Both Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome have continued their upward trends through April, increasing their market share. Firefox increased it’s share to 22.5%, up half a percent on last month, while Google Chrome was up around a quarter of a percent to 1.4% share.

Internet Explorer on the other hand continued to bleed users, slumping for another month. Despite the release of Internet Explorer 8, the browser lost almost three quarters of a percent to finish of the month with 66.1% market share.

Both Apple’s Safari and Opera stayed steady for the month, with 8.2% and 0.7% market shares respectively.

More detailed results can be seen using Market Share by Net Applications.

April 28, 2009 marks Opera’s 15th birthday, with the browser launched way back in 1994. Way before many people jumped on the Internet.

To celebrate, Opera has added a few extra pages to their site, including a comic on how it al began.

Posts from Opera’s CEO, Jon Tetzchner and Opera’s Software CTO Håkon Wium Lie also mark the occasion.

You can check out what all the hype is about on the Opera website. Congratulation Opera!

Latest builds of Opera 10 now include Opera Turbo, technology used to speed up traffic for end users.

Opera Turbo works by passing all data through one of Opera’s proxy servers, which highly compress the data and sends the data on to the user.

Opera Turbo is set to automatic in current release, which will only improve performance if it detects your network is slow.

The latest build also includes an in line spell checker and increases performance.

The latest Opera 10 build can be downloaded here.

Opera sure have been busy, today announcing a deal with Virgin Mobile (USA) to include Opera Mini 4.2 pre-installed on all Virgin Mobile pre-paid phones.

The deal is a welcome move, considering Opera Mini is leaps and bounds above most standard mobile browsers already included with mobile phones. Features include full page rendering with zooming, and the ability to sync bookmarks with a computer.

Mobiles with Opera Mini pre-installed are expected to show up in the next few weeks.

Ford in-dash browsing

Ford today has announced a deal with Opera for new in-dash browsing.

The new dash is said to be in upcoming E and F-series vans and trucks utilising the Opera Mobile browser.

“Opera’s vision has always been about giving people access to the full Web anytime, anywhere. No example showcases this better than delivering a fast, feature-rich Web browser to a vehicle. This solution will allow Ford truck and van owners to maintain a virtual work environment with access to all of the important files, information, and applications they need on a daily basis” said Opera’s Rod Hamlin.

More details about the new dash can be found on the Ford Work Solutions website.

Opera have today released Opera 9.64. The new version fixes many security issues, many of which would have been severe if exploited by attackers.

A full list of changes can be found in Opera’s Changelogs. The updated browser can be downloaded directly from Opera.

Results for Februrary are in and Google Chrome, Firefox and Opera are all winners for the month.

Februrary statistics from Net Applications shows that Internet Explorers share continued its decline, dropping 0.04% to 67.51%.

Firefox was a big winner, with a 0.2% increase to 21.73%, while Google Chrome increased its share by 0.03% to 1.15%.

Opera also had a good month increasing its share by 0.01% to 0.71%.

Apple’s Safari did not far so well, with the first decrease in months to 8.00%. That’s a 0.29% drop from last month.

The next month will be interesting, with the inimant release of Internet Explorer 8 expected this month and Apple’s Safari 4 beta being released just days ago.

With the recent release of Safari 4 beta, Apple launched a large marketing campaign on it’s website.

Turns out, many of the facts are in fact, not fact.

Users over at the Opera forums have dissected several facts, with sources proving Apple has got it wrong.

You can read the full list of incorrect facts over at the Opera forums.

Opera Software is set to launch a massive advertising campaign designed to promote Opera Mobile products.

Opera’s Software SVP Rod Hamlin noted that “Over our history, we’ve spent zero [on advertising], so it’s a huge shift”.

On top of this, Opera has a billboard up near Microsoft’s Redmond campus reading “Be a Real Internet explorer? Opera.com.”

If anyone was doubting Opera’s place in the browser market, it seems like there is still hope left for the often forgotten browser.

It appears the release dates for future milestones of Opera 10 have been leaked.

An unconfirmed source leads us to believe that we can expect Opera 10 beta in April with a final release in September. The leaked dates are as follows:

Opera 10 Beta, April 2009
Opera 10 Beta 2, June 2009
Opera 10 RC 1, August 2009
Opera 10 Final, September 2009

These dates are to be taken with a grain of salt however, as they are anything but official. We will update you when we have solid release dates.