilla, with Firefox 4 supporting Afrikaans, Zulu and Northern Sotho.)

Apart from improved language support, Opera 11.10, codenamed "Barracuda", features improvements to two of Opera's most used features: Speed Dial and Opera Turbo.

Better-looking Opera Turbo

By reducing the size of the webpage, the Opera Turbo feature in Opera 11.10 can boost browsing speeds by up to four times or more. In previous versions, this sometimes meant reducing the quality of images, but now overall image quality is improved. According to Opera Software lab tests, this new Opera Turbo produces pages that are on average 54% smaller and almost 40% faster to load than without Opera Turbo (see video below).

"The Opera Turbo feature is crucial for anyone who travels or just has a slow internet connection," said Jan Standal, VP of Desktop Products, Opera Software. "By reducing the size of the page, we can make browsing so much faster. So whether you're at a crowded Starbucks in San Francisco or are using a 3G modem in Sri Lanka, Opera Turbo can give you a better browsing experience."

More versatile Speed Dial

Opera’s Speed Dial makes it easier and faster to access favourite sites, with the new Speed Dial flow feature allowing an unlimited number of dials to customise. New layout choices and an improved zoom slider in the configuration menu lets you arrange your Speed Dial to fit any monitor. While Speed Dial automatically adjusts layout to fit your screen, you can define the layout depending on your preference.

Opera Software has recently announced that its Opera Mini mobile web browser is used on more than 100 million phones, while also making available Opera Dragonfly, which is an open source suite of debugging tools for web developers as well as web designers.

The Opera 11.10 browser can be downloaded here: http://www.opera.com/

Here is a video that explains Opera Turbo: