Lordy me, I know I’m not the only Opera user around here!
Opera’s MDI interface is, IMHO, much better suited to the Web than the others’ SDI interface. In particular, I can’t see how people can possibly handle message boards in SDI browsers. I may have twenty or more windows open in Opera at one time.
Opera is pretty good at standards compliance, especially CSS. (There are a few parts of CSS2 that Opera 4 doesn’t support, and a few errors in the implementation, but they are likely to be supported/fixed in 4.1; the CEO of Opera wrote most of the CSS2 specification and wrote the canonical book on the subject).
Unfortunately, I am forced to use Netscape and, occasionally, IE when a web page is so poorly coded or non-standard that it totally craps out in Opera.
an AOL’er here, and I want 2 things out of my web browser
1 fast
2 well , I guess 2 would be to protest ,microsoft
as such,
For light duty I will use aol (which uses a stripped down version of ie anyway) or ie for reason 1. It is the fastest way to go. If i sign on to aol, it is already running, so the browser launches instantly. since most of ie is already loaded with windows, it starts right up also and use it for quick net tasks that are a little too much for aol to handle
For heavyduty web work, I crank up the ol’ netscape, I hate the looooooooooooooooooooooong load time. I know ie also has a long load time but that is during startup.
Also one very bad thing about the aol browser is that if you loose your conection, the browser window closes
I only use NeoPlanet, which adds a layer of hundreds of different “skins” or themes with fancy buttons and sound effects.
It runs as an add-on to IE, so it has all the major features, plus a better integrated e-mail.
I run Netscape 4.6 on both Mac and PC. (Actually, I think I’m on Netscape 4.7 on the Mac…) I won’t break into hives if I use IE (and it’s one both computers) but I don’t usually select it. Of course, you can’t get rid of IE on Windows 98.
I have IE 4.5 on the Mac, not motivated to upgrade to IE 5. Though I do just LOVE Outlook Express 5 for the Mac! Couldn’t live without it!
Also, YES, I am a card-carrying member of the Opera Club. I bought and paid for a copy of Opera, about 2 years ago, and have tried to keep it updated. I confess, I don’t use it that much on my PC (and still waiting for the Mac version) but you can’t beat Opera for slower computers. It zipped along on my (now defunct) 486 25 MHz laptop. And, it was the ONLY thing that would run on an old piece of crap 386 laptop I once had. Imagine - a 386, 33 MHz, a scant FOUR megs of RAM - and it got on the internet, bascically because of Opera! (The guy who sold me the laptop swore I couldn’t get it on the internet, but he was WRONG!!!) Kisses to Opera. And it fits on a floppy. Hey - no one here better go dissin’ my Opera!
I use NN at home, and IE at work, because I write applications in VB, and MS crams it down your throat.
What is frustrating is that MS has this idea that everything has to have a browser interface. Really, really, bad idea. There are some things that just don’t fit into a browser-like interface. HTML (asp, cgi, whatever) is really awkward for data entry, which is what most of the stuff I do is.
MICROSOFT FOREVER!!!