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
History of the web browser 1996, Bernd Richter ceased development, stating "let Microsoft with the ActiveX Development Kit do the rest." Microsoft, which had thus far not marketed a browser, finally entered the fray with its Internet Explorer product (version 1.0 was released 16 August 1995), purchased from Spyglass, Inc. This began what is known as the "browser wars" in which Microsoft and Netscape competed for the Web browser market. Early web users were free to choose among the handful of web browsers available, just as they would choose any other application—web standards would ensure their experience remained largely the same. The browser wars put