Opera, the little browser that could, had fun with the rollout of its latest version today. It added an entertaining tracker indicating which unrelated popularity milestones are being surpassed by downloads of Opera 11.50.
The serious reason behind the silly statistics is to point out the Norwegian company has 200 million users. That’s a significant number of installations, even bearing in mind that’s only 2.4 percent of its market and these users may also use other browsers. Firefox is by far the leader with 42.4 percent.
In its first few hours, the tracker showed the number of Opera 11.50 downloads was higher than the top-ever Frogger score. It soon announced enough downloads so that every single crew member on an operational Death Star could have one. Check here to see the latest random factoid.
As to the browser update itself, it’s worth knowing that it’s both faster and lighter due to an overhaul of the core code and software graphics engine. Password protection is integrated, and the zoom feature is improved. Opera also has added more customization capabilities to its already-flexible interface, including built-in extensions for the Hype Machine, StockTwits, Read It Later, Webdoc and more.
