Time to Ditch Internet Explorer (Opera Web Browser)

Member Name: DavidJWest

Product:	Opera Web Browser
Date:	26/01/02 (393 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast, Small, Feature Rich

Disadvantages: Not All Sites Work

This browser is a must for all serious surfers and Dooyoosers alike as it will speed up that all important habit which you must of formed now you are reading my rant. I accept that browser software is not exactly the most interesting subject for normal people but do yourself a favour and at least try this one out. It's free and you can always uninstall if you don't like it.

I used to have the old version of Opera, 5 point something which to be fair was no major improvement over the old faithful Internet Explorer 5, the Ford Escort of browsers. And a mark 2 at that!

Then one day I was minding my own business wading through the Dooyoo community at OpCom and a post from a fellow Dooyooser and Techie type person AndyArtTrigg(c) took my notice. He was ranting about this new browser Opera 6 and saying how good it was. Usually I would just ignore this man's babbling (I think he is a man anyway) but I thought I'd try it out as I have just had broadband installed so I wanted to try out a download to see how fast it was so I could brag to my mates?!

Anyway, I hopped over to www.opera.com and clicked the download link for Windows 98 (I know, holey operating systems!) Which was at the top right of the screen. You can also download for most other operating systems, even Linux! It's free to home users only so be warned. You can choose to download either with or without Java, I chose without initially as I have the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine (clunky) and foolishly thought that Opera would utilise this, more later on that subject! The download was around 3.2mb which <brag> took less than 2 minutes </brag> on my new broadband connection. You can choose different servers to connect to I chose the US FTP server as I believe they are quicker but I am no expert. Please leave a comment if you know better.

After the download all you need to do is click the icon on your desktop and bingo you have Opera 6. I recom
mend you download it with Java as Opera uses Sun Java which is a different kettle of fish to the MS version, any Java programmers around to comment? I would estimate the 10.7mb download would take around half an hour to 45 minutes with a good 56kbps connection.

So what is the browser like to use. Well the main improvement is that it is much faster than Internet Explorer, and Netscape Navigator (5) which I did use about a year ago. I should point out that I am comparing with IE5.5 as I don't have version 6.

Speed is the main benefit, I assume it's quicker as it is a much smaller browser in terms of memory used but I also suspect the Opera programmers are organised more coherantly than those of Microsoft but that's just me guessing. I mean, there is a saying that an infinite number of monkeys sat at an infinite number of typewriters would eventually come up with the entire works of Shakespeare, so far MS have come up with IE!

Another nice feature is that by pressing F11 you get a full screen display of the site you are viewing with no tool bars etc and by using F12 there are a number of special features including one to stop "pop up" advertising. I seem to know a site not far from hear which uses a rather annoying British Gas pop-up, not any more!

Another good feature are the search engines built into the task bar. Just click on which search you want to use and type in the search word and there it is. Google is the most useful of these search engines in my experience.

There are three downsides to Opera, firstly the amount of screen space that the toolbars take up, which is more than IE5. You can reduce the amount of space taken by right clicking on the offending task bar and switching it off.

There are adverts built into the browser, which is understandable as they have to make money somewhere don't they? You could try using software such as webwasher to get rid of the adverts but
they aren't all that annoying I find. Not sure if the software would get rid of them but it used to do the trick with alladvantage - remember them!

Finally there are some compatibility issues with some websites. As about 95% of internet ready PC's browsers are the IE versions (at least 95%) some webdesigners don't cater for anything other than Bill Gates Spawn which means it won't work properly if the programmers are lap dogs of satan. This can manifest itself in many ways, some sites will just look a bit strange and not be formatted correclty while others which use MS JVM and not Sun Java will not let you play with them at all. I have only found a very small number of sites which are this naughty however.

Overall if you spend more than a couple of hours a week online then you simply must try Opera 6 to make your life complete. I don't work for them either!

You may of noticed a slight hostility towards the great Microsoft, but this is all tongue in cheek and me trying to be witty, especially if you are a lawyer for Billy Boy! So just in case, here's a quick disclaimer which all internet types love so much.

I take no responsibility at all for anything which may be displayed next to my name, this is purely coincidental.

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