As I noted the other day, Opera 8.10 Preview 1 was released. However, I really didn’t go into any of the details about the new version.
Probably the biggest change that will happen, as reported by Opera Watch and even Slashdot.org is that Opera plans to quit spoofing as IE by default.
For those that don’t know, unless you go into the Opera preferences and change the browser agent, Opera will identify itself as Internet Explorer.
This has helped avoid compatibility problems with websites that create IE specific pages. On the other hand, it has also helped to hurt Opera as web masters and statistical services see the browser as IE instead of what it really is, Opera. The change to the default user agent should help more people see that Opera is out there and being used.