The web and mobile (and Nintendo Wii) browser Opera released its 9.0 version today and a number of cool new features are offered, including a built in bittorrent downloader, tab previews and widgets.
The Oslo, Norway based browser originated in 1994 and has a loyal, if small, user base – especially among international mobile users.
The bittorent system may be painfully slow to experienced torrent users, but the simplicity of one click downloads of bittorent files could really appeal to novice users. (FireFox users interested in a similar function might want to check out our review of AllPeers.)
The tab preview is a nice feature – hover over any of the browser’s tabs and a small drop down window appears displaying a screen shot, the title, URL and other information. I know I lose Firefox tabs all the time when I have more than 20 lined up.
The new version of Opera also includes a number of desktop widgets that many people might find useful. Despite its small market share, this browser really does have a lot of appealing features.
Opera was always innovative. They stumbled when they started charging for ad-free web browsers. No user would ever pay for that. I hope their mobile strategy works for them.
I’ve been a staunch supporter of Firefox for a long time, but the increasing memory issues are driving me nuts. Though I can’t see myself working without some of the great Firefox extensions in my arsenal, I find myself using Opera more often, especially when Firefox gets really sticky on me.
Opera has never been as solid as I would prefer, but I’ve got to admit; it’s fast. Trying out the new version now.
Yet, another reason to switch from Fx.
I like the clean interface; it has built-in popup blocker, right?
I like to recommend alternative browsers to Idaho Falls residents at http://www.idahofallz.com, how does this do for novice users?
And best of all… It passes the Acid2 test for its CSS support:
http://www.webs...g/action/acid2/
http://www.webs...acid2/test.html
Yes, it’s a great browser lost against FireFox in it’s marketing. Very innovative company indeed. FireFox, Flock, Opera.. hmm.. the choices are quite good. Like the “g search” feature a lot. vim editor like, geeky
Like the community aspect but the number of users I see come through log reports is not measurable. Not sure how it keeps going?
Don’t forget it’s not just the “Web and Mobile” browser, but the “Web, Mobile and Wii” browser now
Sam, right on. Zeth, there is a popup blocker among many other features. I think this does look like a good browser for novice users, but I haven’t used it a whole lot.
Opera 9 is the only browser for the PC that actually passes the Acid2 test in supporting CSS2:
http://www.webs...g/action/acid2/
Even IE7 won’t be able to do that.
Opera is a great browser. So is Opera Mini. I love having choices when it comes to software, unlike the akward IE-only period after Netscape really fell off the face of the earth. FireFox, Opera, and Flock are really bringing innovation to the table.
However, as a web developer… I hate the fact that there is no consistancy! We have the W3C for a reason, and they set standards but none of these browsers follow the standards correctly. Drives me nuts!
How many browsers should one use?
I mainly use Firefox and have not played much with the new Flock which seems nice though.
Serge
Biz:
http://www.njconcierges.com
Blog:
http://www.serg...heconcierge.com
As I said before, Opera is now leading the way in following the W3C standards by passing the Acid2 test. Safari already passed Acid2 last year. Firefox will probably pass it in the next year or so. IE7 is still lagging. But, the point is that all of the browsers are getting better and they are all starting to adhere to the W3C standards.
And anyone who wants to show their support for web standards should really avoid IE like its the plague.
I’ve been a diehard Opera user for years now, and I’ve never looked back. I find that it’s faster than Firefox, and has all the features I need builtin without needing to download lots of extensions.
It’s all Flock for me.
Well, I’m taking an informal poll which is best — IE, FireFox and or Opera 9, but I can guess from the folks here what answer is. But join me anyway at my blog….eb-mag.com/tdr
The new Flock beta has more appealing features for keeping in touch with the things I use most frequently – keep up with my friends’ flickr and photobucket pics within my browser, and keep up with my RSS feeds in a low-maintenance and visually appealing way.
I was surprised that Flock has been been for me, as a layperson, and not geared just towards geeks with endless time to tinker with their apps.
It’s definitely better than ie7. I find Firefox onerous. Safari is good, but doesn’t have community features, which is getting more and more important to me. Opera has been around for a long time, but nothing has ever motivated me to download it yet, even this new release, esp if bittorrent integration makes it slooooow.
