All in all opera is a wondeful web browser, but in all reality it is not a browser for an avid web surfer... all the things your used to in IE you will miss in opera. Although they have moved up in the world with their version 5 release it is still lacking in some areas. The download is small only 900K or so but then you dont get Java which most people take for granted with IE, so if you want it Java enabled you have to download a bigger version around 10mb I think. Opera has alot of nifty features that make browsing easier or more pleasent. I would not reccomedn making a complete switch away from your IE or Netscape browser just yet... but watch for opera in the future