It ain’t easy being Opera. On one hand, you have Internet Explorer, which is the default web browser in the world’s most used operating system. On the other, you have Firefox, media and open source community darling. So, you have to keep up the pace with both at all times, while still maintaining an edge that’ll make users want to switch to your product.

Today, Opera announced that the next version of the browser, 9.5, will have malware protection, licensed from Haute Secure.

Opera’s CEO Jon von Tetzchner said this about the deal: “When someone downloads Opera, we make a commitment to do everything we can to keep them safe. Today we’ve extended that commitment beyond the browser to protect our users from malware that tries to attack when they visit a compromised Web page or that they may unintentionally try to download. Haute Secure’s prevention technology is reinventing Web-based threat detection and we look forward to working together in protecting our users all over the world.”

Haute Secure’s malware protection may be good, but this is catching up: Firefox 3 already has built-in malware protection, which you can try out by going to a test malware protection page on Mozilla’s site here. Internet Explorer 7 has it too, but again, we congratulate Opera on breathing down the competition’s neck at all times and never letting go.

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Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

Opera Gears Up to Release Opera 9.5 Alpha, with Several Upgrades
Share Bookmarks Between Your PC And Mobile With Opera
Opera Mini 4.1 Beta Is All About Speed
Opera To EU: Boo-Hoo, Microsoft Is Evil
Opera Mini 4 is Live
Opera Mini Launches ‘Dimension’ for Mobile Browsing
Opera Mobile 9.5 Announced

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