Although the official Opera website hasn’t been updated to reflect the news, the latest version of the alternative web browser is currently in the process of being uploaded to a number of high-volume FTP sites. Opera’s own FTP server currently has the Windows and Linux versions available, as well as the first public beta for Mac.
For those unfamiliar with Opera, it’s an alternative to Internet Explorer with a number of additional features and speed improvements over the default Windows browser. Unlike Mozilla’s Firefox, however, Opera is not open-source or completely free. You can download a free version that pays for it’s development through the use of small text-ads along the top menu, as seen above, or you can pay for an ad-free version. There’s also a student discount and volume discounts for enterprise level use.
The text-ads are small and unobtrusive, so I would heartily recommend you download the free version, which weighs in at under 4MB, and try Opera 8 for yourself.