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Opera doesn't allow for the choice to switch between rendering engines, but it doesn't really need to. The newest version of Opera, 8.50, enables Browser Javascript (js file run on every page) by default, and uses a javascript file that automatically patches sites and scripts to work correctly with Opera. It might be argued that this encourages lax programming, but if your site or script is listed as something that automatically gets fixed (because it's broken), it DOES put some pressure on you to fix it.

From http://opera.com/docs/browserjs/ :

Patched sites:

adidas.com
Fixes non-standard-compliant usage of getYear instead of getFullYear.

aol.com
Prevents content from obscuring login and search screens.
Fixes overlapping content.

airfrance.fr
Fixes non-standard usage of getYear instead of getFullYear.

atomfilms.com and shockwave.com
Changes browser detect to make the plug-in detection work in Opera.

budget.com
Prevents content from obscuring a menu.

cbsnews.com
Changes browser detect to make RealPlayer plugin detection work.

cnn.com
Fixes overlapping content.

comsec.com.au
Changes browser detect to make the menu work in Opera.

huskers.com
Prevents old menu from hiding entire site.

peopleclick.com
Changes browser detect to make the page correctly use XMLHttpRequest in Opera.

msdn.microsoft.com
Changes browser detect to make the page scripts run in Opera.
Fixes invalid scripts to make the data tables collapse correctly.
Makes the version compatibility tables work.
Changes browser detect to provide access to the demonstrations.

music.download.com
Fixes browser detection in outdated JavaScript library.

nvidia.com
Prevents content from obscuring a menu.

scandinavian.net
Prevents a problem that caused select elements to reset.

viamichelin.com
Corrects browser detection to make page use DOM2 Events-compatible code.

washingtonpost.com
Corrects browser detection to get standards-compatible functions.

yahoo.com
Fixes an eternal loop in a script, prevents Opera from freezing.
Works around browser detection in SBC Yahoo portal.

Patched scripts:
Old versions of the following popular menu scripts, all of which fail in Opera:

"Sothink menus" versions 3.72 and earlier; changes browser detect to make the menus use the correct code in Opera.
"Milonic menus": changes browser detect to make the menus use the correct code in Opera.
"HierMenus": changes browser detect so the menu is not disabled in Opera.
"Likno AllWebMenus", builds earlier than 498; changes browser detect to make the menus use the correct code in Opera.
"Menu/Pop Menu": (HV Menu); changes browser detect so the menu is not disabled in Opera.
"Ultimate Dropdown Menu": changes browser detect so the menu is not disabled in Opera.
"OpenCube menus": changes browser detect to make the menus use the correct code in Opera.
"Coolmenus": changes browser detect to make the menus use the correct code in Opera.
"DynAPI": changes browser detect to make the library use the correct code in Opera.

Living in a cave... or maybe using a better browser.

I like Windows. I like the fact it is able to do suspend/hibernate/resume on my laptop without crashing, and it is able to use my graphics card drivers to make the smooth scrolling in Opera extremely smooth, and I didn't have to compile/reinstall the kernel in order to GET these graphics drivers.

I like the third party software, last time I was on a Mac there was absolutely no way to use videoconferencing with the three major IM platforms (Thats changed since iChat A/V came out, but is there anything available for Linux?).

I like that I can run Photoshop, and use a familiar interface that I can theme to my hearts content. I'm also able to run Free Software like Firefox (meshes best with Windows, IMO), GAIM, and others from even this article, but still have a healthy set of closed source apps when FOSS apps aren't able to match them (still haven't found a replacement for Office Outlook 2003).

Basically, Windows works for me right now. I enjoy using my computer with Windows on it. I'm sure I'd enjoy having a Mac (waiting for the x86 Powerbooks), and I have run Linux, but right now Windows is the best fit.

Here use this site, VelocityBoy: http://nontroppo.org/wiki/Opera

It's THE site for people just starting to use Opera. It shows you how to block ads, add search sites like wikipeda to your custom searches, set Opera to identify as IE on specific sites only, Heck you could even learn to edit your Opera6.ini and add an "Open Firefox" to your File Menu.

And don't forget to install spell check: http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/opera/spell check/

Actually, Opera is now permanently ad free. http://www.opera.com/

One could always try using a browser that supports integrated cookie preferences on both a global scale and also on a site-by-site basis, for whether cookies are accepted or not, whether they get treated as session cookies or not, and even I think how individual cookies from a domain get treated ... Opera's cookie handling really is miles ahead of any other browser I've tried.

Opera 8 supports all of CSS2.1 with the exception of: The visibility: collapse and white-space: pre-line property values [1]

Opera's internal buils are very close to passing Acid2.

