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A single panel now gives access to all Opera's features, the browser, email and contacts and as well as the new RSS news reader and IRC-compatible chat client.

Opera's CEO Jon S von Tetzchner could nopt resist a dig at Internet Explorer: 'Most Internet users are browsing slowly and conducting other Internet activities with applications that should have been retired years ago. Internet Explorer is an aged application that Microsoft has not given a major update in years, and according to press reports they are not planning to upgrade it in the near future. At the same time, most people's e-mail applications still function like it's 1994.'

Opera is a very lightweight 3.5MB and can be downloaded for Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris from www.opera.com. It is free, but $39 will remove the ads from the top of the window.