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Around 1992, Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and Geir Ivarsøy were part of a research group at Televerket (the Norwegian state phone company now called Telenor). The group took part in developing ODA, a standards-based system for storage and retrieval of documents, images and other content. The ODA system never got any wide-spread usage despite its effectiveness and has since died. The research group also established the first Norwegian internet server and 'home-page' in 1993, but they felt the current Mosaic browser had a too 'flat' structure for it to be used effectively in browsing the web. In the light of this, the group took interest in building a new document browser from scratch. Inspired by the ODA project, they saw potential in building a browser better adapted to the many-faceted structure of the web. The mother company Televerket gave the group a green light, and by late 1993 the first prototype was was up and running. Televerket faced a challenge though: The tele market was destined for full deregulation in 1998 which meant they would have to prepare for competition; They were not sure if this browser program would fit in with their core business. In 1994 Televerket became a state-owned stock company, and J. S. von Tetzchner and G. Ivarsøy were allowed to continue development on their own in the offices of Televerket. By the end of 1995 Televerket was renamed Telenor, and the company Opera Software was created, still in the same offices. Their product was initially known as MultiTorg Opera and was quickly recognized by the internet community for its multiple document interface and its 'hotlist' (sidebar) which made browsing several pages at once much easier.
Opera has always been developed with different priorities from other browsers, the mentioned adaptation to the big internet being the most noticeable. It has also been designed for low footprint and very high browsing speed to make it more suitable for low-end computers. Accessibility has always been important, for users who may have visual or mobility impairments. Voice control over Opera is present in the IBM multi-modal browser, and is expected later in the standard version of Opera. (Interestingly, J.S. von Tetzchner is the son of prof. Stephen von Tetzchner, University of Oslo, who specializes in child psychology, more specifically mentally challenged children and computer programs/systems that make their lives easier.)
Opera has pioneered many new features later copied by more mainstream browsers. For example, Opera was the first browser to integrate mouse gestures as an easier way to navigate pages. Opera also has several other original features, including multiple document browsing (as well as the more limited tabbed browsing), background loading of pages, batch opening of bookmark folders, fast forward and rewind functions which predict where you would surf next, notes, skins, and session management (save groups of pages to be opened later). Opera saves one of these session files periodically while running, so that in the event of a crash, it is possible to resume browsing exactly where you left off. This feature also preserves the history of each window.
Opera became famous (and somewhat notorious) for its Multiple Document Interface (MDI); that is, all browser windows were opened in the same parent window. A taskbar was later (version 3 ?) introduced to make managing them easier. Version 6.0 brought a major philosophical change for Opera, with the addition of a Single Document Interface (SDI) Mode. Ironically, this happened when many other browsers, like Mozilla and Galeon, started using a tabbed interface (different from MDI in that it isn't multiple actual windows). Opera 6.0 gave the user the choice to use either MDI, SDI or tabbed mode and became thereby the first browser to support all three modes. Opera also has a presentation mode, Opera Show, which allows the use of a single source document for large-screen presentations and web browsing. Opera uses this mode when specific code ( CSS) for presentations is in place.
Opera 6.0 supported most common web standards (including CSS), Netscape plugins and some other recent standards such as WAP and WML for wireless devices. However, its implementation of ECMAScript with the HTML DOM left a bit to be desired, especially on highly dynamic pages.
In January 2003, Opera 7 was released. Opera 7 offered a new layout engine " Presto" with greatly improved CSS, scripting, and DOM support, a new skinned user interface and a new and radical email and news client called M2 using a database approach to storage. In May 2004, Opera 7.5 was released, which included a newsfeed (RSS) reader and an IRC client. In August 2004, Opera 7.6 began limited beta testing, which included more advanced XML support, and introduced voice support for Opera, as well as support for Voice XML. Opera also recently announced a new browser for iTV, which ties in to the new fit to width option in Opera 7.6: pages can now be dynamically resized to fit on a certain screen width, which comes in handy with the more limited resolution of TV screens.