Gaming is a popular activity for a lot of people. Some gamers raise the bar how good you can get and in "World of Warcaft", these players make up "Elitist Jerks", probably the best theorycrafting Web site in the world.

“Opera knows that the vehicle for online gaming is the browser, so why not make the browser a part of the game?” says Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “Gaming is something we have always taken very seriously, and by creating a custom browser for gamers, we hope to make their online adventures even better.”

The browser for the Elitist Jerks community is filled with numerous customized features, including a pre-set Speed Dial complete with important theorycrafting sites, selected RSS feeds and an array of helpful, built-in bookmarks. Elitist Jerks members or fans will feel right at home, as the skin and layout are designed to match the look and feel of their Online community Web site.

“It’s a thrill to finally have our own Elitist Jerks browser. Our community members have worked hard to build our site into the success it is today, and it is great to get the recognition from Opera who provided us a custom-made browser to enhance the overall experience,” said Andrew Hunn aka Boethius from the Elitist Jerks community.

• Download Opera's Elitist Jerks browser:
• Windows Version
• Mac Version

It's "patch day" and this means addition of new features, fixing and hopefully joy and excitement! We are very excited about this release for a number of reasons: First and foremost, we've made some very important changes to the friends system. You now have a list of pending requests with necessary action buttons.

You can also send your friends e-cards with an updated design! Simply hover a photo you've discovered on My Opera and choose from the new quick links to favorite, share or zoom in.

We are also very excited about the return of the affiliate program! We would personally like to thank all the beta testers for contributing with feedback how to improve the program! If you already have the "Download Opera" button activated on your page you're automatically particiating in the affiliate program and no further actions is needed, but if you're not, get started today!

We will come back with more information about the affiliate program later this week.

You can also read all about the markup changes for this release in our devblog.

Changelog for the banana release:

General:

• A lot of speed optimizations have been made to make My Opera load faster.
• Increased page width 40px for community pages.
• We have updated the look of the status field on the home page and made it more visible.
• Displaying 2 instead of 3 "community news" on home page when logged in.
• Redesigned "Download Opera" page.
• Redesigned the "Choose Opera" page.
• New look for the Opera affiliate banner.
• We have updated the look of the status field on the home page and made it more visible.
• A brand new "favorites" page is now available for all users. It can be turned on/off by going to "My page" > "Account" > "Page configuration".
• Trimmed the size of all buttons to make them smaller.
• Small "join My Opera" promo is shown on "about" page for logged out users when they visit My Opera directly from another site.
• Small notice to download Opera displayed on some pages for other browsers.
• Activity feed is updated to show "favorites" and "new profile picture".

My page, blog and photo albums:

• Your "files" section have been redesigned for better usability.
• New buttons for adding photo as favorite and sharing photos added when hovering photo album images.
• The e-card pages have been redesigned.
• Several pages like "start a new photo album" and "start a blog" have been redesigned to fit the look of the blog themes.
• Updated design of default blog theme menu.
• Added twitter to "share this".
• Moved MMS e-mail notice from the album overview to the album page.
• Moved tags from the album overview to the album page.
• Added date to photo albums.
• Added album description to album page.
• Fixed the design of the photo tags page.
• Added a new page for editing single images in photo albums.
• Redesigned the photo page for the default blog theme.
• Added "share this photo" to photo sidebar.
• Added "blog this" to photo pages.
• The "info" page is gone and links point directly to the "about" page.
• The top menu avatar now links to your own page instead of the community home page.

Friends:

• Status have been removed from the friends page.
• Added friends request info to top bar.
• Added "block" and "ignore" buttons to friends request page.

Today was maintenance day and we've updated My Opera with new features and other really cool enhancements. The reason for the apricots in the image is because we've named this milestone release "Apricot" (yes, we like fruits).

Changelog

• We've implemented a brand new photo uploader. Please note that it is off by default and you have to manually switch to enable it
• Design and usability enhancements have been made to photo albums navigation
• Completed more translations
• New navigation and action buttons
• We've made several adjustments to how the friends approval system work. You now have to approve a friend request, otherwise the request is not completed
• Skin authors can now mark uploaded skins for Opera 9.5
• Accessibility enhancements (buttons are now text based, etc.)
• No more "questionable pictures" on the front page (sorry!)
• Many "under the hood" bug fixes (avatar size problem fixed, for example)
• When you've written a comment in a blog post, the page now correctly "jumps" to it after it has been saved
• Security updates
• A brand new welcome page for people who has just signed up
• And a whole lot more!

Read an even more extensive changelog here.