Opera Joins the Free Browser Wars

It was only a few weeks ago that Opera gave away free registration codes for their browser for a single day to celebrate their 10yr anniversary. Now it seems that was all for nought. They announced today that they are providing their browser product for free and removing the ad banners. I use both Opera and Firefox and find them both pleasing to use. Opera seems a bit faster to me, but it's a little more complex in it's operation than Firefox in my opinion. And don't forget about Chris Pirillo's browser of choice Maxthon which is based on the IE engine. Either way, it's good news that there will be more competition in the browser market. I'm not so sure IE7 will have anything on these products when it ships with Windows Vista. The days of a browser monopoly seem to be dead.