If Flock would have same features as AllPeers that will make it a very popular browser. How about AllPeers Mike? Any news of them? Got a (nonworking) invite two months ago and after that silence
I have tried Safari, Flock, Firefox, Opera, and Camino for my Mac. In a nutshell:
-Safari is slow and featureless.
-Flock is absolutely pointless. There is nothing good I can say about it. I have no idea how you (Mike) use it.
-Firefox is heavy and a little slow, but has some great features.
-Opera doesn’t give me the level of customization I want. It also does things in ways that seemed strange. It also does a lot of things without asking, like becoming the default for torrents. I couldn’t use it, but if you really like tabs, it might be for you.
-Camino is my all-round favorite. It has the good bits of Firefox without its bad bits. It hasn’t let me down yet, and my lack of extensions has not been a problem.
Let’s just say that I don’t have Opera or Flock on my system anymore.
For the last couple of years I’ve always jumped between Firefox and Opera simply because Firefox is sometimes too slow for me and sometimes I would like to have WYSIWYG support (this is when I come back to FF).
Featurewise both have the most important goodie for me: Greasemonkey/UserJS.
Opera has in my opinion still the better tabbing (focus the last recently used tab when closing another one), which can only be added to Firefox via extensions but is still slow (in FF). Currently my main issue with Opera is, though, that you can’t specify external apps for RSS feeds (at least I haven’t found a way yet).
Opera is ,with the new 9.0 version, the only Windows browser to pass the Acid2 test (you don`t even want to look at the IE7 beta2 rendering), it is the fastest Windows browser as tests show, very clean intreface, in deed almost no personal configuration is possible, at least compared to Firefox, BUT you have all ther from the start , you don`t have to spend 1 hour to install all that extensions, they are buit in – the packege beeing very small, with a small memory footprint; not to say it has email,IRC,feeds built in ! And my favourite , the genious “Ctrl+B” = Paste and go, think about that!
I tried Opera, and I like FF better from an interface position, but I’ve got to admit that I think Opera is better in almost all aspects but plugins. If there were some sort of FF skin for Opera, I’d start using it.
Opera is definately a good browser. I think it is a real shape that as the complexity of web applications increases (AJAX etc) Opera is typically left out of the browsers supported. This needs to improve.
Speaking of allpeers–are they still alive?
It’s been “Coming soon” for a long time now.
Opera should focus on providing simple robust plug-in support just like Firefox (and to a lesser extent, IE) has.
Plug-ins and customization are the best was for an underdog browser to make inroads into the longtail of advanced/specialized users.
Opera 9 flys and and perhaps will be my primary browser over FireFox since the memory leaks are irritating. Forget IE completely !
Been using Opera 9 for about 10 minutes. It’s my default browser now. GJ Opera team
I agree with Urban’s take on the various browsers, including Flock, although if Mike is that insistent then maybe I’ll take another look. I’m a big blogger and flickrer but I don’t like it all hanging around when I’m not using them specifically.
I still find some sites aren’t enabled for FireFox (I’m building a list… http://zapr.typ...ox_web_sit.html) which frustrates me. Right now Iv’e got FF, IE and Flock installed.
I’m mainly Firefox, I love tabs, (Ctrl T, Tab, search) but the memory sux. Also, the google search thinks I’m in the UK and doesn’t let me change it (any ideas).
Opera 9 testing time starts now……
Yes Opera 9 is now my default browser as well !
I dunno, i suppose i’ll test it, but i’m a fan of firefox. i tried the old flock (eay back in alpha days) and it sucked. i suppose i coulde test that, too.
I could only hope the AJAX Yahoo Mail and every other AJAX app support Opera too. I been with Opera for so long, it too nice to let go.
I like Opera because it’s fast. AJAX is supported in Opera starting at v8.
We had a blast in Seattle today for the release party!!!!
Mick, I’m in the UK, and when I go to Google.com it reverses me to Google.co.uk, too.
The way to fix this is to use their personalized home page. For one, it’s the best AJAX home page, and it doesn’t skew things in a British way.
and not to forget Opera has support for SVG native
I believe it’s user base is much bigger than people thing out of watching stats. Opera default identifies as Internet Explorer for som bizarre reason. Not sure if this is the case in 9.0 though.
If anyone switches to Opera 9, drop me a line at info@bestdamntech.com, I would love to interview you about the move.
This Opera 9.X uncomfortable!
http://www.hot....9grandsurprise/