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Buying a browser [internetnews.com] by Erin Joyce.
Courtesy Dan Yurman [my.opera.com]
Tabbed browsing? If you're a Firefox fan -- and their legions are growing because of this feature alone -- you'll find it even more appealing in Opera.
Pleeeeeeeeease... Did they forget that MDI is Opera's baby, not Firefox's? Don't make it sound like Firefox led this charge.
The question is, will that era include a willingness to pay for a better browsing experience.
Yes, but you can also get a free version with non-obtrusive ads. They put a "you can only use it if you pay for it" spin on it.
Some questions that I ask myself right now:
Opera is now integrated with Adobe's design and publishing environment, Creative Suite 2. That puts Opera in the driver's seat as developers use Adobe's GoLive to build Web pages for both desktops and mobile devices.
8.0 beta download [opera.com]
Tabbed browsing? If you're a Firefox fan -- and their legions are growing because of this feature alone -- you'll find it even more appealing in Opera.Pleeeeeeeeease... Did they forget that MDI is Opera's baby, not Firefox's? Don't make it sound like Firefox led this charge.
Quite true, Opera had MDI from... well, as long as I can remember. But as for leading the charge, Opera was not the first brower to use tabs. You used to have to use the Window menu in Opera which was a bit klunky.
I believe the first browser to use tabs was Galeon. Give credit where credit is due.
My calendar/watch says it's halfway through April 13...I guess that article was wishful thinking for the release date. It seems a bit late in the cycle to be newly installing a beta, so I think I'll just sweat it out with the rest of you.
Are people here uninstalling previous versions of Opera and putting in 8?
But no, I keep several back versions of Opera running at once....Most times (right now in fact) I ahve 6 and 7 open....Plus Mozilla, and Firefox, and IE.
Getting a range of opinions on what a site looks like is an good way of ironing out rendering issues.
Yes it was - in late 1996 early 97. Opera is older than IE and almost predates Netscape.
It's also possible to target specific pages, groups of web addresses, etc.
But that is just a fraction of what User JavaScript does. It also allows full control over everything related to JavaScript, on a site by site basis. (Here I can see webmasters foaming at the mouth! How dare Opera allow this?!) Scripts can be stopped altogether, made to run in customized ways (so a form that doesn't work in Opera can be tweaked) - the sky's the limit.
Cleary a knowledge of JavaScript is essential here.
I managed to finally meet an ambition of mine today, to turn off the italics on Slashdot! I cannot bear to read it for long periods of time. Finally, Opera 8 allowed me to adjust the site to make italic text normal. Phew! A vast improvement. Of course I could have gone further, and changed the colours, fonts, removed blocks I didn't like, even turned off the Google ads (oh no!).
If anyone wants to know the javascript I've used, I'll post it here. I won't show you how to block ads though, my code just changes a single style.
[edited by: Hester at 3:05 pm (utc) on April 19, 2005]
> Opera was not the first brower to use tabs.Yes it was - in late 1996 early 97. Opera is older than IE and almost predates Netscape.
I always that it was InternetWorks.
Some more here [groups-beta.google.com]
Threads shown there date back to 1994.
<added> added links</added>
[edited by: outrun at 3:17 pm (utc) on April 19, 2005]
The question is, will that era include a willingness to pay for a better browsing experience.
Maybe, but not for me - I'd never pay for a web browser, and I wouldn't use one with ads on it... then again I'm a cheap-skate.
For me, when it comes to a "better browsing experience", that pretty much means a bare-bones browser with as few buttons and most viewing area possible. Bookmarks are the only thing I really use.
The Google ads don't take up much space and I only look at them when I want to get an estimate of what kind of ads Adsense would show on the page I am visiting. In this way their presence bring value to me as a webmaster...
The "graphical ads" are much more obtrusive. By default they seem to show a fairly large graphical ad which may easily capture attention. However, it seems that by removing the "main toolbar" text ads are shown also in this mode, filling less space and craving less attention. You can customize the toolbars by right clicking on them and then selecting "customize..." from the drop down menu.
One Opera feature I like is the "personal bar". This is basically bookmarks on a toolbar. For each bookmark the favicon is shown. I've placed the sites I visit most on the personal bar and then cleared the Nickname/title field so that only the favicons are left on the toolbar. In this way I have the 40-50 sites I visit most frequently only one click away.
And how about the Wand tool? Does anyone know it?
Also, i've installed Opera 8 on top of the old beta version. Works like a charm!
Are people here uninstalling previous versions of Opera and putting in 8?
Yes, 7.x has gone from here. I've got a new machine and I started with the 8.0 beta. I only use Opera for testing, and because of the very low number of Opera users for my sites' demographics, I can only reasonably expect to support the latest Opera version unless a client specifically demands otherwise (they never do). I try not to do anything which is likely to break in older versions though!
