Opera Software has ended the use of ads in the zero cost version of its Opera web browser. Opera is intended as closed source software, its license states that You shall not modify, translate, reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Software or any part thereof or otherwise attempt to derive source code or create derivative works therefrom. [1]. Until now the program displayed an advertisement when being used, however the program had an option that would remove the advertisment in return for a fee. Company Officials expressed hope that this move would prompt more users to download the Opera browser and thus increase the company's revenue from its search engine product.

"The idea is to get a lot more users than we have currently," said Opera CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner. "Removing the ad banner and licensing fee will encourage many new users to discover the Opera browser."

Opera's features compete directly with Mozilla Firefox, and include tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, integrated search, mouse gestures and voice control for various features. Its license does not compete with Mozilla Firefox, since Mozilla Firefox is free software, which can be freely modified and redistributed.

"We believe that the revenue from third-party offerings will increase in proportion to desktop revenue as more users adopt Opera," said Mr. von Tetzchner.

You can download Opera at the Opera website for Windows, Apple and Linux.

Opera is also offering torrents of the new release to ease the load on their servers.

About Opera: Opera was started in 1995 with the idea of offering an alternate browser to the then-dominant Netscape (see Opera: Mobile Browser Diva). The company got its name as it is recognizable across many different languages. What’s more, the company’s chief technology officer, Håkon Wium Lie, is a huge Opera fan, particularly of Richard Wagner.

Story originally featured on Canadian Content on Wednesday September 21, 2005