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Opera Impressions

T

TechieSooner

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
Messages
7,601
Having used Internet Explorer and Firefox in the past, I had never quite tried Opera before for any extent of time (mainly just to test webpage functionality). I must say I was quite happy with the experience, and here are some of my reasons for this opinion.

Compatibility is great. I still find some sites in which Internet Explorer and Firefox don’t work the same, but Opera seems to work with just about everything I have tried.

Synchronization. Setup a logon account with Opera, and your bookmarks are shared between both the work and home PCs (or any other machine you’ve got it set to).

Full-screen. I rarely use this feature, but find it beats both IE and FF in this matter… Displays the page correctly, unlike IE and FF which (at times) display incorrectly.

Auto-Refresh. Simply built-in. Auto-refresh an Ebay auction at the interval you specify, or a Woot-Off page.

Close tabs without having to have them active. Mainly aimed at IE- I hate the fact it cannot do this.

Download Manager- Enough said. Only thing I wish this could do this in the background without having to open another tab (perhaps I haven’t found that setting yet).

The Wand. Stores passwords, and an autofill. Sorely lacking feature of IE.

Delete Cookies/Temp Files feature. In IE- you either delete ALL your info, or none of it. Opera defaults to not deleting any passwords… Great feature.

Widgets… Really the only one that appealed to me was Pandora, but fantastic idea.

Speed Dial. Basically equivalent to IE7’s new tab button, but when you hit it you optionally have the ability to go to any number of sites you have setup in the Speed Dial with one click.

Less memory used than IE7.

Areas Lacking
Add more things to synchronize… Or at least give me the option to sync: Home Page, the Wand (I realize work addresses, etc would be different- so not big deal), and some settings.

Widgets… Might just be this particular widget, but I dislike how the Pandora widget is always visible somewhere. Maybe not while browsing, but it is then visible floating around on your desktop.

Screen-area. IE7 still has this beat (As well as FF) in screen real-estate. An option (which I have not found) to remove the File/Edit, etc menu would be nice (like IE7), being you can access all those options elsewhere.

Bookmarks. When you open Favorites in IE7 (Can’t remember behavior in FF as I don’t have it on this machine), when you choose a favorite- the menu gets out of the way. Opera’s still stays open, if you use it via the panel.

Edit- ADD- No "search as you type"

Edit 2- ADD- Not compatible with Outlook Web Access.

All in all- quite a nice browser, IMO. Will be giving it 100% of my attention everywhere I use a web browser this next week to really try it out, but it may very well become my next used browser!
 
opera on FreeBSD here. I prefer its zoom-in/out plus/minus keys to
firefox's defaults which require also a cntl key.
 
TechieSooner said:
Close tabs without having to have them active. Mainly aimed at IE- I hate the fact it cannot do this.
Click to expand...
You can do this in IE if you middle click on the tab. (admittedly not as nice as a separate button, but it is possible.)
 
DanW said:
You can do this in IE if you middle click on the tab. (admittedly not as nice as a separate button, but it is possible.)
Click to expand...
As you said- not as nice, but I did not know that was an option!

halogen said:
The download tab has a view menu which lets you set its visibility.
Click to expand...
I'll have to check that out next time I am downloading something... Thanks!
 
Well, possible problem with Opera...

Does not work with OWA... Tried having it identify as both Opera, IE, and FF... all no dice... Still researching though.

Edit- No luck. Everything I can find says to set Opera to identify itself as Opera... It works halfways I guess, but not in the layout or format it was intended to be used in (Like when first logging in- I get my listing of folders all over the screen).

One downside I guess... Keep IE around at least for OWA, as OWA is much easier than remoting into my machine.
 
I personally prefer opera. Firefox 3 has really come along way in terms of speed and almost caught up with opera, but not quite.
 
the latest opera looks horrible IMO.
ive been using opera for a couple years and have no switched to FF3, which i find to be better.
 
I used Opera 5.x - the first few builds of 7 and always seemed to switch back to Firefox for the custimizations. Opera was fast as hell but it just seemed too bloated...granted Firefox feels bloated starting up but I like its clean interface a lot more. Now seeing all these people rave about Opera 8.x and 9.x I think I'll have to give it a try as back then it was Firefox all the way and no mention of Opera.
 
rapperwith1p said:
I used Opera 5.x - the first few builds of 7 and always seemed to switch back to Firefox for the custimizations. Opera was fast as hell but it just seemed too bloated...granted Firefox feels bloated starting up but I like its clean interface a lot more. Now seeing all these people rave about Opera 8.x and 9.x I think I'll have to give it a try as back then it was Firefox all the way and no mention of Opera.
Click to expand...

You thought opera was bloated?! :confused:
 
I preferred it to earlier versions of FF....because of its speed advantage...noticeably faster, and earlier versions of FF were unstable. But since FF 2.0...I've gone to FF because of the AdBlock function..and it has been stable for me. If Opera were to have an adblock function...I'd be back to that in a heartbeat. With todays ad-bloated websites and forums looking like the Las Vegas streetside....adblock is just too good to give up.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
I preferred it to earlier versions of FF....because of its speed advantage...noticeably faster, and earlier versions of FF were unstable. But since FF 2.0...I've gone to FF because of the AdBlock function..and it has been stable for me. If Opera were to have an adblock function...I'd be back to that in a heartbeat. With todays ad-bloated websites and forums looking like the Las Vegas streetside....adblock is just too good to give up.
Click to expand...

And as such, we're not supposed to discuss adblocking software or plugins, period. ;)
 
I'm finding Opera is also slow to load images... With IE and FF- you can start reading the page before it is fully loaded... Opera just doesn't display it quite right until FULLY loaded.

Also been finding it has some display issues with some websites, as I am using it more.
Definately not something for work environment at this point.
 
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