Zulu has joined Afrikaans on the latest update of the Opera web browser, Opera 11.50, while our friends in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda will be happy to know that Swahili is now also supported.

With the addition of these two African languages, as well as Bengali and Punjabi, this web browser, codenamed “Swordfish”, currently boasts support for over 50 languages. Opera 11.50 also sports enhancements to its Speed Dial launch page, synchronisation functionality and design.

The new Speed Dial extensions feature, like the live tiles of Windows Phone 7 OS, enable users to embed their Speed Dials with updated extensions. Users can have a weather site embedded for instance, which doesn’t merely open a link to their favourite weather site, but continuously shows the current conditions and forecasts for their area.

Other new Speed Dial functionality includes the Read It Later Speed Dial extension, which suggests articles to read from the user’s reading list, and The Hype Machine, a music service that tracks emerging artists on blogs. Non-Speed Dial improvements such as password synchronisation, allowing users to securely synchronise their website passwords the likes of their Facebook and Twitter passwords with other Opera browsers.

"The good news is, no matter what browser you choose, you'll get something like this--eventually," said Jan Standal, VP of Desktop Products, Opera Software. "The question is how long do you want to wait? With Opera, you can experience Speed Dial extensions along with our other pioneering features today."

 

Users can download Opera 11.50 from the company’s website free of charge for Windows (7.5 MB), Mac and Linux-running PC. Last month Opera Software released its Opera Mini 6 browser for iOS-running mobile devices such as the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 via the Apple App Store.