"The last time I tried Opera, it was still advertisement supported, and offered me no real reason to choose their ad-free option for the money being asked. A number of people used to feel that Opera's ads were off-topic and more annoying than anything. I should be clear in saying that I support companies with a strong privacy policy using ads should they choose to. I just did not see the value in adding them to a browser that offered very little that other browsers did not. Today, this has changed. Opera is now ad free, and they have added some cool new functionality." On a related note, Microsoft has released the 3rd beta version of IE7 for Windows XP/2003.
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I'm happy to see the author talking about actually switching to a browser he's reviewing. It's very wonderful to see a less technical person saying
"do I want to try a different browser?"
It's not that I'm such a gigantic fan of Opera, but just that I'm happy to see people switching around and finding what they prefer, instead of finding what was already there.
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This guy obviously doesn't have a clue and thinks that since he is holding eight spark plugs he is a V-8.
"...a browser that offered very little that other browsers did not."
Yeah, Opera doesn't offer a lot. Right. And Internet Explorer is a freak show of gadgetry. And Firefox is the next Indy 500 winner after you drive it off the dealer's lot. LOL
I get a kick out of his list of most important features:
BitTorrent - This has been a long time coming. To have a BitTorrent client built right into a web browser is way overdue.
Content Blocker - This can be amazing helpful for dial-up users looking to save precious minutes when loading a content heavy webpage.
Widgets- Just as Internet Explorer 7 is looking to do, Opera is offering a way to easily add mini-applications for users to work with.
Voice - OK, this is just cool. Having the ability to tell your web browser to open a new tab and reload is interesting. You have to admit that the idea of browsing from page to page is pretty appealing when next to no typing is involved.
Over the next few days I plan on using the browser in order to become more comfortable with it. After I have been able to see just how easily someone can switch, I will then report back and let you know whether or not I have actually decided to go with the web browser full time.
This is a guy that evaluates how well something works based on his current browsing habits. And my guess is that if it doesn't fit his habits, then it is not for mass consumption. Opera will give you a whole new way to browse the internet and teach you how limiting the other browsers are and the overhead they make you go through to do what you want. The joy of Opera is its browsing experience. Encapsulated in that are the following features that are ready to go out of the box:
Tabbed Browsing Was Opera first with this?
Saved Sessions
Mouse Gestures
Keyboard Shortcuts
Pop-Up Blocking
Real Security When was the last Opera patch for a security exploit?
User JavaScript
Web Page Zooming
Password Manager
Fast Forward Browsing
Completely Customizable Interface
Integrated Search Engine shortcuts I use "g searchterm" on a daily basis for Google
I'm sure there are other features, but this is what I came up with off the top of my head.
This is my favorite:
Firefox has been a longtime companion, but I am a sucker for the underdog.
My guess is he is just a sucker.
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I very much agree with your statement: "The joy of Opera is its browsing experience." I have been using opera at home for at least 3 years now, and everytime I open IE at work, I feel like I've taken a step backwards. As cheesy as it sounds, Opera's developers have implemented many of the "little things" that have grown on me over time. One thing you didn't list was the History feature of Panels showing each and every website you've been to in reverse-chronological order. I can't think of how many times I surfed chaotically to a random site and accidentally closed the window... Opera makes it very easy to get back to the page (hit F4, click). I would like to also add that Opera's bookmark editor beats on IE's favorites editor. Overall, it's such a different experience, that I would conclude the same thing: I'm sure there's other features great features I'm just not thinking of...
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I was using tabbed browing with Broadpage in 2000. It was an IE add-on.
Wikipedia:
"Web browsers are notable for implementing this kind of interface (called tabbed browsing). BookLink Technologies pioneered this interface design in its InternetWorks browser in 1994. Independently, the founders of Opera built an MDI-based browser (MDI without tabs) in the same year (a technical preview not available publicly; a public release was made in 1996). The tabbed interface approach was then followed by the Internet Explorer shell NetCaptor in 1997. These pioneers were followed by a number of others like IBrowse in 1999, Opera in 2000 (with the release of version 4), Mozilla in 2001 (through the MultiZilla extension in April of 2001 and a built-in tabbed browsing mode added to Mozilla 0.9.5 in October of 2001), Konqueror 3.1 in January 2003, and Safari in 2003. As of 2006, most graphical web browsers support a tabbed interface, including the beta of Internet Explorer 7."
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IMHO, that is. I started using it sometime around 2000 when Netscape Navigator fell so far behind. I just abhorred IE, especially back then (God has a sense of humor, I am forced to use it at work and nothing else). So I made myself go cold-turkey off of Netscape and promised myself I would stick with Opera for one month. I never looked back and actually never missed Navigator that much either.
Once you make up your mind you are gonna "get" Opera, then it will start to make sense. And IMO that is Opera's weak point. They don't really have an easy way to quickly get new users up to speed. I think they need something that pops up that first time Opera is run that really grabs the new user's attention such that they will take the newbie tour so they can be elegantly & professionally taught the Opera basics.
