THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE TO INTERNET EXPLORER! (Opera Web Browser)

Name: mdstone

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Product:	Opera Web Browser
Date:	02.12.03 (878 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: loads last viewed pages, cached web pages, built-in e-mail client

Disadvantages: Isn't well known, 5% of sites may not function as expected

Everyone knows about Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, but is there really a better alternative out there in the market for viewing web pages on the Internet?

9/10 people who are reading this opinion right now are probably using Internet Explorer and the reason behind that fact is that Microsoft dominate the PC market, and by shipping out copies of Internet Explorer with each and every operating system they develop, why use something else to browse the World Wide Web?

Well, after discoving and using the Opera web browser you will be quick to realise that there is a better alternative. But what does Opera have to offer that browsers like Internet Explorer don't?


Downloading Opera
****************

The Opera web browser can be download for free from the Opera website www.opera.com. From the home page, you click on the 'free download' button and then click 'download opera' on the right hand side of the next page. This will bring you to another page asking whether you want to download the Java or non Java version of Opera. So which do you choose? Well both versions support Java Script, although you may have trouble getting the non Java version to work with sites like Yahoo when you play the online games section. I therefore recommend the Java version, which is 15.7MB in size, although the non Java version is only 3.2MB. After clicking your preferred version and download location, you should be ready to install Opera.

The current version of Opera is 7.23 build 3227, so once you've downloaded it, don't forget to check for updates that will offer bug fixes (if any) and new features.

The free version displays Opera adverts in the top right hand corner, which you probably won't even notice, although you can buy Opera for about £30 and this does not show any adverts.


Opera vs Internet Explorer
**********************

*** Picking
up where you left off ***

I remember the days when I was browsing 4 or 5 different web sites using IE and all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, it would crash and not respond. Ending the task meant that you now lost all of your web sites you had open, some of which contained important information that took you ages to find. This was a very annoying aspect of Internet Explorer.
What does Opera do to combat this? Well Opera stores a record of all the web sites you had open, so whether there was a system crash or you simply wanted to close the application down, you would be prompted on loading it back up, as to whether you wish to continue where you left off. So when Opera loads back up, all of the web sites you had open last, load up one by one in front of you to the exact URL they were viewed. By this I mean that the home page wasn't merely loaded, but the actual page of the site you were on, which is very handy indeed.

*** Back & forward web buttons ***

There are also times when using IE that you discover browsing to be very slow when using the 'back' and 'forward' browser buttons. This is because IE re-loads the page every time!
Ever wondered what happened to your opinion when you went to submit it?, only to find out that due to a timeout on the website, pressing the 'back' button on IE caused the web site to re-load and thus make your opinion you spent hours on, vanish into thin air! (if you didn't save it of course!).
Opera on the other hand, keeps a cache of visited web pages in memory, which means when you press the back button on the browser, it loads instantly because it does not re-load the page, it takes it from the cache. So, whatever information you input into a web page will still be there when you press the 'back' button. If you wish to re-load to see changes, you can always press F5 or click the 'reload' button.

*** Loading web pages ***
r>Opera also happens to be faster for another reason. IE tends to wait before every text and image is loaded before showing a complete web page. Opera does it differently by loading all text as a first priority, so that you can view the page instantly and then the images are shortly followed to save time. There is also an option on Opera to turn off images, so that pages load quicker. This is also an option in IE, but you have to search through all the Internet options to find it. Opera displays an image icon on the toolbar for quick access. What you will also notice is that while IE does not give you much of a clue as to what is happening when a page is loading (only a status bar that is sometimes incorrect), Opera displays 2 status bars, with one being for text and the other being for images, so you know exactly what's loaded or not loaded. It also displays how many images are loaded (e.g 10/10), how fast the web site is loading in KB/s and what server the site is loading from.

*** Window tabs ***

If you are using Windows XP with IE, then you will notice that like for like applications are grouped after a certain amount are opened. For example, opening 3 websites in IE will display 3 tabs in the Windows toolbar, but if a few more are opened, they are grouped into one tab. When you have a lot of applications open, your Windows toolbar can get cluttered very easily if you had 2 or 3 web pages open in IE and a few other applications running.
Opera web pages are shown in a different way. There is only ever one single tab on the Windows toolbar to show that Opera is open. When sites are opened, a tab will appear in the Opera toolbar above the address bar. You can even drag and drop the web page tabs to put them in any order you like. Less clutter can only be seen as an advantage.

