I have been running Opera 10 in beta on my test machines for a while now, but they have released the official and so I have updated all of my usual machines (Mac, Windows, and Ubuntu).  (Ubuntu users: please watch for my next post on updating to Opera 10 through Synaptic.)

It is very apparent that this new version is much faster (faster than fastest is faster still).  They have also added a handful of new features which regular users will find rather handy.

For instance, you can now run a spell checker through Opera on any page.  This saves me a step in making my blog posts.  I have been dumping my text into a Tomboy Note to check the spelling (Tomboy on Ubuntu auto-spell-checks), and then fixing the spelling errors as they appeared.  Now Opera puts a subtle red line under any word it does not recognize.  Right-clicks give suggestions and allow you to add words to your dictionary.  (I just added Ubuntu.)

Another interesting new feature is in the tab bar.  You can now expand the tab bar (by dragging down on a handle) and turn all of your tabs into thumbnail versions of the pages.  This is an advancement over the previous mouse-over tab feature which would spawn a thumbnail temporarily.

If you are using an older version of Opera it’s time to update.  If you are not using Opera, it’s time to kick of the training wheels and meet the Net head-on, full-throttle forward.

Here is their information page on Opera 10.  Or you can download it here.

Life just keeps getting better.