I have been using Internet Explorer for a long time as a browser of choice. No doubts it is a great browser, it supports all the necessary protocols, has very good standards support and because it comes from the Microsoft stable is very well integrated with the Windows OS. So what made me look for a new browser? I am a software developer by profession and am into developing web applications. One of the primary objectives while developing a web application for consumption of the internet audience is to ensure that it works fairly well with almost all versions of different browsers. So one day just to run some tests to figure out how compatible my application was with Opera , I downloaded the adware supported version (6.5 I think it was). The download was smooth and there are many mirrors to choose from. Installation was even simpler - its a point and click affair that requires very minimal user intervention. Once installed I fired it up and was immediately surprised by the startup time. It was blazing fast. I am not talking about browsing speeds here, it is just that the browser initializes very quickly. As I started browsing through different sites I was even more surprised by the elan with which this little known browser would fetch the pages and display them. Its been more than a year since then. I have bought a registered version of Opera (in fact two of them one for my Windows OS and the other for LINUX). Opera continues to pleasantly surprise me everyday with its feature list and increase in robustness/stability with each new version in the market. I am sure I wont be doing this review a justice. Its practically impossible to write about all the features that opera has. The attention to details is just incredible and I must say they are real innovators.
Pros
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- Integrated Mail Client (M2): This is something that offers the same functionality as say of outlook express. This is a mail and news client from opera and has a radically new paradigm for storing(sorting) your emails. This supports pop3, IMAP, News, SMTP type of accounts. I use Yahoo and Lycos POP3 accounts and M2 works with these seamlessly. The client automatically
1.manages your contact list
2.sorts emails based on who it comes from, if it contains an attachment etc.
3.Lets you define rules and filters
Has a powerful Spam detection mechanism that learns as you mark incoming messages as Spam.
Tabbed browsing: You can open many pages within the same window and thus the experience of browsing multiple pages is greatly enhanced.
Sessions: If you have lets say 10 pages open and for some reason need to get back to these pages at later point in time, you can save the entire set of open pages as a session. You can open these sessions when you need to.
Look and Feel: Skinning support is fabulous. You can make it look and behave it just the way you prefer. Many free skins are available for download.
Mouse Gestures: Simply put this means that you can navigate(equivalent to using the back and forward button) by just using your mouse. You can even teach your mouse a few new tricks.
Spatial navigation: In IE you can just go from one link to another using the TAB key. In opera you go navigate in all four directions.
The greatest benefit perhaps is complete control over your browsing habits. You can customize almost every element that makes up opera (keyboard mappings, toolbars, menus, hotlist items) etc.
Zoom: Opera lets you zoom a page to as great/less an extent you want to.
It also supports every standard of web browsing and is very secure.
The most touted feature is of course speed. And boy, is it fast!
Pop Blocking: You get four options for the pop ups : Accept them, Refuse them, open them in background, only open requested pop-ups.
Support from opera ’s customer service department is fabulous. I had one trivial problem with M2 and they helped me sort it out quickly.
Cons
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Opera crashes maybe once a month, but I can live with that.
The adware supported version takes up a lot of screen space.