Just like people, software providers are followers or leaders. Some are cautious about real innovation, always reluctant to try out new things, while others are constantly seeking ways to improve their products and to innovate in their technology areas.

An excellent example of the latter is Opera Software, with its eponymously named Web browser. Opera was the first to offer many of the browser features that we commonly use today, such as tabbed browsing and cookie management.

So it's a good bet that if you want to see the features that other Web browsers will be adding in a year or two, you should download Opera 9, which was released on June 20. The free Opera 9 is available in Windows, Linux, Solaris, BSD and Mac OS X versions.

In our tests, we found Opera 9 to be one of the best Web browsing tools we've used in a long time, which is why we are giving Opera 9 an eWEEK Labs Analyst's Choice award.

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