Opera (web browser) layout engine of its competitor Google Chrome. Features of the Opera web browser include private browsing, tabbed browsing, download manager, mouse gestures and browser extensions. Opera began in 1994 as a research project at Telenor, the largest Norwegian telecommunications company. In 1995, it branched out into a separate company named Opera Software. Opera was first released publicly in 1996 with version 2.10, which only ran on Microsoft Windows. In an attempt to capitalize on the emerging market for Internet-connected handheld devices, a project to port Opera to mobile device platforms was started in 1998. Opera 4.0, released in 2000, included
Opera (web browser) Google (which is by contract Opera's default search engine). Among the new features introduced in version 9.1 (released in 2006) was fraud protection using technology from GeoTrust, a digital certificate provider, and PhishTank, an organization that tracks known phishing web sites. This feature was further improved and expanded in version 9.5, when GeoTrust was replaced with Netcraft, and malware protection from Haute Secure was added. Also in 2006, Opera Software ASA released Internet Channel and Nintendo DS Browser for Nintendo's DS and Wii gaming systems. A new JavaScript engine called Carakan, after the Javanese alphabet, was introduced with version 10.50.