Opera 9, AKA Merlin, is adding XSLT, designMode, more CSS3 stuff and "HTML5".

The page may look better in Mozilla, but it's god-awful in konqueror... The teal article header background now takes up over an entire page for the first article on the page (including in comments view). The input boxes are now way to spaced out - it looks like below (only worse):

The teal article header has been given height:100% and this causes bugs in many browsers that interpret height:100% as 100% of the screen or window or something. Therefore height:100% should not be used.

The bug effects Internet Explorer 5*, Opera 5*, and as you said Konqueror EL3. The complaint has been made, yet no one is fixing it. I hope it doesn't take 8 years.

We should be able to disable stylesheets in our browsers according to the accessibility guidelines, yet the only browser that lets you is Opera, (Shift + G and/or Alt + P, Advanced, Content, Style options...). Therefore, /. needs to add an option to disable styles in preferences.

Make a new text doc and paste my CSS in it, then rename it whatever.css and in mozilla I recommend finding the Web Developer extension, or maybe the EditCSS extention.

The /. Light version had no styling before, but now it has stylesheets, so you have to disable All Styles then CSS Add Style with webdeveloper plugin. Don't know a better way at this point, someone Pleas tell me.

You can also try and add it to you chrome\userContent-example.css but it might just cascade.

Opera does a better job with user CSS, and it's now free. Opera is how I got hooked on User CSS.

Press: Alt + P, Advanced, Content, Style options...
Then when browsing, hit Shift + G or hit the glasses and/or the Document button.
(Doing Shift + G without specifying a stylesheet will just strip the styles out.)

Here's another small one:

body,td{font-size:12px;
font-family:verdana,sans-serif;} /* optional */
h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,a[name] b{display:block;background:#696;color:#eff;margin: 0;padding-left:3px;}
td td{background:#cdc;}
ul{margin:1em;}
b{font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;} /* font optional */

The problem is not that security is being handled by obscurity in some browsers. The problem is that some browser vendors are not as aggressive in patching security problems as other vendors are.

An empty file might do the trick as this should make your browser use it's default fonts and colours etc.

Are you sure about that?!

How to get slashdot/your browser to use your css file instead of the default one defined in the HTML might be a little trickier... Anyone got any ideas?

Yeah. Use opera, it's free now.

Press: Alt + P, Advanced, Content, Style options...

Then when browsing, hit Shift + G formerly Ctrl + G. (Or hit the glasses and/or the Document button.)

In Fire Fox you have to use the Web Developer Extension, disable styles, the add style.

IE is options Accessibility or something, but it just cascades and you have to add ! important and override all the stylesheet declaration:

body,td,* {color:black;background:white;}

I'm not going to waste my time.

The only browser that gets this right is Opera.

Meanwhile, we Opera users just keep chuggin' along. I got sick of this crap months ago and went to Opera which is faster, takes half the memory, and offers more features in a 5MB download.

Sorry to shill, but hey, Opera got dumped on for so long on Slashdot just for having banner ads (you know, just like Slashdot's banner ads...), and now that it's free, there's no reason not to use it full-time. Your tabbed browsing came from Opera, after all...

...if they are going to release a free browser as well ;)

How does Firefox make money? With searches of course. Opera will do the same.

There are some slight changes

(please understand this is a joke)

Of coure you were joking, Firefox is the most unstable piece of software I ever've used. It crashes at least five times per hour used, and most versions won't even compile without segfaulting the compiler.

Opera otoh is quite stable.

You're aware that they freed it earlier in the week, right? http://opera.com/free/

Oh yes, they want to make money off the desktop version too, don't you worry.

The OPERA browser is now freeware. No advertisements, no nag screens.

Security by obscurity?

I was able to download the linux version with no problems... they also have versions for Mac, Free BSD and Solaris. Check it out at http://opera.com/download/index.dml?platform

Mozilla is a disaster waiting to happen. It's that simple. A large portion of the browser is written in JavaScript. In fact, the browser's UI JavaScript can actually call JavaScript functions located in an HTML page.

Eventually someone is going to figure out how to reverse the process and call "chrome" JavaScript from "non-chrome" JavaScript, and then it's all over. Since JavaScript can access literally anything in Mozilla, you've got a nice cross-platform vulnerability waiting to happen.

Extensions are proof enough of this. Yes, extensions can add a lot of functionality - but there really isn't that much different between an extension and a web page.

Internet Explorer may be a security joke now, but if Mozilla ever gains any popularity, it'll be an even bigger joke than Internet Explorer. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

The Symantec report is proof that this is starting to happen. If you want to use a secure browser, they're out there, but Mozilla most certainly ISN'T one.

