Opera becomes the Phantom browser... (Opera Web Browser)

Member Name: jespin

Product:	Opera Web Browser
Date:	05/08/09 (54 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Ideal for developers to test websites.

Disadvantages: Slow. Dated.

Being a specialist in website design and Internet technologies at Uni, I often have 5 or 6 browsers on my PC at any one time to test my websites under these different browsers. The Opera browser has been around for some time and at its peak was better than Firefox, that there is no doubt about. However, over the years as more names enter into the 'browser wars' Opera has slipped down the ladder in terms of speed and efficiency and has slipped so far, that it is almost as slow as Internet Explorer which is very slow indeed.

It is not that Opera haven't made breakthroughs or increased the speed of their browser, it's the fact that their rivals are simply one step ahead of them.

One of the main features of Opera is its speed dial screen which allows you to enter 9 of your favourite websites that you can click and be directly linked to. At one time, this was unique to Opera however now many browsers (particularly Chrome which is near identical) have a feature such as this. Opera, like Safari, also contains widgets. These are little applications that can be run to perform certain tasks or provide some momentary entertainment. However, I must admit that Opera's widgets are pretty poor in comparison to those of the Safari browser.

One bonus of the Opera browser is that there are numerous themes available both from the Opera website and third party sources. However, this is Opera's only saving grace.

This would have been a great browser if it was released much earlier however, Opera browsers now seem dated in comparison to their competition.

Summary: I would look for another alternative.

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