Opera 8.5 Cleaned Up!!

Well; looks like the penny has finally dropped!!

I can only guess that Opera have realised that to grab market share they need to be "Ad" free as well as free of charge.

Here it is; Opera 8.5; free of a banner advertisement. It's certainly worth a test drive.

It is only logical that those that are aware there are alternatives to Internet Explorer are not interested in paying USD40 to remove a banner ad when there are free alternatives like Firefox with nothing.

Anyway, I've played with Opera since the 8.0 launch and it is a good, fast browser with a built-in e-mail client and RSS reader. The main reason that I have only played with it on and off is because the banner bugs me.

I'll continue to play with Opera but I still like the browsing control that the Firefox extensions give me.

Bottom line is that Opera will now certainly increase their market share at the main expense of Firefox and somewhat of IE.

But!!!!

How will they pay the bills?