A lot of love goes to Firefox in our regular coverage, but in all fairness, Opera is yet another extremely great alternative to Internet Explorer that should be considered and given at least a try if you are into finding the right mold for your browsing habits.
Opera 9.5 which has now hit Beta 2 is also putting an emphasis on speed enhancements as the majority of the other new generation browsers do. In a way, Opera lacks the huge community support that Firefox relies on, but at the same time, you can get a lot of the the most popular extension functionality already built-in, all in a single package.
Other highlights for Opera 9.5 include an improved built-in email client that doubles as a RSS reader, quick find from the address bar, Opera Link synchronization, and security enhancements such as support for the highly touted Extended Validation certificates.