page_title: Opera (web browser)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Opera (web browser) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Håkon Wium Lie CTO of Opera &amp; Founder of CSS
context_page_description: Opera is a freeware web browser for Microsoft Windows, Android, iOS, macOS, and Linux operating systems developed by Opera Software. Opera is a Chromium-based browser using the Blink layout engine. It differentiates itself because of a distinct user interface and other features.
  Opera was conceived at Telenor as a research project in 1994 and was bought by Opera Software in 1995. It was a commercial software for the first ten years and had its own proprietary Presto layout engine. The Presto versions of Opera received many awards, but Presto development ended after a milestone transition to Chromium in 2013.
  There are also three mobile versions called Opera Mobile, Opera Touch, and Opera Mini. A gaming browser called Opera GX was launched on 11 June 2019.
context_section_description: Opera began in 1994 as a research project at Telenor, the largest Norwegian telecommunications company.
  In 1995, it branched out into a separate company named Opera Software.
  Opera was first publicly released in 1996 with version 2.10, which only ran on Microsoft Windows 95 at that time.
  In an attempt to capitalize on the emerging market for Internet-connected handheld devices, a project to port Opera to mobile device platforms was started in 1998.
  Opera 4.0, released in 2000, included a new cross-platform core that facilitated the creation of editions of Opera for multiple operating systems and platforms.
  Up to this point, Opera was trialware and had to be purchased after the trial period ended. Version 5.0 (released in 2000) saw the end of this requirement. Instead, Opera became ad-sponsored, displaying advertisements to users who had not paid for it. Later versions of Opera gave the user the choice of seeing banner ads or targeted text advertisements from Google.
  With version 8.5 (released in 2005) the advertisements were completely removed and the primary financial support for the browser came through revenue from Google (which is by contract Opera's default search engine).
  Among the new features introduced in version 9.1 (released in 2006) was fraud protection using technology from GeoTrust, a digital certificate provider, and PhishTank, an organization that tracks known phishing web sites. This feature was further improved and expanded in version 9.5, when GeoTrust was replaced with Netcraft, and malware protection from Haute Secure was added.
  In 2006, Opera Software ASA was released as well as Internet Channel and Nintendo DS Browser for Nintendo's DS and Wii gaming systems.
  A new JavaScript engine called Carakan, after the Javanese alphabet, was introduced with version 10.50. According to Opera Software, Carakan made Opera 10.50 more than seven times faster in SunSpider than Opera 10.10.
  On the 16th of December 2010, Opera 11 was released, featuring extensions, tab stacking (where dragging one tab over another allows creating a group of tabs), visual mouse gestures and changes to the address bar.
  Opera 12 was released on 14 June 2012.
  On 12 February 2013, Opera Software announced that it would drop its own Presto layout engine in favour of WebKit as implemented by Google's Chrome browser, using code from the Chromium project. Opera Software planned as well to contribute code to WebKit. On 3 April 2013, Google announced that it would fork components from WebKit to form a new layout engine known as Blink; the same day, Opera Software confirmed that it would follow Google in implementing the Blink layout engine.
  On 28 May 2013, a beta release of Opera 15 was made available, the first version is based on the Chromium project. Many distinctive Opera features of the previous versions were dropped, and Opera Mail was separated into a standalone application derived from Opera 12.
  In November 2016, the original Norwegian owner of Opera sold his stake in the business to a Chinese consortium under the name Golden Brick Capital Private Equity Fund I Limited Partnership for $600 million. An earlier deal was not approved by regulators.
  In January 2017, the source code of Opera 12.15 (one of the last few versions that was still based on the Presto layout engine) was leaked.
  To demonstrate how radically different a browser could look, Opera Neon, dubbed a "concept browser", was released in January 2017. PC World compared it to demo models that automakers and hardware vendors release to show their visions of the future. Instead of a Speed Dial (also explained in the following chapter "Features"), it displays the frequently accessed websites in resemblance to a desktop with computer icons scattered all over it in an artistic formation.
caption: Håkon Wium Lie, chief technical officer of the Opera Software company and co-creator of the CSS web standard
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