Firefox 3.5 was released earlier today, and joins Safari in supporting the @font-face rule with OpenType and TrueType font families, allowing you to use a wider range of fonts in your designs (as long as they are correctly licensed, of course).

One slight drawback of the technique is the blank space that’s displayed as the new font is loaded into the browser; this is especially unnecessary for users who already have that font natively on their system.

The way to get around that is quite simple; use local() to check if the font is on the user’s system first.

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To much fanfare (the blowing of their own trumpets), Opera today announced Unite, a new service which lets you use the browser as a personal file server and social space. I haven’t had more than a passing glance at it yet — my URL is home.stopsatgreen.operaunite.com, if you’d like to see if I’m available — but it certainly looks interesting. Useful? I’m not sure yet.

• An introduction to Opera Unite (Dev.Opera)
• With Unite, Opera 10 becomes both a browser and a content server (Download Squad)
• Host Your Own Facebook With Opera Unite (Webmonkey)
• Opera Unite Seeks to Decentralize the Web (SitePoint)