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I Totally agree. People need to be shown what they can do with Opera. Recently closed tabs, full page zoom, mouse gestures, fast forward, user css, turning off the menu bar, password wand, session saving, content blocking, html editing of cached pages, debug mode, integrated google search -- and those are just the features "I" use on a daily basis. I had to "explore" Opera for a couple hours to find all these features, and then decide how each one could improve my browsing/designing experience. I doubt Joe six-pack would do the same.
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Yes, we all know MDI is not tabs. The question is, do you know what MDI is? When we say tabbed browsing, what we are really getting at is MDI browsing.
Maybe that's what you mean, but I don't think that's what most people mean. I certainly don't. MDI browsing is a very different exprience than "tabbed" browsing.
A tabbed interface maybe be an MDI interface, but an MDI interface is NOT a tabbed interface 
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What do you define tabs as?
I would define tabs as having multiple browser pages open within a single top-level window in the OS and accessible through a toolbar with buttons for each page, whether the buttons are push-down buttons or skinned to look like tabs.
You know what fits that definition right now? Opera 9.0. You know what also fit that definition? Opera 3.6.
The only thing that has changed, my friend, is that the buttons look like tabs now. The behaviour has largely not.
Opera 9.0 doesn't have true SDI w/tabs like Firefox, only emulated. But you know what, I prefer it that way. I get popups that aren't forced to be the size of my browser window and are contained within Opera still.
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I love these comments though. It's so true about an acquired taste and "getting it" and the browsing experience. It's not something you can catch on to right away, but spending just a little time with it and being willing to learn to things will make you truly appreciate it. Opera really does make all the little things better.
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I'm trying to understand the purpose behind needing to close them in the order you opened them??? That puzzles me.
No, I want to close them in the order they're displayed instead of the order they're opened in which is what Opera does by default.
The need for this is it's the behaviour I'm used to and is what I prefer since I tend to open lots of links using middle click on a link when reading documentation. This means that if I middle click on a page to open twenty different links, and then go to the last tab and start reading and then close the tab, I get sent to the page I launched the links from instead of the next link in the tab list. It's really quite annoying 
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Before the release version of Opera 9, you could left click the current tab to minimise it; if you minimised the page with the links, it would jump to the last link you opened, then go through them in the reverse order they were opened - which is what I think you mean. I can't figure out how to minimise a single tab now though, so unless someone knows, then my comment is a bit redundant.
Another thing they've changed seemingly for no reason, and with no way to go back to the old behaviour, is the handling of downloads when you press "Open". It used to save the file to your downloads folder and then open it, but now it saves it to a temp folder and deletes it the next time you start Opera. Very annoying that they didn't make this optional.
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My previous comment inspired me to look through the keyboard shortcuts, and it seems "4" is the default key to minimise the current tab. (How intuitive...) So, once you've middle clicked all your links, hit 4 and close away to your heart's content.
I also noticed I was wrong - the tabs open then close in the order you clicked them. If you already had more than one tab open, you'll need to minimise them all too. So if you have a lot of tabs, it might be good to detatch the index page so you have a new, clean window. Bit of a messy work around, but I think it does exactly what you want.
(Not sure how to edit my comment, so sorry for the double post.)
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They've added a meta-feature that I have wanted ever since they added it to the interface.
Opera allows you to zoom the page properly; so that all content will resize, and it does it smoothly and quickly and well.
It also has a very neat "Fit to width" feature (View->Fit To Width) that will resize the page on the fly to fit the width of your browser window, reducing element sizes and structure to fit.
I've wanted for ages a way to make those elements stick and now they've added it.
Tools->Preferences->Web Pages; "Page Zoom" and "Fit to Width" system preferences!
Fantastic stuff.
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I switched to Opera early in the 3.xx series early in 1998 and have been a constant user ever since. My biggest gripe is that when moving to new versions they either get rid of or bury features that I have been using without telling us users how to get back what disappeared. Their online help is often worthless, and I really do not want to go burrowing through their news groups to find answers to what *should* be a self-evident FAQ for upgraders.
Example: The URL (address) display when doing a link mouseover suddenly stopped working in ver. 9 with the identical toolbar configuration I used in ver. 8. I "fixed" that accidently when fiddling around with the status bar view/show options. Apparently when the status bar is not shown the URL will appear on a link mouseover, but I had to turn the status bar show to on and then off to make that happen (a bug, perhaps).
Now for my question: Up to version 6 there was a bookmark option "Set as Active Folder", which meant that when you put a bookmarks button in your toolbar the dropdown would start at the folder in your bookmarks tree that you had set as "active" rather than at the root level (so to speak). A very handy feature - I used it constantly. I used to check the forums occasionally and after version 7 came out people complained (as I recall) about this feature disappearing and it was promised that it would soon be back. Now I have been around Opera long enough to know better than to state that it has truly never returned, but how to bring it back is not obvious if indeed the feature is just buried but not dead. I have had no luck with Google or searching through the Opera knowledge base. So, does one of you Opera experts out there know how to get that feature to work? Alternatively, if there is some way to place a bookmark folder on the toolbar (right now only placing URLs on the toolbar works), then that would be a satisfactory alternative.
Thank you.