This Changed my Life (well, not quite, but it does ROCK!) (Opera Web Browser)

Member Name: thanatoszane

Product:	Opera Web Browser
Date:	19/08/05 (2857 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It rocks

Disadvantages: Err.....

Over the years I've tried most browsers out for a little, and I've seen how they've evolved. I've never been a massive fan of Internet Explorer, for a while (years ago) I used it out of necessity because web developers, in the main, were too lazy to make their pages look any good in anything else, but I've always dabbled in other browsers too.

Most recently, I was a Firefox user. Firefox is a great browser, really, it is. For a long time I thought I was happy, that I had found browsing perfection, but, the signature line of someone who posts regularly in a forum I am a member of kept telling me that 'Opera Rocks'.

'Nah', I thought. 'Opera is that buggy, slow, ad-supported thing, no way that could be better than Firefox.'

But, seeing the same signature day in day out, I started to wonder. 'This guy does know his stuff, maybe it got better'

So I went to the Opera web site and had a browse around.

The thing that persuaded me to download Opera was that one of the beta versions had added Bit Torrent support. Bit Torrent is a form of file sharing that has been growing in popularity lately. I don't like most of the clients out there, so an alternative sounded attractive.

I'm sold now - seriously. Opera really does rock. It does everything you could possibly want, and the ads aren't annoying either!

=====Browser Comparison=====

If you're not convinced, look at it this way.

*****Internet Explorer:*****

Currently, its a browser, that's it. No search bar, one page open per window. You don't even get a popup blocker. You need a different client for email, another client for chat, another client for downloads, and thats just for the basics! If you want anything more fancy then you're really in trouble.

Its really bloated and if you have too many windows open on an older machine it will slow down pretty quickly.

Yes, thats going to change. Yes, at the moment things such as the Google toolbar will allow you to get some extra functionality from this ageing browser, or, you could just wait for the next version that will allow you to open web pages in different tabs in the same window (if you haven't experienced that yet you will love it when you try it!). But why wait? Other browsers have offered this for years.... too little too late, Microsoft.

*****Firefox:*****

Firefox is a free alternative to Internet Explorer. Even now that I am an Opera convert, I still use Firefox occasionally. It is small, fast, and simple to use. It has a clean interface, and a lovely array of plugins you can download to tweak your internet experience.

It has tabbed browsing, and search bars so you can search things such as Amazon or Google,(and with extensions, TV-Tome and the IMDB) without having to visit those web sites.

Firefox comes as a small browser, that's virtually all it can do. You have to put a little effort into customisation, but it is worth it. I installed the ad-block feature, two different RSS feed-readers (to get news streaming directly to my desk-top), and a chat extension. I also installed some little features to make designing web-pages easier, such as colour pickers, and CSS file readers.

Once you have Firefox set up to your liking, you will probably turn into a huge fan. Looking at web pages in other browsers will feel slow and bloated by comparison, and you will miss all the extra features.

Making the jump to Opera is worth it though.

*****Opera:*****

Opera...rocks. Seriously.

Moving over was painless - there is a function to import all your old email and favourites, so you don't loose anything. It is a shame it doesn't import your old adblock settings for Firefox, since I spent a long time setting that up, but I don't mind re-doing it all for a nicer experience.

You get most of the functions of a customised install of Firefox, by default! You can change it to do almost anything you want, and you still have the options of extra plugins. The

Since installing Opera, I've found that I rarely use anything else, for, um... anything.

Opera is my browser, my email client, my newsgroup client, my chat client, my notepad, and my bit torrent client and my RSS feed reader. It is very rare for me to need to launch anything else now, apart from instant messaging software and stuff for Uni.

The wonderful thing about Opera is how it all ties together.

I have a huge list of favourites. They are all categorised, but there is just too many of them to have to trawl through all the time to get to the things that I want. So, I've made my own button bar that has all the sites that I use daily listed on it. If I need anything more specific, I navigate through my favourites list to find it, but everything I need daily is only one click away.

When I'm on a web-page, if I see some useful information, or a link I want to save for later, I can right click on it and 'copy to note' - that will save that information in a text note, which can easily be reached by clicking on the notes option on the side bar.

Tabbed browsing rocks - if you see a link you want to click on to read later, but right now you don't want to leave the other page, all you need to do is right click and select 'Open in background tab' the page you are reading now stays visible, and the other one is waiting for you when you are ready.

I have notes for lots of purposes, from general funny stuff, to to-do lists, to things I need for Uni. If I want to use a note, perhaps as part of an Opinion on this site, or in an email to someone, all I need to do is right click and use the 'insert note' option.

Opera allows you to insert personal details that way too, so forms can be filled in very quickly and easily.

The way Opera handles contacts and email is nice too. It took me a little tweaking to get all my email filtered into folders, but no more so than it would with any email client. As well as the folders you set up Opera intelligently sets up 'views' for you - you can click on a persons name in your contacts list to see all emails to or from that person. It can also identify most mailing lists for you automatically and you get a 'Mailing lists' drop down where you can view all email related to that list.

You can search your email quickly and easily by a bunch of dropdown options - view only email from senders of a certain domain, or a subject that contains 'these words'.

Newsgroups and RSS Feeds are viewable in the 'Mail' pane also, and the newsreader offers all the important features such as threaded discussions, and the all important 'Cancel post' option.

The chat client can be set up to auto-connect to an IRC server and join whatever channels you want it to. It can accept file transfers, but thats about the extent of its abilities. It isn't a perfect client, so hardcore users of mIRC would probably want to keep using that, but for most purposes it is good, and I do use it for a couple of channels that I lurk in.

The Bit Torrent client integrates seamlessly with the rest of the browser. Go to a web site, click the torrent file, select where you want the torrent to go, and you're done.

Opera still has the famous mouse-gestures that allow you to click and move the mouse in a certain way to go forward (Opera guesses where you want to go), backward, refresh the page, etc. I don't like most these, but they are still in for people who want them, and you can create your own. Personally I use a couple and turn off the others.

Opera also supports the 'magic wand' which will remember your user-id and password and auto log you in to pages.

There are several skins available - some better than others. I just use the plain old Windows one, and turn off most of the bars and menus so that there is a wide aread of the screen on show.

Instead of having a huge banner ad, I get two small text ads stretched across the top of the browser window. The text ads are context-sensitve and recognise whatever page I was just on. This might be too intrusive for some people, but I don't mind it. I have even clicked on a few of the ads out of interest.

If I wasn't a skint student supporting their book habit by writing opinions for sites such as this one, I would pay for the ad-free version of Opera. As it stands I'm just glad I tried this out. It isn't perfect yet - a lot of people still write bad web pages that stretch or squish in Opera, so I have to drop back to Firefox for them, but most of the time Opera does a perfectly good job.

Having web pages, email, newsgroups, chat and a notepad all in one has really made my life easier. I don't think I need to mention the lack of spyware and other problems faced by Internet Explorer. Yes, other browsers are starting to see problems now, but the dominant browser is always going to be a more interesting target.

Be different, try Opera! Then you can turn into a fan and annoy all your friends by trying to convert them. It will happen.

If you can't be converted to Opera, go ahead, use Firefox. Just don't use IE, please.

Go, now... www.opera.com and download it.

Summary: Dont waste your time reading this, just download it

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