Just a day after it’s final release candidate, Opera has released Opera 10.60 final to the public, for Windows, Mac and Linux users.

Opera’s benchmarks show that Opera 10.60 is up to 50% faster than Opera 10.50, and is again faster than Google Chrome 5 builds. With these results, Opera is again claiming to be the worlds fastest web browser.

New in Opera 10.60 is Geolocation, HTML5 AppCache for Offline Applications, HTML5 WebM video support, web workers, and some vendor specific CSS3 styles (which are yet to be ratified by the WC3 organisation). A full list of changes can be found in the changelog.

Opera 10.60 can be downloaded from the Opera website.

Google have today announced the launched a new website, called HTML5 Rocks, showcasing the power of HTML5 and related technologies.

The site currently includes nine tutorials demonstrating how to utilise some of HTML5′s new features, along with an in-depth HTML5 powered presentation on the new language.

“Because HTML5 and its related technologies cover so much ground, it can be a real a challenge to get up to speed on them. That’s why today we’re sharing HTML5 Rocks, a great new resource for developers and teams looking to put HTML5 to use today, including more information on specific features and when to use them in your apps” wrote Paul Irish, Google Chrome Developer Relations.

I encourage developers to dive in and check it out. An all HTML5 web is sure to see some interesting sites and applications.

In a release that had been hinted at in late May, Apple has released Safari 5 to the world, for both Mac and Windows users.

Performance of the updated browser has seen Apple’s Nitro JavaScript engine speed increase by 30% over its predecessor. Safari 5 new DNS pre-fetching and improved caching which helps web pages load faster.

HTML5 support has also been improved, with support for over 17 new HTML5 tags and features. HTML video now supports full-screen and closed captions.

Perhaps the most impressive feature of Safari 5 is the new Safari Reader. This nifty feature removes ads and other distractions from online articles. Safari 5 automatically detects when you are reading an article, and can be activated by clicking the new reader button which will appear in the address bar.

Most pleasing to current add-on and extension users is that Safari 5 will now support user generated extensions, which are expected to launch in an online Apple gallery in the coming weeks.

Apple’s Safari 5 can be downloaded from the Safari website for both Mac and Windows.

Microsoft is still hard at work on Internet Explorer 9, and today provided an updated on how they are going with the World Wide Web Consortium (WC3) web standards.

Latest results show that IE9 is now fully HTML5 standards compliant.

Microsoft conducted W3C Web Standards tests for HTML5, SVG 1.1 2nd edition, CSS3 media queries, CSS3 borders & backgrounds, CSS3 selectors, DOM level 3 core, DOM level 3 events and DOM level 2 style across a variety of browsers.

These browsers included IE9 May 2010 Preview, Firefox 3.6.3, Opera 10.52, Apple Safari 4.05, and Google Chrome 4.1 all running on Windows. The results are very promising for IE9.

A preview IE9 build can be downloaded from the IE Test Drive website.

“CSS3 Selectors enable complex styling of webpages using simpler CSS and less script than previously possible” wrote Newman.

“Our goal is to enable new selectors in your webpages in a way that lets the same markup work across browsers [...] IE9 now passes 100% of test cases on css3.info, 100% of the W3C CSS3 Selectors Test Suite, and Acid3 tests 34 through 37 and 39 through 44″ continued Newman.

Interested users can test out a developer preview of Internet Explorer 9 by downloading it from the test drive site.

A full list of CSS3 selectors supported by Internet Explorer 9 can be found after the break.

Internet Explorer 9 is set to include support for the following selectors:

• E:root
• E:nth-child(n)
• E:nth-last-child(n)
• E:nth-of-type(n)
• E:nth-last-of-type(n)
• E:last-child
• E:first-of-type
• E:last-of-type
• E:only-child
• E:only-of-type
• E:only-child
• E:only-of-type
• E:empty
• E:target
• E:enabled
• E:disabled
• E:checked
• E:indeterminate
• E:not(s)
• ::selection

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.