Opera 9: Raising the bar in Web browser war

Opera 9 has a range of user-friendly security features, that are easy to configure and designed for the surfing habits of the non-security minded, which makes them more effective since users are more likely to utilize them. For example, in addition to having a padlock icon located inside the address field to indicate a site's security level, Opera 9 provides the name of the organization the certificate is registered to, as shown in the figure below.

Users are far more likely to notice this information in the address field than in the bottom right corner, where it's usually found, particularly because the information is greyed for a site using an encrypted connection that has a low security rating. Clicking on the bar opens a window that provides clear information about the certificate and protocols being used. This attention to detail could also help reduce the number of Opera users who fall victim to phishing scams.

Here are some of Opera 9's other security features:<

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Widget Warning

Security policies will need to be updated to account for Opera's new widgets. These essentially are a Web page with no graphical framework and elements of the Web browser window (browser chrome). Since these widgets can operate cross-domain, they can access multiple Web sites at the same time, therefore, security policies must ensure that users do not install widgets from sources that are not known or trusted.

How Opera 9's security stacks up

Opera 9 has no unpatched Secunia advisories to date while IE has 21 and Firefox just four. (See the Secunia Vulnerability Report for more details.) If more users adopt Opera 9 it will no doubt attract more attention from hackers. However, when vulnerabilities have been discovered, Opera has been excellent in patching them quickly, which is always a big plus for IT administrators.