When you first launch the new version of Opera be prepared. The UI guys has really outdone themselves. An awesome new black skin with hints of subtle blue and silver hits you right in the face and you are left with a feeling that yip, things have changed big time. After you have gotten to grips with the awesome new UI, get ready for everything else that is new. And believe me there is a lot to be excited about, for both general users as well as developers.

Screenshot of Opera 9.5

First up for users of the browser is tighter integration between the desktop version of the Opera browser and the mobile version of Opera, Opera Mini. Collect bookmarks, set-up your speed-dial and create and save notes and all of this will be synced to any other 9.5 version of the desktop browser as well as Opera Mini, all you have to do is, log in. Now that is awesome, take you to-do or shopping list with you and never forget anything ever again.

One of the cool new features that Firefox 3 will introduce is adding tags to your bookmarks, so next time you are looking for something, instead of having to type in the entire address you can just type in the word you tagged the bookmark with. Opera 9.5 brings you Quick Find, with Quick Find you simply type in a word in the address bar that you remember from a page you have visited and Opera will present you with results of possible matches.

As if Opera was not fast and efficient when it comes to its memory use, the developers of the new version claims big improvements in this area with regards to the email client, the RSS reader as well as the browser itself. I must admit, I am a believer. I currently have Opera 9.5 running with 7 tabs open and it is using only 27MB of my RAM, now that is amazing! One thing I have also really liked about Opera versus Firefox is their little tab to launch a new tab without having to either go File > New Tab or Ctrl+T, luckily they have kept this feature and just changed it placement. You will now find it at same spot users of IE will be accustomed to, on the right hand side of the last tab open.

One new button you will find located top left is the panels button. This gives you on click access to you bookmarks, widgets, notes, transfers, history and links. You can also add other panels such as windows, search and info. This is a real improvement to the way it was in previous version of Opera and also a lot more accessible.

Another thing I am personally excited about is the way 9.5 handles Google Docs. With the 9.27 release the Google Docs homepage was not playing nice with Opera, even though you could use it, things did not display correctly and some functions did not work as they did in Firefox for example. The biggest issue for me though was that I could not edit my documents in Opera unless they consistent of only text and no images. When you added an image to a document with Opera 9.27 it through away all of the text and only retained the image and there was no way to undo this change. All you had to do was close the tab quickly before the auto save kicked in and then you would have to back to an earlier revision. I am glad to report that as of Opera 9.5 this is no longer a problem as I authored the draft of this article using Google Docs and it happily added the screen shot without throwing any of my content away.

Of course the features Opera users have come to know and love like Speed Dial, notes, the ability to save and restore browsing sessions after you close the browser, a trash can for accidentally closed tabs or e-mails, mouse gestures etc. are still there. The combination of all of these features as well as enhanced fraud detection, that is now on by default, makes surfing the web a joy for web users across platforms. I believe Opera did a really awesome job and the popularity and wide spread use of Opera is sure to grow following this release. My next post will focus on those features that makes Opera 9.5 good news for developers.

For more on what is new and noteworthy, check out the 9.5 changelog on Opera.com