One big disadvantage for me is that Opera still hasn't released a version for 64-bit Linux (I'm running Ubuntu on AMD64). Because Opera is closed source, no-one else can build one either, so I'm having to run it in a 32-bit chroot. I liked Opera back in the early days before Mozilla was stable, but it has been years since I've used their browser for anything other than testing.
Even Firefox, loaded up with all the extensions I can dream of, does not provide the usability of Opera. I've said in the past that Opera saves me about an hour a day over IE - and it also saves me at least 30 minutes a day over Firefox. That is a real savings - it quickly translates into spendable cash.
I don't know where to begin to list all the intelligence in this interface. Plus the Notes function, the integrated RSS, the instant screen refresh when I click through my browsing history - this company has put in some SERIOUS work on making the interface work for us.
> Looks like they actually finalized the code on the
> 12 April but got into problems.
The Acid2 test didn't have anything to do with it... Isn't that what the blog says too?
Oh yeah, and Hester, I think Opera had user CSS before Mozilla did ;)
Yep, I did. I'm a loyal Opera fan. A friend got me to try it a ways back and I've been addicted ever since. I *gladly* forked over my money. They deserve it.
>>>that pretty much means a bare-bones browser with as few buttons and most viewing area possible. Bookmarks are the only thing I really use.
And you can make Opera that way if you choose - yet STILL have all the features with a keyboard stroke. ;-)
>>>this company has put in some SERIOUS work on making the interface work for us.
If any of us made a product as good, we'd expect to be paid. So I have no qualms with the fact that they do.
Going to get 8 now...
y search phrase
shortcut key much like the one for G. Guess I'll hope til the next update.
@ bryholmsen
Thanks for clarifying. Two sentences somehow got themselves mixed up for me when I wrote. (I was busy). Sorry.
Love it... but man, I was REALLY hoping for a:y search phrase
You can add the yahoo search you want by editing Operas search.ini file. Replace the "Search Engine 11" entry by something like this:
[Search Engine 11]
Name=Yahoo
URL=http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=sfp&p=%s
Query=
Key=y
Is post=0
Has endseparator=0
Encoding=utf-8
Search Type=0
Verbtext=17063
Position=-1
Nameid=0
One Opera feature I like is the "personal bar". This is basically bookmarks on a toolbar. For each bookmark the favicon is shown. I've placed the sites I visit most on the personal bar and then cleared the Nickname/title field so that only the favicons are left on the toolbar. In this way I have the 40-50 sites I visit most frequently only one click away.
The beauty of Opera is that just about any toolbar can be customized, meaning you can drag icons to and from it. Yesterday I found you can drag a link to the new Start toolbar - this is the one that drops down when you click on the address field - and it places a button for the site there. Then go into the Customize toolbars section (right-clicking on a toolbar will give you this option) and choose to show all toolbars when customizing. Make sure the Start bar is highlighted, then select the option to make it show only images, no text. Then any links you've added just show the favicons!
Further to this, the Start toolbar keeps going down as you add to it. (And remember, you can add anything you want from the available browser icons and form fields - even tickboxes for toggling preferences like JavaScript on or off.) So I realised that you could use it as a 'quick launch' bar for as many favicons as you could fit in. Plus of course they only show up when the toolbar is visible - it neatly hides itself away after use.
Or you can drag links to the Status bar, after turning it on and positioning it at the bottom. (I always add this bar as it shows me where a link goes when hovering over it - I don't have to wait for the tooltip to appear.)
Then there are the Panels. Press F4 to toggle them on and off. They usually appear at the left, much like the other browsers, but with way more potential. It was years before I discovered you can not only add icons to the panels, but also use them to show whole websites! (I believe Suzy UK has made a WebmasterWorld panel that shows the latest forum posts here.)
Once you realise the incredible power tucked away inside Opera, you realise how other browsers just don't quite have the same usefulness. Firefox gets round this with its extensions, but you'd have to download a heck of a lot to match what Opera has built-in, and in a smaller filesize too. (Along with a chat program, RSS reader and email program.) Plus there's no risk of extensions clashing, or refusing to work after a browser upgrade.
Myself, I can't live without Opera's brilliant Notes panel, nor the ease in which I can set up personal information for online forms, such as my name and address. I can then just right-click on a web page to insert this information whenever I want. No more typing out my email address by hand!
It works MUCH better than any previous version I've ever tried but within the first 15 minutes of testing:
- Didn't load a few 3rd party graphic images on my main web site that 3 other browsers load just fine
- Wouldn't run Java games off a couple of popular services, just said "loading..." forever
- Still has rendering issues, it's MUCH better but there are some issues, and some of the initial page displays while downloading were plain scary
And giving them or netscape/firefox kudos for an MDI interface it just silly, it's in Windows for crying out loud.
Other than the issue with the java games, at least this version is USABLE compared to the last one I downloaded.
I'll give it an 8.5 out of a possible 10.
