Do you like Opera?

The Awesome free web browser, that is!

I have just started using Opera 6.03 after testing it for several hours this weekend, and it is better than Netscape -- and staggeringly superior to MS IE!!

First, it is super fast. MS IE and Netscape are real foot draggers, in comparison. Note: I run a 450 MHz CPU, which is slower than many of you, and the speed factor is more pronounced at lower speeds.

Opera eliminates all complaints I can think of against IE, including the terribly annoying popup situation. It also totally eliminates the "stealing of focus" that IE does (where you're doing one thing, and suddenly another window opens and now without your choice). Yes, we all know MS likes to take away your choices in life, but Opera (and Netscape, which has been my main browser) gives teh choice and power back you you, the People of the world .

Opera is amazingly customizable... compared to MS IE. Netscape 6.23 is better than MS IE, but not as good as Opera in this regard.

Another excellent thing about Opera is an extensive (and customizable/relocatable) program bar, where you can have dozens of websites open at the same time in a SINGLE window (much like the File Sharing programs that PaleHorse76 and Blue Monday have reviewed in Computer Talk). But the really superb part is something most users have no clue about.... system resources!!!! I watch them like a hawk, since (even if you have a gigabyte of RAM) once system resources are depleted, your system will freeze or crash. Many programs, including many MS programs, do not handle their own resources properly (they "leak"), and IE is notorious for this. I have never been able to open dozens of windows with IE, and not crash (or destablize) the system as I surfed... ESPECIALLY if other programs were running.

Opera hardly makes a dent in resources, which means I can run notepad, Civilization, screen capture, image viewing, ad trapping, and lots of other programs at the same time! Attempting the same thing with MS IE will crash the system, and I watch it happen as Mike Micro Meter (see freeware thread in Computer Talk) shows the depletion of resources. The programmers at Opera, so far, seem to be able to keep their sh!t in one sock (a very good technical thing ). MS should consult with such people if they were interested in learning how to write applications for MS OSs.

I recommend that you take time (a couple hours) and go thru all the amazing stuff that Opera can do. Read all the tips (50). Customize all the cool things, including the locations of the various toolbars. Do not uninstall your current browser.... keep it, even if you love the speed, power, compactness, and outstanding features of Opera.

If anyone is wondering about bookmarks, Opera can handle importing both Netscape and IE. It has a funtion to automatically use IE bookmarks, but I have not tested the auto function.


Now for the bad things. Well, so far... there is one thing I do not like about Opera, and I will be talking with them about fixing it, if I cannot hack it in the registry when I get time. That is the location of the temporary & cached files. I have not been able to see a way to change the default locaton of the file cache (this is where hundreds of images, pages, and other files are stored on your hard disk, to speed page viewing). This is important for me (but likely not to most other people), since I have a specific drive letter (the E: drive) that contains & collects all temporary and cache files from all Applications and all Operating Systems on my machine. This reduces fragmentation rates (especially on the C: drive) , and improves system performance over time.


Other than that, I have nothing critical to report about Opera.

EDIT: Update. There are some websites were some MS-specific features only work on MS browsers. There also may be slight formatting differences between different browsers. Some are cussed and discussed in the thread. Unknown Soldier has some good screenshots of some Opera and MS IE format differences in some webpages on some sites.


I strongly recommend that all CFC users try Opera. It is very well behaved, is very fast, loaded with features, is very small to install, and so far, superior to MS IE in every way, and superior to Netscape in most ways.

I encourage people to list and talk about both the good things and the bad things about their browsers, especially features and settings that help/hinder surfing CFC. To me, the speed & popup handling alone makes Opera the best for use at CFC.


EDIT: Here is the link to Download Opera. You can use Opera on a PC, Mac, Linux, and more!!



This just in: I have found that Opera actually has a built in language translation... you just cilck on a word or phrase that you want translated, and choose the language you want it translated to, and it uses a translation engine (off site) to translate it!

Wait! Even more... it will also define words, look up words in multiple encyclopedias... hey, this is really easy and helpful, esp. if you write a lot or want to know more about a word(s).

