Opera Software has decided to offer the full version of their Opera browser (i.e. without ads) for free from now on. I don’t quite I understand how they are planning to make money, but they explain some of the reasons for making their browser free here.
I have used Opera for a while a couple of years ago, and it’s definitely a good browser. But frankly, I’m not sure why anybody would choose to use Opera over Firefox these days. Firefox, which offers most of the same features as Opera out of the box, has managed to steal a lot of market share from IE in the recent years. Most websites these days (though sadly still not all) are optimized for both Firefox and IE, but the same cannot be said for Opera. In addition, Firefox offers many powerful plugins (and new plugins appear every week) that allow users to customize the browser according to their needs.
I wish them good luck, but I’d be surprised if Opera Software manages to stay around much longer…