Not made for watching naked ladies (Opera Web Browser)

Member Name: iamasadlittleboy

Product:	Opera Web Browser
Date:	03/08/09 (49 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Speed, features, time saving tricks

Disadvantages: Crashes on some sites

A few years ago I'd heard of the Opera browser, and whilst Firefox was crashing and hogging both the RAM and the CPU power it was time to have a look at this now browser. Originally released in 1996 by the cleverly named Opera Software Company the browser was one of the earliest on the market but it wasn't until around 2003 that I'd heard of it. Originally as an arm of Telenor, a large Telecom company in Scandinavia.
The browser was originally just for the Microsoft operating system and operated on a trailware basis, which a few years later turned into a multi format system that was paid by adverts. In more recent times the project has had funding from Google. With the release of the Wii and DS consoles Opera was released as a browser for both (though neither are free) which has seen a much wider usage of the browser than ever before. As well as this the brilliant Opera Mini version of the device has been made free and available for download on most recent phones that totally changes the mobile internet experience.

So there's the history how about the product?
Well the current version I'm using is 9.64 (which appears to be the newest version released) and as a browser was actually the first thing I downloaded on to my laptop due to previous experience with the past versions of the browser. As a result it has often found it's self as the primary browser and it's nuances have been cleverly picked up and started to be used almost by second nature.

Like many of the rivals the desktop version of the browser features tabs, like Chrome, Firefox and new versions of internet explorer. Which is now a must in any browser (though this isn't on the mobile version of the browser) and unlike Chromes tabbed browsing theirs never been any accidental window making that's seen tabs becoming windows by accident. This means the browser runs as 1 task and still has the ability to drag tabs into their own windows and close them efficiently (again something Chrome fails to do).

The speed is important in all browsers and although it may not be as quick as chrome to load up a page (a rough test to load Google on my internet gave a 3 second Chrome time and a 3.6 for Opera), it is almost unnoticeable over the long run and makes such little difference that you won't really care much. In fact the Opera over the long term is much faster as you don't need to close it every time you close a couple of tabs (the browser keeps the tasks running and so it still uses up the computers power in both CPU and RAM).

As with firefox and internet explorer the ability to save book marks is a key feature, yet something I found even better was dragging the tabs into e part between all the tool bars and the tab bars. No longer do the book marks need to be found through the tool bars, then are just a click away and open in the active tab almost immediately. This may have been added to newer versions of firefox, though I've not used a newer version on a decent laptop in quite a while so this is something I'm not aware of using.

Gestures are another key part of the Opera experience, the way you use the mouse and the mouse buttons now effects the way you can browse. Although there's going to be more than the 3 I use on my laptop (hold left + click right is "next", hold right + click left is "back" and click right + click left is "scroll") I find these hugely useful especially for using on sites like BBC or wikipedia where browsing backwards and forwards is something that is done on a regular basis. Again this is time saving as opposed to anything important, but saving any time is always a good thing.

The final time saving trick is the wand (there is similar features on other browsers) that stores all your passwords for any particular site (so if you use multiple login ins for emails or forums they can all be stored). This means you can login into sites with a click of 2 buttons (the wand followed by the login account) as opposed to typing in your user name and then the password.

So what are the problems with it?
Well it's not perfect, far from it, it seems to refuse to open some sites properly and others just cause it to crash immediately. Closing the browser instantly and allowing you to open it with out needing to close the task via the task manager. This has been a problem for me on gamefaqs.com and a certain site with naked ladies on. This may appear like a huge problem, but as I know which sites cause it to crash, there's no real problem there, just a matter of avoiding them.
Other sites don't totally work correctly with it (most notably for myself is Betfair.com) which are usable but not at 100%. This has often been a big problem when it comes to Microsoft based sites, Hotmail at one point wouldn't load properly on the browser (this seems to have been fixed) whilst some job websites are totally unusable on either this or Chrome. Thankfully leaving i.e. on the computer just for this has been a slight saving grace of i.e.

Overall?
The browser is the most complete so far, despite it's rather large flaws they are easy enough to avoid if you think about things in advance. It's not difficult to run a back up browser for the naked ladies when needed or for gambling and gaming sites. As Opera doesn't overload either the RAM or the CPU this is a wonderfully swift browser that's not system heavy despite the ability to have a hefty amount of tabs running at once.

Summary: Not great for some sites...but the rest is great

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