*** Pop-ups ***

What bothers most of us when browsing the web, are adverts. They pop up here, there and everywhere, and the only way
of getting rid of them is to download 3rd party software, such as 'Pop-up Stopper' for IE, install it and then enable it. But then when you try to click some web links to bring up additional information on a product for example, nothing happens because your ad blocker is blocking it. So you find yourself turning it off and on when it suits you, or allowing certain sites to get through the ad blocker.
Opera tackles this problem in a different manner. An ad blocker is already built into the software, so it is a matter of just enabling it how you prefer, without having to go through the trouble of downloding 3rd party software.

The 'Quick preferences' option on Opera allows you to set pop-ups as:

* Accept pop-up windows - all pop-ups are accepted and displayed

* Refuse pop-up Windows - all pop-ups are refused and nothing but the website is displayed

* Open pop-up windows in background - all pop-ups are opened up in the background so that they do not pop-up in front of you. Instead they will be opened inside another window on the Opera toolbar without you even noticing. This is the recommended option to choose.

* Open requested pop-ups only - all pop-ups execpt requested pop-ups are refused. You can enable pop-ups to appear on sites you know well in the Opera preferences, whereby this option will only allow these pop-ups to be displayed.

***File Transfers ***

Next we come to the file transfer procedure. IE normally displays a pop-up box when you click to download a file, which then sits in the Windows toolbar until the download is completed. How often have you accidently just clicked straight away to download a file and not realised where it was being downloaded to? You end up spending 10 minutes finding the file or downloading it again!
Opera instantly opens up it's file transfer quick access window tab inside Opera once you've saved a file, so just by clicking on it
, you know how much of a file has been downloaded and where it is being downloaded to. It also doesn't clutter up the Windows toolbar with another window tab.
Now to the good part, you have the Opera menu on the left hand side, with some links on it. If you closed down the file transfer window, you can click the 'transfers' button here, and Opera will display under this menu, a list of all the files that you have downloaded in the past. Not only can you resume incomplete files, which is something IE can'not do, but you can also run these files directly from Opera without having to load up Windows Explorer to locate the files in order to run them.


The Opera E-mail Client
********************

With Microsoft, there is IE for browsing and Outlook to manage you e-mail. Why use 2 applications, when Opera has it's own e-mail client built in? The menu on the left hand side of Opera also contains a 'Mail' button to access your e-mail. It is relatively easy to setup inside the mail options of Opera by inputting your e-mail details. This will include your username, e-mail address, password, incoming mail server (pop.ntlworld.com in my case) and outgoing mail server (smtp.ntlworld.com in my case). Once you have included this information and set up your e-mail, you are ready to browse the web and read your e-mails from the same application. I won't go too much in depth with this e-mail client as it is like a whole new application in it'self, but these are some of the features it contains:

* Folders - To organise your e-mails into different folders for easy access. i.e 'Work' & 'Home'.

* E-mail notification - Both voice and pop-up, to alert you to new messages.

* Address book - To add your regular contacts, which makes composing new multiple recipient e-mails quick and easy.

* Spam filter - To filter out unwanted e-mails, although you will need to fidd

le around with the options to get this working.

* Attachment list - To display a list of all the attachments in every e-mail in your Inbox under one single menu. This is split into documents, images, music, video and archives.


Migrating to Opera
***************

If you're thinking of giving Opera a go, but are worried about losing your IE or Netscape favourites, then there is a quick and easy option that will enable you to import your favourites directly into Opera at the click of a button.
Installing Opera will not affect IE in any way, so if you're unhappy with it, you can always go back to the dark side!

You may be aware that other web browsers may not function as expected on certain sites, but Opera tends to be fine 95% of the time. When you do see sites in a mess when viewed with a different browser than IE, this is normally due to bad programming on the webmaster's part. Either they will develop a site solely based on being visited using IE, so some things like drop down boxes may not function, or they will forget to terminate scripts properly or miss something out, which will cause Opera to display the page as the code tells it to. With IE, it will account for a vast majority of scripts without end tags for example, so that they are displayed properly.

Opera looks relatively similar to that of IE and Netscape in places, so you won't have a lot of trouble getting use to it. The web address bar is in the same usual place, back, forward and reload buttons are located in the toolbar at the top of the application and bookmarks can be accessed from the Opera menu on the left, just like with IE.

There are lots and lots of other features available that you will quickly discover under Opera. Like any new application, it will take getting use to, but once you've used it for a few days you will wonder why on earth you never used it earlier. Don't be afraid, there IS an
alter
native to Internet Explorer and once you take a look, you won't want to turn back!

Everything you wished Internet Explorer had is available with Opera.