The new (and free) version of the Opera Web Browser has been doing very well. As of Thursday, Opera 8.5 had been downloaded more than 1 Million times. Earlier this morning the Opera website was updated with a notice that Opera 8.5 has passed 2.1 Million downloads. Opera Software’s CEO, Jon S. von Tetzchner, had this to say in an announcement that was posted on Thursday:

“The success of our free browser proves the world is ready for a fresh option. I’m most excited about the hundreds of thousands of new users who have discovered the speed, security and usability of our browser for the first time.”

Daniel over at Opera Watch has posted his own thoughts about the now free Opera Web Browser. Of course, Daniel isn’t alone here. Many Opera employees have been talking about it in their personal blogs (Oli, Haavard, Tim). There has also been a ton of news from sites like Overclockers Club (thanks to me!), Slashdot.org, OSNews, Digg, Neowin, BetaNews, and others. Even the long time Opera basher and Mozilla employee Asa Dotzler threw out a positive comment or two.

For a long time Opera lover like myself, I’m glad to see numbers like this. Hopefully a good number of these people will come to love the power of Opera and continue to support and use it.

Those of you who have downloaded and are now using the Opera Web Browser, I’d suggest going into the preferences (Ctrl + F12) and then changing Opera to identify Opera as itself (Advanced > Network) rather than IE. If you come across a website that is blocking Opera or doesn’t display correctly, let the Opera community know so they can work with the site operators to fix things.

Update 09.26.05 @ 1:00 PM EST: Opera has updated the site again. Opera 8.5 has passed 2.4 Million downloads.