Here is a screenshot:

OK, Here are some Screenshots I have made to see some of the things that might help people, esp. at this site (CFC, that is).

Here is the basic header bars, which I have customized (and am still changing as I figure more things out)...




Here is another header screenshot, showing some changes I made, and catching the page detail info in mid-loading:




And here is a very juicy part for people at this site, esp. if you do not use any ad-blocking software:




It seems that Opera must have been mindreaders for CFC, hehe. They made those functions soooo easy to access and use, that you can change them page by page with almost no effort!

I use Netscape 7 PE(Preview Edition). I find that it is fast(maybe cause I have DSL ) and 7 has what you were talking about with opening multiple windows in the same window, on a tab bar. I will test Opera out though.

No, I never did either, I like Rock.

Oh, and why is this poll here?

This is a tech forum question.

I use Opera. One downside is the ad banner, since I have not registered it. However, I really don't mind, and gives me something to watch between page loads (which seem shorter). Another is the tables of some pages - but they are few and far between. The hotlist isn't as clean as IE's favourites, IMHO, but very functional. I also reserve IE for stuff like banking and other real important stuff since those often have to detect Netscape or IE.

Here's some more stuff I like about it:
- statistics at the bottom while loading web pages. It shows way more detail than IE so I know more about what I'm loading and how far it is getting.

- I really like the "continue browsing where I left off" feature after it may crash. It can open each window I was last using when it crashes. It crashes a lot less than my IE, but when it does, I load it up and it does the rest for me.

- Mouse gestures. Mouse moves to navigate can be very handy.

- Pop-up refusal as a quick integrated preference.

- Auto-reloading of pages on a timer. Very handy for this forum!

- Handier locations of open windows in the right-click menu and the ability to open windows in the background.

- Decent Integeration with utilities and plug-ins.

There's also all the reasons you gave. There are enough real big bonuses to me to outweigh the small negatives.

@ AoA: The poll is here because it relates directly to solving some of the site-related problems with popups, especially focus, animated GIFs, icons, and ads. There have been a lot of threads here about how to solve those issues, and except for Ad blocking, Opera seems to solve them all. In fact, that is the reason I started testing Opera for surfing here at CFC.

Oh, I see this thread is now moved out of the site feedback. Well, I hope people coming to site feedback with Ad, focus, image, animation, etc. questions still find the thread.


by chiefpaco:

I also reserve IE for stuff like banking and other real important stuff since those often have to detect Netscape or IE.

Click to expand...

I just posted a graphic, and you can look at the bottom choice out of the File ---> Quick Preferecnes to solve any banking or similar issues that must detect a certain browser. They only do that to make sure a browser can go into the secure mode, which Opera naturally can (look at the "locked"/'Unlocked" icon to see when it is secure).

Many of the features you listed are simply totally impossible with IE, and Netscape. Once people use them and see how they work.... IE in particular will seem pre-historic by comparison.


I must admit, even as a programmer myself, I am totally blown away with how Opera is able to do far far far more than IE (and Netscape), yet run more stable, be much much smaller, run faster, and in almost every case, perform tasks and options in a superior manner. I guess more than anything, it shows average users how little we have come to expect from software in the last 8 to 10 years, in particular, since MS has spread it's tentacles so thoroughly into the world of software development (and bloat code in particular).


Anyway, I am not too pleased with my own self for putting off it off for so long... I should have tested Opera montha ago! Life would have been much simpler, and my computer even more stable!

I can't get Opera to work, whenever I enter an address it says, cannot find remote server. Any ideas why?

I had that message earlier today, and i had forgotten to connect (I use dial up). Once I connected to the Internet, it went away.

Maybe you are using the "Offline" mode (out of the "File" menu)?


If you are connected to the Internet (I assume so, since you posted ), then what the message means is that something in your system is not allowing communication for the application (Opera, in this case). It might be a firewall, blocking of some sort, proxy setting, something along those lines.

I had that the first time I tryed come here.Tryed it again and it worked ok.

