Opera 12 Beta Available For Testing Now

Remember Opera? The browser is still alive and well, even if it can't quite touch the numbers that Chrome and Firefox are hitting. Opera Software announced the beta version of Opera 12 today, codenamed "Wahoo". The company says that Opera 12 is "smarter and faster" than older versions, and introduces some new features.

First, the team have added the ability to add themes to the browser. Opera will be offering a whole host of themes via its website, and the company says that they're easy to create as well. Plug-ins are now hosted separately, so if they crash they won't take the browser with it. It's the same functionality that Chrome and Firefox have had for a while now, but it's nice to see it make an appearance in Opera too.

Opera also say that thanks to SSL and tab optimizations that the browser is faster than ever, and the team has added an API that can tap into your computer's webcam. That gives developers something to play around with, and Opera has created some demos for them to test out the API, such as a Photo Booth.

There are a few other minor additions too, like 64-bit browsers for Mac and Windows, plus support for the Do Not Track header, and HTML5 Drag and Drop support. The Opera 12 beta is available to go test right now from the Opera website.