Opera 15 now available for Mac

For almost 20 years, the Opera web browser has provided an alternative for web surfers who don't want to use the browser packaged with their computer. Its latest incarnation, Opera 15, has been released for OS X, and it's the first version that was built using the open-source Chromium engine. While it shares an engine with Google's Chrome, the newest version of Opera has some exclusive features that help it stand out.

Off-Road mode compresses pages to speed up browsing when your connection slows down to help you stay online, and then automatically turns itself off when your connection improves. Speed Dial groups the sites you visit most often into a custom start page and now allows you to group multiple links into folders. Opera Discover presents search results based on your expressed interests, allowing it to pinpoint your favorite sports teams or news categories.

There is also a new Stash feature that allows you to collect screenshots of web pages for future reference. When in use, you're shown smaller versions of the pages you've snapped, which can then be enlarged for future reference. Best of all, you can tag your snapshots with a keyword to easily find them later.

You can download Opera 15 for free over at its website.