I dunno about speed.This thread took around 45 seconds to load.Not fast thats for sure.Another site I visited did seem to load alot faster.So the jury is still out.

Seems ok though.It has just as many features as any browser.90% of them I never use anyway.

whoa! that submit reply was much faster from "submit" to finish.

@ Smash: The thing that finally got me to install & test Opera was a combination of posts from your IE problems, questions by Becka from a month ago, a post by Duke of Marlbrough, and the Popup situation people often post about in Site Feedback. Yours was actaully the "last straw", when I decided I should look into other alternatives . Be sure and post if Opera causes crashes like IE was doing. I suspect it will not, due to the way they program it. I cannot believe the stablity of it (I have special programs that watch some techincal things, as applicatons run... or crash).

Another thing, as it comes to mind:

I like Opera for the fact that when it crashes, it does not force me to reboot windows, as IE often did on my PC.

After playing around I have found that for me, Opera is as slow as a slug compared to Netscape. It took as long as 1 min 19 secs to load a page, which doesn't seem right considering I have dsl. Also it takes up about the same system resources as Netscape. I think I'll say with Netscape.

I'm not sure but you may have to build up some cached pages or something cuz now its loading pages pretty darn quick for me.I have it set to load everything more or less.

I see at CNET there are a few Opera cache managers.I wonder what that is all about.

It has a good d/l manager thingy and you can get different skins and buttons.I got something called "blacksilver" which looks quite tidy.



The pop up stop feature even stops the "upload file" pop up

The banner ad is the same as incredimail so I am accustomed to it.

After playing around I have found that for me, Opera is as slow as a slug compared to Netscape. It took as long as 1 min 19 secs to load a page, which doesn't seem right considering I have dsl. Also it takes up about the same system resources as Netscape. I think I'll say with Netscape

Click to expand...

You've got some mis-adjusted settings, or some other system situation, then. I've run NS 4.76, NS 6.23, MS IE 5.01 SP1, and Opera 6.03, and Opera beats them all. The only real "downside" that I've yet discovered was in fact pointed out by Unknown Soldier... there are some formatting MS has with all non-MS browsers, though the would has known about MS's machinations in this arena for a long time.

When NS 7 Comes out, I'll be giving that a close look, too, as I've been a NS user since the 0.9x beta releases days after they put it out.

You should look into your File --> Preferences --->Network ----> history & Cache... there are lot of settings, and they can dramatically affect things.

I see at CNET there are a few Opera cache managers.I wonder what that is all about.

It has a good d/l manager thingy and you can get different skins and buttons.I got something called "blacksilver" which looks quite tidy.

Click to expand...

I have not looked at 3rd party add ons yet, as today I've put it through a lot of tests. A cache manager is simply a program that looks in the temp or cache directory, and lets you view, move, edit, etc. the contents. Cache files have really oddball names, and cache managers alleviate that.

Netscape, Opera, Winamp... and probably lots of ohter programs have skins. Some are actually pretty good. Even the website GC has skins... so many choices, so little time!

Opera -

I've tried it and it is much better than IE...very fast, non-resource leeching etc.

However the point still remains that some webpages don't display properly in it...in fact too many for my liking didn't so now I use editplus as I browser (well it uses the some data as IE but is better)

Also there was something really annoying (I don't know if this is still a problem with it) which was how it would wait till all the pictures had loaded before displaying the page. unfortunatley for me, there happened to be a broken image link on that page so the page wouldn't display at all.

I'll have to try it out later today. I may install it, but my stupid ISP always brings up Internet Explorer when it dials in. I'll still try it though. Is there any spyware that comes with it though? Because that is the one thing that I hate most. And also, how is the uninstall? Does it leave a lot in the registry, or does it have a good uninstaller? I hate programs that stick around, and I fins myself deleting stuff from them months down the road. This includes registry keys and files on my hard drive. And that blacksilver looks sweet! That probably will convince me to try it out anyway. Nothing better than a nice looking program that runs better, faster, and has more options than some MS integrated piece of junk.