Opera announced today that they have partnered with Haute Secure to include top-notch threat protection in their next-generation browser. A new snapshot of Opera 9.5 was posted yesterday that was bundled with a new theme, but the integration with Haute does not appear to be in place yet.
This partnership is good news for Opera because Haute already has add-ons available for both the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers on Windows, but Opera users were left out in the dark. And the integration of Haute in Opera 9.5 also means that it will be the first time Haute will be available on multiple platforms (Windows, Mac, and Linux).
Here’s what Opera had to say regarding the partnership:
Together, Opera and Haute Secure block Web sites known to distribute malware as well as protect Opera users from downloading software from links designed to trigger malicious attacks. The combination of the industry’s largest database of known malware distributors from Haute Secure and Opera’s Fraud Protection architecture enables Opera users to secure their entire computers proactively from malware that threatens the security of personal data.
Malware protection being built-in to the browser appears to be a growing trend. When Firefox 3 is released in the coming weeks it too will keep users safe from both phishing attacks and malware, but not using Haute’s technology. It will be interesting to put the two browsers up against each other to see which one is more effective at detecting malware on the web.
Opera already had phishing protection, now it even has malware protection. It just keeps getting better.
It does keep getting better, and I’m glad to see that Opera is enabling the anti-phishing protection by default now. I know when it first came out that you had to enable it.
Haute Secure, at least the IE extension, is a real dog! It brings up lots of intermediate screens, makes it a royal PITA to bypass the nags (challenge/response in another window) and does not play well with some of the common free anti-malware suites. Maybe Opera has integrated it properly but be aware of how poorly the IE version is performing. Think of it as another flavor of that McAfee blacklist utility which also integrates itself into Google searches (AVG has a similar thing that requires complete uninstall to properly disable.) Haute Secure has been compared to the McAfee thing with favorable results because it uses far more active methods of rating sites whereas the McAfee one is based on human reviews.
From the looks of it, it performs very much like the phishing protection, reporting the URL to Opera’s servers to check up if it’s OK or not, and such showing the warning page pictured above or not.
It’s nice to see Opera keeping up with its main competitor, and I hope they release the technical details of how the checks are performed.