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Opera has taken the wraps of the new version 9.5, with an alpha preview release that boasts some impressive new features including the much improved Kestrel rendering engine. Kestrel, the new version of the rendering engine behind Opera 9.5, is already in the wild as part of [Opera Mini][4], as well as the Wii's Internet Channel browser.
Kestrel is significantly faster than any other browser I've used. I don't have any official benchmarks to compare, but [go ahead and test the 9.5 alpha][3] -- it's fast, damn fast.
But the new release isn't just about speed, there's a [host of new features][2], both in the UI and behind the scenes, that promises the next version of Opera will be an impressive release.
Perhaps most notable for web developers is much improved CSS rendering capabilities including support of CSS 3 features that have yet to make it into other popular browsers (for what it's worth, Opera is only browser I have that passes all the [CSS 3 selectors test][1]).
The complete list of changes and new features can be found for each system (<a href="http://snapshot.opera.com/windows/w950a1.html">Windows</a><br /><a href="http://snapshot.opera.com/mac/m950a1.html">Mac</a><br /><a href="http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/u950a1.html" >UNIX</a>), but the highlights include:
>* Performance
* Full history search
* Improved site compatibility
* Access for everyone
* Improved platform integration
* Preview of bookmark and Speed Dial synchronization
* Improved Content blocking options
* Mac GUI changes/improvements. Opera 9.5 looks much better on a Mac, and conforms to the Apple Human Interface Guidelines.
The full history search is perhaps the most immediately useful of the new features and one of those things you'll wonder how you did without once you experience it. Unlike most browser history searches, which look at the URLs and sometimes titles of the pages you have visited, Opera's full history search searches the actual content of the Web pages you have visited to pull up relevant results.
Other notable new features include a context menu option to open the current page in any other browsers on your system and some significant improvements to the built-in mail client such as faster IMAP performance and an improved indexing and storage back end.
The new alpha release is meant merely for testing and you shouldn't overwrite your existing copy of Opera, but it provides a nice preview of what's to come. So far Opera has not released any information about when the final version of 9.5 will arrive.
[1]: http://www.css3.info/selectors-test/test.html
[2]: http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2007/09/04/go-and-get-opera-9-5-alpha-3
[3]: http://www.opera.com/products/desktop/next/
[4]: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/08/new-opera-mini-.html
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