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Jennifer
but I STILL don't like O enough to pay for it.... and I will NOT use something that serves up ads....
But by buying it you won't get any ads! :)
regards,
Mark
Shallowly, I preferred the looks of Firefox to Opera. Functionally both were similar, though as we all know, Opera is the fastest... But now Opera looks fantastic!
It is a dream come true. ;-)
right click in a form window - "spell check".It is a dream come true. ;-)
lol!
Go to View --> Toolbars, and uncheck "Main bar". This removes the "buttons" for navigation, printing, etc., and also squishes the ads down to a much less obtrusive thin line across the top. I've found that with Opera's keyboard support I don't need the main toolbar visible.
- ability to control the speed of the screen refresh on page load. You want it jumpy - you can have it jumpy.
- ability to put progress info permanently on any toolbar. Thus, you can see exactly how big any page is (this form window is 9.1k and too .02seconds to load at a speed of 59kb/s and no images loaded).
- spell check. Right click a form window and click spell check after installing aspell. awesome!
- speed. still the fastest out there.
- toolbar config : anything, anywhere, at any time. Total, 100% toolbar and button bar control. It's your browser.
- new javascript controls.
- stability. I have not crashed in about a month in this alpha/beta/final cycle. Nor have I (a chronic bug finder) found a single one.
I can't think of a single thing this browser is missing.
After using Opera for a week, I knew it was giving me back time (my most restricted resource) and that's still the case -- even more with version 7.5.
Opera gives me easy access (kb shortcuts, mouse gestures, right clicks) to functions that other browser don't even HAVE. So there's a learning curve that I'm still climbing, and happily so. And there's less resort during my day to other helper apps that I used as a developer.
This is a browser for the professional, and it's helping me to become a better one.
I'm not keen on the new google ads, and prefer the graphical ones, but this new release is seriously tempting me just to buy it and be done with all the ads completely.
It's features such as tabbed browsing very useful context menus have meant that Opera has seriously improved my work rate, and I have always maintained that if you design a site to work in Opera, it will pretty much work in anything.
[edited by: dillonstars at 6:41 pm (utc) on May 13, 2004]
I don't really like the new default skin: looks like the've adapted it to Win XP.
Anyone want to give a quick rundown on advantages to Opera over Firefox? Never touched Opera before.
Thanks!
- faster loading.
- faster displaying pages.
- more features.
- easier to use (but not at first)
- much more robust and takes half the system.
- leaves you more in control where Moz puts the page in control.
- not forced to have colored scrollbars or css'd forms.
...but others will see it different I am sure.
For those completely new to Opera, you should also check out 30 Days to Becoming an Opera7 Lover [tntluoma.com].
Firefox is getting there, but Opera has got there already. Why settle for firefox when Opera is free too?
Unfortunately, first thing I noticed is that my javascript menu works fine on Firefox et al. but is broken with Opera...Will have to investigate that!
I do like the Opera layout though!
Thanks guys!
Currently, 79% of all users use IE, 10% - Mozilla, 5% - Netscape, 2% - Safari, and only mere 1.5% use Opera.
that's because Opera identifies by default as MSIE 6.0
The deal on Opera is that there just aren't any valid criticisms left. I've never seen it work better than it is right now. I don't know what else they could do to make it better.
<-- had a wish list for opera of over 1000 points at one time a few years ago. it is toast.
What is good though, is that Opera is a 'trustable' browser - it's standards-compliant, so you don't really have to specifically check your pages if they look right in Opera (same applies to Mozilla and Netscape 7).
Semi-OT: What I would really like to see is a list of plusses and minuses for both Opera and Firefox from a relatively neutral person so that someone new to these browsers will have an easier time picking which one to use. I don't know about others, but I get tired of the Opera vs Mozilla, 'my browser blows your browser away' debates. :)
Jennifer
One reason for being identified as IE 6.0 is because some sites lock out Opera. A person new to the browser might go to their Washington Mutual bank account and see that they can't access their damn site anymore >:( and think it's the browsers fault causing them to switch back.
Jennifer
right click in a form window - "spell check".
It is a dream come true. ;-)
Ya, that bugged me for a long time too. But there has been an ie plugin since early 2002 called iespell. works great.
I'd put Opera 7x with Safari 125, as the third best browser out there, or the best browser under 4 megabytes, take your pick.
Let's see, Firebird/firefox features:
tabbed browsing, with advanced configuration extensions for extreme finetuning of tab behaviors.
web developer toolbar.. if you haven't used it, don't or you'll never be able to stop using firebird.
added preference controls.
full mousemovement extensions, configurable navigator user agent strings, etc... that's just the extensions I've tried
Is it as fast as Opera, no, but I'd rather see my pages display without seeing a new bug on every subversion, last site I did I had to do opera 7 sub version testing server side due to a 7.1 bug that was fixed on 7.2, now there's a 7.5 bug that I'll have to figure out.
Nice trick with the ad removal by getting rid of buttons though..
oh, they have the scrolling overflow:auto with mousewheel half working, now it scrolls if you click in the overflowing space, not before you click there though... IE 5.5/6, and firebird 0.7 are still the only browsers out there to have gotten that working decently, though IE 6 it's buggy again, stopped working on firefox...
re: opera stats, if you're using Analog5 you are getting the real stats, I tested that thoroughly, every opera visit using every user agent setting was correctly id'ed as opera, from opera 4 to 7.23. So that 0.25-1% you're seeing is real.