Greasemonkey-like functionality is built into Opera. It's called user javascript. It's not 100% compatible, but it's pretty powerful nonetheless.

Thanks. Please feel free to send it to the Opera people... I'd love it if they'd publish a full list of all of the functions of the application. Opera does have a "features list," but they skip a lot.

I'm still learning new things that it does and forgetting the old. And they keep adding stuff! If you've grabbed 8.50, go up to view->fit to window width, then try scaling your window down really small. Yup, they're scaling everything intelligently to keep the person from having to scroll. And thanks to menu.ini, that would be pretty easy to add to a right-click menu. I hope they make this the standard behavior in future builds.

I also forgot that you can view the source of an HTML file, edit it, save it, and reload from cache. (tools->advanced->Reload From Cache) That way you can see changes immediately as if they had come from the server, but without actually uploading them.

There is also a ton of hidden functionality, like disabling the splash screen while editing a preferences.ini file. The customization forums on Opera's site are full of juicy little tidbits, and lots of the ini files have their own internal documentation.

I'm sorry you missed Opera 3.65... That was a really stable build. I don't know if I could have put up with 4.x for long.

Are you blind? Opera 8.5 is for Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris. I'm running it right now on linux. Right at the special http://opera.com/ splash they have a little dropdown box to choose the version, and on the main site, if you go on the download page, just click the little Linux tab. It's also on the FTP server, and there are torrents as well.

My mistake. I followed the link in the article, and it too me to http://my.opera.com/community/party/ Where it says, on the right hand side- "No more free drinks! Cheers guys, it was a blast! Millions of people (literally) got their free registration code at our party, but the offer is now over. But don't despair - you can still get Opera for free by joining our affiliate program. Just put an Opera-button on your webpage, get 250 people to click it, and you're home free!"

Imagine Firefox with most of its plugins in a smaller, more responsive package, and not feeling that you are using a Frankenbrowser.

"yep open-source kills another business."

Opera's page on UserJS, including how to use greasemonkey scripts virtually unmodified

The list of items you've provided is pretty big; however a lot of these are built-in to Opera. In addition, you get some very interesting capabilities like the ones I outline below, including a tight js debugger, and voiceXML support in websites.

First off, I worked for the group that partnered with Opera to create this, but the Voice plugin for Opera is also free!

Check http://www.opera.com/voice for information about the XHTML + Voice standard that is implemented here. X+V is an open standard - go read the spec for information, and Opera's voice development page for code introductions.
For those that downloaded the new 8.x build, go to the Advanced tab in your Preferences and tick the enable box for the "Voice" option. This will download a 10 megabyte add-on that allows voice interactions with Opera. In addition, you can control websites that support X+V! See some basic examples.

More information from a technical perspective can be found at IBM's Multimodal Software Group.

Also, see the WebDevToolbar for an INCREDIBLY handy toolbar for web developers debugging complicated interactive web apps. You get trace features for your javascript, the ability to inspect the DOM for a given page and many other introspection features. The handiest feature is a javascript shell for tight debugging of applications inside the browser.

~ Mike

The list of items you've provided is pretty big; however a lot of these are built-in to Opera. In addition, you get some very interesting capabilities like the ones I outline below, including a tight js debugger, and voiceXML support in websites.

First off, I worked for the group that partnered with Opera to create this, but the Voice plugin for Opera is also free!

Check http://www.opera.com/voice for information about the XHTML + Voice standard that is implemented here. X+V is an open standard - go read the spec for information, and Opera's voice development page for code introductions.
For those that downloaded the new 8.x build, go to the Advanced tab in your Preferences and tick the enable box for the "Voice" option. This will download a 10 megabyte add-on that allows voice interactions with Opera. In addition, you can control websites that support X+V! See some basic examples.

More information from a technical perspective can be found at IBM's Multimodal Software Group.

Also, see the WebDevToolbar for an INCREDIBLY handy toolbar for web developers debugging complicated interactive web apps. You get trace features for your javascript, the ability to inspect the DOM for a given page and many other introspection features. The handiest feature is a javascript shell for tight debugging of applications inside the browser.

~ Mike

The list of items you've provided is pretty big; however a lot of these are built-in to Opera. In addition, you get some very interesting capabilities like the ones I outline below, including a tight js debugger, and voiceXML support in websites.

First off, I worked for the group that partnered with Opera to create this, but the Voice plugin for Opera is also free!

