Opera has always been a great browser. But it has always lagged behind the major browsers of IE, Firefox and Safari. The announcement this week from Opera is a great step up in the relevance chain but not a game changer.

From what I have seen Opera Unite offers the ability to share files on your computer through Unite, much like you could achieve with GoToMyPC or similar paid for tools. This is the first step of collaboration which I think will be the ultimate ‘next web’ and will give many people a reason to talk about, download and try Opera.

Unite has some cute functions like the fridge facility for sharing collaborative notes which points to the browsers potential for longer term [and wider] collaboration.

However, once Unite is set up it does not seem that you need to actively use Opera to harness its power. I’m off to download it now and will offer a further judgement in due course.

You can download it here, or watch the introductory video below.

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