Opera Software reputed as the third-largest web browser developer, have released their latest version of their Windows browser software for free download hoping to provide a challenging application to the dominance of both Microsoft Explorer and Netscape Navigator.

The Opera for Windows 5.0 browser includes news and e-mail clients, along with integrated web search and messaging features. It is a 1.89Mb download that includes coding to enable Java and Java plug-ins that will increase it to another 7Mb in file size.

In comparison to install Microsoft Explorer on the hard disk needs around 111Mb of space, a minimum install requires 45Mb. To install Netscape Communicator version 4.7 requires 14Mb of disk space.

By creating a browser so much smaller gives room for this application to run on smaller devices. Operat has versions of the EPOC operating system that is used in Mobile phones and other portable systems including a Linux version in beta testing stage at the moment.

The reasons for Explorer and Netscape being lead browsers in sales worldwide, is because personal computers are often sold with the software bundled on for free. Some people also state that they would use Opera if it also was available for free. Opera currently has around between one and two million users of its browser software worldwide.