Check http://www.opera.com/voice for information about the XHTML + Voice standard that is implemented here. X+V is an open standard - go read the spec for information, and Opera's voice development page for code introductions.
For those that downloaded the new 8.x build, go to the Advanced tab in your Preferences and tick the enable box for the "Voice" option. This will download a 10 megabyte add-on that allows voice interactions with Opera. In addition, you can control websites that support X+V! See some basic examples.

More information from a technical perspective can be found at IBM's Multimodal Software Group.

Also, see the WebDevToolbar for an INCREDIBLY handy toolbar for web developers debugging complicated interactive web apps. You get trace features for your javascript, the ability to inspect the DOM for a given page and many other introspection features. The handiest feature is a javascript shell for tight debugging of applications inside the browser.

~ Mike

HINT ;-)

The biggest Opera security problem recently was the news-making cross-platform popup origin spoofing vulnerability. Secuna released a security advisory to the general public on 6/21/2005. Opera fixed it with Opera 8.01 on 6/16/2005, five days before the report was released. Firefox, on the other hand, took until 7/12/2005 to fix it in Firefox 1.0.5, three weeks after the advisory's public release.

Also, this vulnerability was the biggest security fix in Opera 8.01; Firefox 1.0.5 fixed 9 vulnerabilities that were more severe.

The biggest Opera security problem recently was the news-making cross-platform popup origin spoofing vulnerability. Secuna released a security advisory to the general public on 6/21/2005. Opera fixed it with Opera 8.01 on 6/16/2005, five days before the report was released. Firefox, on the other hand, took until 7/12/2005 to fix it in Firefox 1.0.5, three weeks after the advisory's public release.

Also, this vulnerability was the biggest security fix in Opera 8.01; Firefox 1.0.5 fixed 9 vulnerabilities that were more severe.

I was a longtime FireFox user but when it started eating memory and freezing for several long seconds every couple of minutes I switched to Opera just a few weeks ago.

The one feature from FireFox that I miss the most is the Adblock extension. There are solutions for this in Opera, but none of them seemed as intuitive and easy to use as Adblock.

http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id= 102270

So I still keep Firefox around and for occasions when I need to go to ad-heavy sites.

nyenyec

You're wrong:
http://www.opera.com/download/index.dml?platform=m ac

From http://opera.com/img/screenshots/opera8-tabbed-bro wsing.jpg : "When travelling through the diversity of Norway, you might loose track of time. Loosing track of time, might make you feel good."
Arrg. Why do people have such problems with lose (as in not be able to find), and loose (not tight). You can't loose time, unless it's wrapped tightly around something.

"I'm curious how they are going to make profit off of a free browser..."

Actually, Opera 8.5 does not have torrent support. Currently, it's only available on the Technical Preview (8.10TP2).

1. Turn off the evil javascript
2. Click here
3. Click linux tab
4. Click the evil-free page link in the info box

Looks like they still want $29 for Opera for my series 60 Nokia cellphone.

I don't know what you were looking at. If you go to Opera.com it clearly states (multiple times) that the browser is now free. More information is available at Opera.com/free or in the official press release.

This isn't a "limited time thing".

I don't know what you were looking at. If you go to Opera.com it clearly states (multiple times) that the browser is now free. More information is available at Opera.com/free or in the official press release.

This isn't a "limited time thing".

I don't know what you were looking at. If you go to Opera.com it clearly states (multiple times) that the browser is now free. More information is available at Opera.com/free or in the official press release.

This isn't a "limited time thing".

If you don't like the way it looks, the Opera Community site has about 40 skins you can try out.

Enjoy

http://opera.com/download/?platform=linux&oldbrows er=1

It's innovative.

Understand that I'm saying this as a Firefox user - Firefox really isn't very innovative at all, it just happens to be a nice implementation of things previously found elsewhere.

Opera already supports SVG. Opera had its own version of Greasemonkey first. Opera had built-in support for RSS first. Opera supports parts of aural CSS. Opera supports things like xml:id. Although Firefox is lauded as the "standards-based" web browser, Opera supports absolutely loads of things that Firefox doesn't.

I'm using opera mini since a few weeks and it absolutely rocks. It has literally changed my mobile life - any info I might think at is now in the palm of my hands, fast and cheap, and on any regular lightweight mobile phone. Too bad opera didn't make it a free offer, too, I had to let a norwegian friend get a copy for me. But for me, at least, Opera, funded 1994, finally seems to start becoming important. Good move.

They still charge for premium support and versions of Opera for mobile devices.

Oh, and site compatability.

Seriously, I love everything about opera except printing. I browse using opera, print using firefox, and access MSIE-only sites (just a few that really don't work; most just say they don't) with konqueror.

patchwork, patchwork, patchwork.