Private browsing will now extend to the Flash plug-in with Flash Player 10.1 Adobe have announced.

“Integrating with your web browser, Flash Player 10.1 will automatically clear stored data in accordance with your browser’s private browsing settings” said Adobe Engineer Jimson Xu.

Flash Player 10.1 supports private browsing with Internet Explorer 8+, Mozilla Firefox 3.5+, and Google Chrome 1.0+, with Apple’s Safari 2.0+support coming soon.

Missing from this list is Opera, which has only recently included private browsing in the latest 10.50 alpha release.

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is currently in Beta and is expected in the first half of this year. Beta 2 can be downloaded from Adobe Labs.

Opera Software plan to preview Opera Mini for iPhone at the 2010 Mobile World Congress.

“We are thrilled to offer journalists and partners an exclusive preview of Opera Mini for iPhone during the year’s biggest mobile event,” said Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera Software.

“This is a unique opportunity to introduce the fast, feature-rich Opera Mini experience for the iPhone, and to showcase our latest beta releases of Opera Mobile and Opera Mini on other platforms and devices. Opera’s mission is to bring the Web to the world, and by making Opera Mini available on yet another platform, we are one step closer.”

Such an exercise by Opera could be completely pointless, as Apple may deny the browser entry to the App store as it may compete directly with the iPhone’s version of Safari.

“We hope that Apple will not deny their users a choice in Web browsing experience,” Tetzchner told Reuters.

Opera also plan on showing other versions of their mobile browsers at the Mobile World Congress which is being held between February 15th and 18th in Barcelona.

With 2009 now over, it’s time to analyse web browser market share over the last 12 months.

It’s been a big year for web browsers, with Internet Explorer taking a massive loss, down from 75.18% share in December 2008, to 62.69% share in December 2009.

Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera were all big winners, ending the year up higher than they started.

Google Chrome has had such an impact that it now holds third place in the browser market, which has been held by Safari for the last number of years.

We have compiled a graph below to show you the browser movements over the last 12 months.

All data has been provided by Market Share by Net Applications.

On que, Opera have released Opera 10.50 pre-alpha to the public.

So far, the browser is showing a lot of promise, with the new Carakan JavaScrpt engine being over 7 times faster than Opera 10.

Also new in this release is the Presto 2.5 rendering engine, with greater support for HTML5 and CSS3 elements.

New graphics accelerated rendering support is also added with an updated Vega graphics engine, which will safely fall back to the CPU if need be.

Opera 10.50 also adds Windows 7 integration for PC users, and a new unified toolbar for Mac users.

Private Tab and Private Window are also new, allowing users to open a private tab or window where all history and cookies are forgotten on close.

Currently only available Mac and Windows, download links can be found in the Opera Labs.

An early pre-alpha version of Opera 10.50 has leaked online, just a day before an official alpha release from Opera.

The leaked version includes new features, such as Windows 7 integration, Presto 2.5 rendering engine, improved find, and a new user interface.

Noticeably absent from this leak, is the new Carakan JavaScript engine, which from early Opera benchmarks indicates is 2.5 times faster than Opera 10.

Early adopters will find this release online, and we will update you when the Opera approved 10.50 hits the web.

With the release of Opera 10.10 on November 23rd, it took only 7 days for Opera to record over 12 million downloads.

This is a 25% improvement over Opera 10 download figures from September.

“With such remarkable download numbers, I am confident that we truly appealed to the needs of the Web-using public. Opera 10.10 is visually more compelling, and technologically speaking, it goes where no browser has gone before,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software in a press release. “We believe that, over time, Opera Unite has the power to erase preconceptions of how we access and share information on the Web.”

Opera 10.10 can be download for free for Windows, Mac and Linux and includes Opera Unite.

It’s been a busy day for Opera, with the releases of two new beta’s for Opera Mobile 10 and Opera Mini 5.

The updated mobile browsers now include a new download manager, Opera Link which synchronises bookmarks and other browser data between devices, plus plenty of bug fixes for both beta’s.

More information and download links for Opera 10 Mobile beta 2 and Opera Mini 5 beta 2 can be found in the Opera blog.

November has been another standard month, with Internet Explorer bleeding more market share, falling from 64.64% in October to 63.62%, while it looks like most of those users have moved to Firefox, which has gone from 24.07% to 24.72% share.

Safari lost a bit of ground for the month, moving from 4.42% to 4.36%, but rival web kit browser Chrome is up from 3.58% to 3.93%. At this rate, Google Chrome usage will overtake Safari some time in the first half of 2010.

Toping out the major browsers is Opera who also rose for the month, moving from 2.17% to 2.31%.

A big thanks to Market Share by Net Applications for the month’s statistics.

Opera have released Opera 10.2 alpha to the public.

What’s new in Opera 10.2? Opera Widgets! Included with 10.2 are two exclusive widgets for Twitter and Google Translate, along with access to plenty of other widgets.

Opera 10.20 alpha can be downloaded from the Opera Desktop Team blog.

Overnight Opera has released Opera 10.10, which includes Opera Unite, to the public.

Opera Unite allows users to stream music or share files, photos and more, right from the browser. This is achieved by using Opera Unite applications, 7 of which are bundled with Opera 10.10.

These include:

Opera Unite Home – Your personal Opera Unite Web page shows the Opera Unite applications you wish to share with family, friends, or the world.

File Sharing – The File Sharing application enables a simple and safe way to share files directly from your computer.

Fridge – The Fridge application enables people to leave notes on your computer.

Media Player – The Media Player application enables access to your complete home music library from wherever you are.

Messenger – A personal and private chat connection between you and another Opera Unite user who is listed as your friend on myopera.com.

Photo Sharing – The Photo Sharing application enables you to share your personal photos with friends around the world without the need to upload them.

Web Server – The Web Server application enables you to host your Web sites from your own computer.

A full list of changes can be read in the changelog, while Opera 10.10 can be downloaded from the Opera website.