Last night, Opera released an alpha build of Opera Unite and, to hear them tell it, reinvented the internet in the process. With a claim as big as that, we think it's important to take a good, hard look at Opera Unite
—what is it, what can it do, and will it really change the way we use the web?
So first, what is Opera Unite? Basically, it's a version of the Opera browser with built-in server software, which allows users of Opera Unite to send data (everything from text to multimedia) directly to other people on the web, even if they're using a different browser, and all without having to upload anything to a traditional server. Opera's billing this as a way to get free yourself from the tyranny of the datacenter, allowing you to share pictures without having to put them on a strangers computer, network socially without having to subject yourself to Facebook's terms of service, collaborate without relying on the Google Docs server and so on and so forth.
But what can it really do? Read on to find out.
