Earlier this month the development team at Opera Software, the Norwegian developer we all know and love for making the Opera web browser, has announced that it is gearing up for the release of Opera 10.60. So far the development team has taken two steps in this endeavor: it has launched Opera 10.60 Alpha 1 and now it has launched Opera 10.60 Beta 1.

Work on the 10.60 version is still not complete, but at the pace things are going, it can’t be long until a stable, version will be rolled out. And when that happens you can expect Opera to be the fastest browser out there. Just to put things in perspective, the JavaScript engine in Opera 10.53 was ten times faster than in version 10.10; the JavaScript engine in Opera 10.60 is being tweaked to offer a 75% speed improvement – compared to version 10.53.

For the time being Opera 10.60 Beta can only offer a 50% speed improvement. Presumably when the final version will be rolled out it will offer a 75% improvement.

Besides speed, what else does Opera 10.60 Beta has to offer? Here’s the lowdown:

• - Geolocation
• - Built-in open video format WebM
• - Search suggestions in the Speed Dial and search box, of course
• - Custom thumbnails for tabs
• - Better looks for Speed Dial, tab previews and the Opera menu button
• - HTML5 Appcache and Web Workers
• - Microsoft Bing is featured as one of the search engines

“Opera 10.60 beta is so fast, it will blow you away,” says Chief Development Officer, Christen Krogh, Opera Software. “Beyond the speed boost, the latest version of Opera improves on our robust HTML5 support and provides more options for quick and efficient Web search through your preferred search engines. By combining raw speed with intuitive and easy-to-use features, Opera places you among the fastest Internet users on the planet.”

If you would like to get Opera 10.60 Beta, you can download the browser here.