Opera is one of the best Web browsers ever (Opera Web Browser)

Member Name: samanosuke74

Product:	Opera Web Browser
Date:	11/12/06 (827 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: All features, customizable and very inovative

Disadvantages: It might be slow sometimes

How much you know about Norway?
Well, it is a country at the west of Scandinavian peninsula, it is well known for famous fjords, Vikings and beautiful landscape. I have never been to Norway, although I would like to go and hoping to organise some holiday in near future.

However, Norway is also place of birth of exciting piece of software, Opera Web browser which stands proudly shoulder to shoulder with Mozilla’s Firefox and mighty Internet Explorer and fighting for its place under the Web browsers sun.

Web browsers are probably most used software because everyone buys computer with at least one reason and this is to get onto Internet. Therefore, the choice of your Web browser is very important because you might spend majority of your time on computer by using it as main tool to get all this nice (and less nice) things that Internet offers.
First thought that springs into my mind is customisation. You really want to have nice and customised interface on your screen. Well organised Web browsers where you can find everything you need is something that will make your Internet surfing easy and enjoyable experience. This is what guys in Opera Software ASA know very well.

Back to fjords and Vikings. Well not really, but lets have a quick preview of company who does Opera Web browser.
The story started back in 1994, and it was a research project for large Norwegian telecommunication company Telenor, but soon in 1995, the new independent company was founded with current name Opera Software ASA.
First public release was Opera 2.0 in 1996 and it was shareware project, which soon became
very popular among enthusiastic Web surfers.
In era of IE domination there were many attempts to get onto market and become recognisable but Microsoft was just too strong with their innovations and budget. People at Opera Soft ASA turned to another direction and started to develop browsers for alternative systems, and one of them was Apple Macintosh. However, they didn’t leave of continuous development of Windows version of their browser.

Thanks to their effort and determination, today, we have Opera 9.0 the latest product of Scandinavian software developers.

No matter how many other browsers (or their owners) like to present themselves as most popular, innovative or most used, we cannot neglect the fact that there was Opera who brought lots of innovations that we see nowadays in other similar products.
New tabs inside your main window are Opera’s innovation. There is an e-mail client embedded in browser, Usenet, IRC clients and RSS reader. In other words, everything you need to have pleasurable surfing experience.
Latest version, Opera 9.0 wasn’t developed with aim to improve graphical interface of the browser, but the main emphasis was on usability and customisability. In fact the user’s interface inherited from previous version was juts good enough and there was no need to change it anyway.

So far I did not have any problem to open any Web page, and I believe that Opera manages most of them.

What I really like about Opera is vertical panel on the left with different icons for various uses.
With all usual menu and options on the top of the browser, vertically position panel allow you to access your bookmarks, widgets (more about them later), notes (yes you can write notes about visited Web sites). There is also transfer icon which when clicked will show all transfers; current, finished or terminated. This is quite useful feature, especially if your connection goes down, or you need to download huge file but don’t want to do it today and want to leave it for some other time.
Downloaded files will remain in there until your decide to remove them.
You can also add your IRC contacts and check emails in your vertical panel. It is so handy to have everything there, and looks much more organized.
There are hundreds or different skins for Opera available to download. If you really want your browser to look unique then have a go and get some nice leopard skin glued to your Opera.
Well, maybe not, but you have lots of choices there.

Tabs can be previewed by placing your mouse on actual tab. There is no need to open the page, and if you want to find that page, and you have so many open in the same time, preview feature is just perfect solution for you.

Widgets. You’re little friends that will inform you about current weather in Montreal, current time in Sydney, currency exchange rate or latest news about football. I like widgets because
they are funny little windows that make surfing even more interesting.
Opera offers lots of them to download. There is a little aquarium with nice tropical fishes where you can buy and sell them, change environment or light. Not a big deal, but it is great fun.
If I would talk what sort of the widgets you can download with Opera, it might take too much time, so see it for yourself once you start use Opera. I am sure you will find something for yourself.
But be aware. Widgets just love to eat your processor speed and lots or memory.
It really depends what the widget is about. If you decide to play 3D tennis in your little widget window and your computer is old not-so-powerful machine, be aware that the performance might decrease.

Probably one of the coolest feature you can find in Opera 9.0 is browsing by voice. Now, I am not sure if everyone is really keen on shouting “dooyoo!” or any other word while surfing, but no matter how you perceive this way of communication between you and your browser, it is really great. All you need to do is find the link, record your sound and allocate it to this link.
Next time just open you Opera and say the work into your microphone.
It is something for lazy ones but also for people whom can’t use keyboard and mouse for any reason and still want to browse their favourite Web sites.
Navigation by voice is built into Opera by default, and you can easily navigate by saying words like “new page”, “close”, “close all”, “down”..etc. People who have certain disabilities can use this tool
and surf the Internet without trouble.
This is just another step towards highly customisable software and I believe that this is something we will see a lot in the future.
At the moment this feature is only supported in English language but we can be sure that is near future Opera will add more languages.

How many of you have used Bit Torrent? Let’s be honest it is great technology that allows you to download lots of digital contents by simple click on your Bit Torrent file. It should not be always necessarily illegal, although somehow this technology is always associated with something that breaches copyright laws.
No matter what your views are, Opera recognised significance of torrent technology (and not only Opera but also other companies as well), so version 9.0 include this attribute for you.

Do you have a problem with certain Web sites that pop up on your screen and you don’t really want them. How annoying that can be. Well, good thing is that Opera has blocker that will do all dirty work for you and even remember all undesirable Web sites that might have security issues. You can be sure that Opera, once fully customizable, will take care of the all bad boys out there and let only decent ones to be displayed on your screen.
Pop up blocker is also something useful. We all know how annoying could be when lots of little pop ups start to occupy our display. We don’t want them to waste our time ever again, and Opera will make sure that this was first and last time they ever tried to bother you.

Opera can easily remember all your passwords, so you don’t have to remember them all. Very good and reliable password manager will allow you to retrieve user ID’s and password every time you go on your email account or any other Web site where login in required.

If ever happens that you Opera shuts down for any reason, don’t worry. It will remember all tabs and pages where you were last time and any time you go back they will be open again.
For most of us, Windows users this is so powerful toll, because we all know how bad Windows could be after our system wasn’t recovered or restored for a long time. Well, maybe not...

Anyway, if you us any other OS, like Linux, Solaris or Mac OS, Opera is available for you. There is also Opera Mini for your palm computer or smart mobile device with Web access.

The best of all, there is massive Opera community of people who use Opera and would like to share their experience about this powerful browser…and beyond.
Good thing about Opera is that once you start use it you will keep discovering many useful features and always be amazed that this free of charge software is not only another Web browser, but much more.
The possibilities are endless. Have a look for yourself and see what you can do with Opera.
And please, tell us, we like new experience… and we like to write about it.

Summary: If you want to use Opera start right now, it is worth it

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