PreviousFriday 23 June 2006, 4:44 PM
Innovative browser for IT-savvy users
First up, let me state that I'm a die-hard Opera fan having ditched IE years ago, out of curiosity I took a look at Firefox not too long ago and liked what I saw but there was nothing there that made want to switch.
In general this is a fair review but tends to dwell on the negatives and gloss over the positives. Is the glass half-empty or half-full?
Looking at your review of Firefox, you praise many of its features yet they don't even get a mention here even though they are in Opera!
You mention that you find some parts of the interface a bit irritating but fail to mention one of Opera's best features - mouse gestures. They make browsing a joy, believe me there's no going back, and you know what, like most things in Opera they just work without the need for extensions.
Try double-clicking a word and you are immediately presented with a menu offering options to search, translate, and for a dictionary or encyclopedia - it's so easy.
I find it a bit strange that the review criticises Opera for some of its new features even though you admit they will eventually find their way into the other browsers. Is is wrong to innovate? In my experience a lot of the features introduced by Opera are now standard in other browsers.
The thumbnail preview in Opera has been copied from (I think) Firefox and I agree that the preview is too small, hopefully they can improve on that next time.
Like you my initial thoughts were that widgets were "cool" as a lot of them seem to be very gimmicky. Having said that I now have 5 installed which I use on a daily basis so perhaps it is a bit early to judge them just yet.
To sum up Opera 9 is a slick, innovative browser which make browsing a quick and intuitive process, perfect for the job.
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