NEWS Opera Software has ditched the extra banner ad - and licensing fee - on its web browser.
Previously the Opera browser was available free of charge with a built-in extra banner ad, or users could chose to pay a licensing fee to remove the banner and get additional support.
The Oslo-based browser company's CEO Jon S Von Tetzchner said in a statement: "Removing the ad banner and licensing fee will encourage many new users to discover the speed, security and unmatched usability of the Opera browser."
According to figures from web monitoring firm NetApplications published last week, Opera is the fifth largest browser with 0.62 per cent of the market.
Microsoft Internet Explorer holds 86.3 per cent of the market, with Firefox on 8.3 per cent but continuing to gain on IE, followed by Safari on 2.2 per cent and Netscape on two per cent.
The ad-free version of the 4MB browser - available in 20 languages - can be downloaded from www.opera.com.
