Opera announced today it has acquired web-based email provider FastMail.fm. Opera’s offered its own email client since 2000, and now it will use FastMail to expand its own messaging product across various devices from mobile to TVs and gaming consoles.

Opera has released its new browser for Mac, and the company claims it is ten times faster, based on speed comparisons between Opera 10.52 and Opera 10.10.

"To all Mac users who value fast browsing, please meet Opera," CEO Lars Boilesen says. "Opera is a consistent performer on even the most congested networks, giving people the fastest browsing experience, coupled with a powerful feature set that is finely attuned to the needs of Mac users."

Opera is set to unveil its Opera Mini browser at a press event during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. We contacted Opera to get some details.

Facebook has become the most-visited social network on the mobile web, according to Opera’s State of the Mobile Web report.

Unique users of Facebook grew more than 600 percent during 2009, helping the site surpass Russian property VKontakte, formerly the most popular social network among Opera Mini users. Twitter saw its usage increase more than any other social network, jumping more than 2,800 percent in just one year.

Opera announced today that it has acquired mobile advertising firm AdMarvel. Opera says the acquisition will enable it to expand its portfolio of products and services to include "highly scalable ad monetization services" for Opera branded mobile products and services.

Opera is unveiling three new releases at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. This includes two new software development kits (SDKs), the Opera Devices 10.15 SDK for Linux and Windows CE (WinCE) platforms, and the company’s new standalone browser, Opera Devices 10 for WinCE (beta).

Jon von Tetzchner has stepped down as CEO of Opera, though he will remain with the company full-time in a "strategic and independent" capacity. Opera has appointed Lars Boilesen to take his place as CEO.

According to Opera, Facebook is the most popular site on the mobile web in Africa. In addition, a report from the company shows a 5% jump in global mobile Internet users.

Opera Mini has garnered more than 41.7 million users worldwide showing a 5.3 percent jump compared to the previous month, according to the report. The number of page views in November went up 9.5% and data consumption increased 8.3% compared to October.

Opera announced that five million people are using Opera Turbo, its compression technology, which is present in both Opera 10 and Opera Mobile. Opera Turbo reduces the size of Web pages by up to 80%, according to the company, dramatically improving browsing speeds over slow networks and saving money on "pay as you go" connections.

Opera is reporting that usage of its Opera Mini mobile browser has jumped 11% in just a month, around the world. In addition, they say data transfers have gained 16%.

Update: Opera has released the beta version of Opera Unite in Opera 10.10 beta.

Original Article: Today Opera has released a product (as promised), which it claims reinvents the web. That may seem like an exaggerated statement, but it’s an interesting concept nonetheless.

Opera has announced the release of the beta version of its latest mobile browser – Opera Mini 5. Opera Mini is the most popular mobile web browser in the world, the company claims.

Today Opera released the final version of Opera 10, the long-awaited new entry in the company’s browser family. It’s free and comes in 43 languages.

Opera points out three things that it says users "must try" in this version:

Opera released its monthly report on the state of the mobile web. The report looks at the link between downloads and usage by Opera Mini users. Reports say that Opera Mini is the most widely downloaded mobile app, so this is quite significant.

Today Opera released the first release candidate for Opera 10. The final release should be launching on September 1.

Opera has announced the release of its Beta 3 release of the Opera 10 browser. The company says this version is ready for "heavy work" on the web.

Opera has run over 10 million tests on the beta and has received plenty of feedback. They say performance and stability were prioritized in this version.

Mobile web browser Opera Mini has reached a significant milestone. Opera announced that Opera Mini users viewed more than 10 billion pages in one month.

The company released its "State of the Mobile Web" report(pdf) this week, and it reveals some other interesting findings as well:

Opera released its newest State of the Mobile Web report, which includes a spotlight on search engine usage on the mobile web.

Next Tuesday at 9:00 am Opera is going to reinvent the web.

Sigh. How many times has the web been "reinvented" now? I’ve lost count… but could this time be different?

What does Opera have up their sleeve? Tell us what you think.

Norwegian browser maker Opera Software said in its ‘State of the Mobile Web’ report that nearly 40 percent of global mobile web traffic hits the likes of MySpace and Facebook. It’s even higher in the United States.

Users of the Opera Mini or Opera Mobile web browsers will see Google take Yahoo’s place as the default search on March 1st.