Opera 10 Blazes into Beta, Promises 40 Percent Better Performance

Available in alpha form for some time now, Opera Software has just released its upcoming Opera 10 browser as a beta 1 download.

Speed appears to be the main focus for Opera 10, which sports a new compression technology called Opera Turbo. According to Opera, this will provide "significant improvements in browsing speeds over limited-bandwidth connections." In general, the company claims up to a 40 percent performance boost in Opera 10 with its Presto 2.2 rendering engine.

Other new features include a customizable Speed Dial for storing 4 to 25 websites, a resizable search field, new visual tabs and sleeker design, and inline spell checker, an a boatload more.

Opera 10 is expected to be released in final form before the end of the year. In the meantime, you can read more about the new browser here, and grab the beta here.