Opera has always been a good browser with excellent standards support — and now it’s free!
Opera has removed the banners, found within our browser, and the licensing fee. Opera's growth, due to tremendous worldwide customer support, has made today's milestone an achievable goal. […]
For a moment there, I was wondering how they’d make their money, but it looks like they have a Premium Support plan in place. All the same, I’m pretty stoked about this. And, if Firefox didn’t have so many scrumptious extensions, I’d consider trying Opera as my day-to-day browser.
Update 2005-09-23: According to Om Malik, it was Google that made Opera free, through a compensation deal. Well, yay Google :).