$39 for a browser? That seems a little steep offhand when I’ve never had a problem with IE and (almost) no issue with Mozilla.
I know we have some Opera users out there, so tell me what the big deal is. Their webpage is incredibly uninformative. Anyone download the adware version and never bother upgrading because it just wasn’t worth the money?
I’ve downloaded Opera and I have not registered it. Why? Because I’m cheap. Thing is that I haven’t gone around trying to get a crack to disable the ads.
Overall Opera loads pages and images quickly (which is good for surfing porn). IE has too many security issues that crop up after everything else has been patched and discussed ad infinitum elsewhere. Netscape sucks and I refuse to use Mozilla because it’s made by the same folk who made Netscape. Combine this with the fact that it’s been in BETA for the past couple of years without a 1.0 version.
I have these three browsers on my computer so I can see how my HTML renders on them (also checking with w3.org and using lynx).
Don’t wag on Mozilla just yet. The designers and programmers have seen the light and are actually on their way to develop a browser suite competitive to IE. They are taking the best of Netscape and Opera. There are some problems (Nonexistent Netscape plug-ins, grr. I was hoping I won’t see that puzzle piece again). But in six months or so the world will take notice of the power of the copyleft.
If Sun and AOL talk to each other and coordinate better, they can challenge MS in the marketplace instead of trying to bring MS down by pursuing futile lawsuits in an MS-friendly administration. Sun just put out Java JRE 1.4, and it is giving Opera and Netscape fits. Mozilla and IE however have no perceivable problems yet.
I love it, just get a crack for it, it’s so much better than IE. Faster, and more efficient, with better access to the internet.
I paid for Opera.
The biggest reason to support them is that instead of fucking up HTML like IE and Netscape like to do, they actually adhere to the standards. Contrast this with, for example, Netscape 4.x or Microsoft’s oh-so-subtle decision to blow off Netscape style plug-in support in IE6.
I started using Opera because it’s got minimal system requirements. I could (and did) run Opera 3 on a 386 with 8mb of RAM. Try doing that with IE3… not a chance. The most recent release probably won’t run on a 386, but you can count on the fact that it’ll use less system resources than IE or the super-bloated Netscape.
The Opera interface used to suck, but in the latest release it’s significantly better. I may even (gasp) prefer it to IE’s interface, which is the benchmakr (IMHO) for clean and elegant browser.
Finally, I don’t trust IE or Netscape browsers. There’s just no telling what they’re doing when you run them. All kinds of random shit could be happening. I can be running Opera and know that I’m browsing the web and not doing anything else.
I’m optimistic about Mozilla in the future, but at the moment it’s a toy, not a useful browser. Crash city. Of course Java for Opera isn’t all that either.
-fh
I’m not sure why I cussed so much in the previous post. If I could go back and edit it out, I probably would… there was really no reason.
-fh
I recently switched to Opera 6 (at the same time I switched to Windows 2000) and I really like it. Very fast, and the ad is not intrusive at all. Sometime when I have a few extra bucks to blow I might register it.
Opera’s a great browser(I have 6.01) but every couple of days I come across a site that doesn’t work properly. A good example is Yahoo mail. When I try to attach a file to a message I get a weird server error. When I do the exact same thing in IE it works perfectly. It’s annoying as hell – I end up having to switch back and forth between IE and Opera every time I want to send an attachment.
I don’t think it’s Opera’s fault though. I suspect that these sites have browser-dependant code that’s only tested with the IE and Netscape, so there isn’t much Opera can do about it. If Opera is as standards-compliant as its developers claim, then web sites written in standard HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc. should work like a charm. But in the real world web developers don’t always stick to the standards.
–DP
I’m using opera at this very moment and I love it.
I have not registered it for the simple reason… I’m lazy.
I fully intend to do so though because I would like to help support the opera team into continuing to make a great product.