Opera boosts its anti-phishing defenses

Opera 9.5 Beta 2 has stepped up its security game. The browser has added fraud protection and support for EV SSL (Extended Validation Secure Sockets Layer) certificates to help prevent identity theft.

Opera's move to join the EV SSL crowd leaves Safari as the only browser without anti-phishing protection. As you may recall, PayPal and Safari have been at odds over EV SSL but haven't come to blows yet.

Here's Opera's description:

Not all Web pages are what they say they are. In Opera 9.5, Fraud Protection is enabled by default, detecting and warning you about fraudulent Web sites automatically. Support for Extended Validation certificates (EV) provides added assurance and trust for secure Web sites.

Here's the full list of what Opera changed on the security front:

• Improved back-end for Fraud Protection, now enabled by default.
• Added support for Extended Validation (EV) certificates.
• Added automatic updates of root certificates.
• Introduced a new security notification scheme in the address field:

• gold lock on green field for secure sites with Extended Validation
• silver lock on yellow field for regular secure sites
• question mark on gray field for HTTPS sites with problems
• no notification for normal sites
• fraud warning on red field for blacklisted sites

• Opera now distinguishes between local servers on localhost, intranet servers, and remote servers on the Internet. Local servers can use remote resources, but not vice versa.