I haven’t touched Opera in months and I don’t think I will ever leave my friendly confines of Firefox, but this review of Opera should make everyone at least consider giving the browser a shot. In April, Opera Software (I am getting a nice lil proxy error) released version 8.0 of its browser with non-monumental improvements.
However, the improvements that they did make seem to have created a better experience for the user.
One of the most talked-about new features in Opera is a simple whitelist tool that attempts to prevent the Web-site spoofing common in phishing and other fraud-based attacks. Opera does this by supporting only top-level domains that have controls over the Internationalized Domain Name technology that lets sites be described in their native languages. Although this will help to stop some attacks, those who use international character domain names may run into problems.
Security is good, but not when it has the potential to keep out the good sites. It is a step in the right direction though and you can only hope that other browser makers will follow.
Another cool feature seems to be a trash icon that allows you to see previously closed tabs and blocked popups. I know there has been more than one occasion where I have closed a tab prematurely and forget where the url was pointing so I could definitely use this feature.
But the nail in the coffin for Opera is its inability to log in to web sites that use Windows authentication. No matter how you look at it we live in a Windows world and to beat Microsoft you have to play in its arena. Too bad.
One improvement opera did make is that they got rid of that nasty interface, with all the icons and stuff on the sidebar.
That had to be the worst part about using Opera to me. Sure, they could be turned off, but why were they on by default in the first place?
A feature I like in Opera 8 is the ability to fit the page to the browser window. It’s one of those little features that make you go, “Now why didn’t somebody think of that before, and why don’t all browsers do that?”
I loved Opera, but it was too high-strung. Cookie management, page incompatabilities, script issues, etc. FF does about 95% of what I need with fewer headaches.
I know there has been more than one occasion where I have closed a tab prematurely and forget where the url was pointing so I could definitely use this feature.
SessionSaver has this feature, which the extension calls SnapBack Tab.
Weird. In my previous comment (#4) <em>s show up in the source but the text isn’t emphasized.
Obviously Opera is #1. They’re recommended by a Power Ranger.
Seriously, though, Fx (Firefox is not abbreviated as FF) has an easier feel to it. All the extensions available also make it much more useful right now.