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People really are in wonder when they discovere that there are "browsers" other then IE and seen extatic when they discovere "a new one".

Today in the newspaper (article (Dutch)) they wrote "Internet Explorer has a new competitor, called Opera!"... new...12 years isn't as new to me...

Opera has been following the same pattern for years.

Major releases are terribly buggy with lots of new stuff. Except that every-other major release is purely for marketing reasons, and isn't really a major release.

If I remember correctly, the real upgrades were 7, 6, 4, and 2, which means that 9 as a buggy mess is long over due. Opera 1 was never released, so it's probably safe to call 2 the major release.

A timeline can be found here.

The fidgety numbered ones are stable. 8.54 will probably be the most stable opera for a while. I still have fond memories of 3.62, though I'll be damned if I could find a site that would let you on with it.

The Opera community page also has a slide show about its history. There are some interesting snap shots featured.

Also, Opera version History for the interested.

I can't download 8 (servers are too slow) but I can tell you that not using the features you don't like is easier said than done.

Some people like all of Opera's features, but to me, they just get in the way. The menus in Firefox are organised and small enough for me to use them effectively; in Opera, I always had to scan the menus looking for the option I wanted. See this and this as examples.

As another example, the preferences dialog box (see here. Opera, with all its options and settings, has 21 different tabs for them, compared to Firefox's five. A benefit of Firefox's extension system is that I know where all the preferences are, instead of having to hunt for them. Also, the ones hardly anyone should have to change are in about:config in Firefox.

I know everyone has their own opinion and all that, but sometimes it is not as easy as you'd think to navigate such a featureful program, and I wanted to point that out. That, and Firefox is working for me fine right now (and gestures on a touchpad = tricky), so I have no reason to use Opera.

Oh, and if your Adblock settings block things like that, they're too lenient. Try blocking ad companies, such as *googlesyndication* or *ad.doubleclick* for better results.

Don't quote me on this (it was before I started using Opera full-time), but I believe they added tabbed browsing around version 4. If you feel like installing it, you can download old versions here: Opera browser version history

It works under the 'everything is a database' premise for email, with 'smart filters', multiple views, multiple email integration, everything controlled via CSS and much, much more.

It's free as in beer, too.

Actually it is different and therefore radical. Mozilla and others can either copy or move messages into other folders. In Opera, all messages remain in "recieved". The views you set up or similar to database queries. They merely show you what is there. This is different than any other product on the market (that I know of). Also, M2 is extremly fast. The best overview can be found at the M2 tutorial.