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"hile browsers like Firefox and Netscape all implimented a quirks mode to deal with badly crafted pages, Opera did nothing"

"Today, there is nothing Opera does that can't be found in other browsers, for free."

"As a result, MANY pages rendered horribly in Opera until about version 7."

What are you FUDding about anyway? Opera 7 has a quirks mode and proper DOM support.

"Since Opera wouldn't log into Gmail at all"

It also has support for voice browsing, and sports a more streamlined user interface.

"I dropped that bloated piece of shit"

What did you say about bloat again?

"Firefox is free and absolutely better in both quality and quantity of features"

Firefox has extensions, but seriously, who can be bothered to play around with extensions when Opera has it all right there when installed, in a smaller and faster download?

"Swedish web browser"

Opera's web standards support is flawed. Period. DOM-compliant Javascript that works PERFECTLY with IE or Mozilla, blows on Opera.

Also, Try to open an XML page with XSLT stylesheet on Opera. Heck! It doesn't work. Wanna know why? Check their STUPID logic for rejecting XSLT. Apparently they confused XML+XSLT (great) with XSL-FO (horrible), and provided neither.

XSLT *was* the future. No more fighting for table rendering etc. You just displayed an xml webpage, and the browser would add ALL the necessary markup. *Instant* templating. Client side.

Just think about HOW MUCH BANDWIDTH could've been saved by using XSLT.

But Nobody will ever DARE to use xslt on their website, guess why. Because Opera doesn't support it and NEVER WILL.

Thanks a lot, Opera. Your stupidity contributed to stalling the web for another 10 years.

Opera's web standards support is flawed. Period. DOM-compliant Javascript that works PERFECTLY with IE or Mozilla, blows on Opera.

Also, Try to open an XML page with XSLT stylesheet on Opera. Heck! It doesn't work. Wanna know why? Check their STUPID logic for rejecting XSLT. Apparently they confused XML+XSLT (great) with XSL-FO (horrible), and provided neither.

XSLT *was* the future. No more fighting for table rendering etc. You just displayed an xml webpage, and the browser would add ALL the necessary markup. *Instant* templating. Client side.

Just think about HOW MUCH BANDWIDTH could've been saved by using XSLT.

But Nobody will ever DARE to use xslt on their website, guess why. Because Opera doesn't support it and NEVER WILL.

Thanks a lot, Opera. Your stupidity contributed to stalling the web for another 10 years.

"IME Opera is the least compliant, worst rendering browser. It certainly is fast though, except when you're using JavaScript and hit an Opera bug that makes it grind to a halt."

Opera is very standards compliant, and the JavaScript/DOM support in Opera 7 is fantastic. It's extremely fast, as a matter of fact.

"Talk to an Opera Zealot or Opera developer and the answer has always been the same. The site is serving bad pages to Opera. And this is generally true."

If the page had sent Opera the same as Firefox gets, it would have worked perfectly.

It's got nothing to do with zealotry. It's an explanation. You are rather rude to call people zealots just for pointing out this simple fact.

"I really wish they could have made more effort to handle errant pages than simply telling users to change the world."

The problem isn't that Opera can't handle badly coded pages. The problem is that many sites seem to block Opera on purpose for some reason. Even Yahoo Mail did this a while ago! It's explained in the Opera forums. You could change a single line of JavaScript which detected Opera to prevent it from detecting it, and everything would work fine!

When you pay you get upgrades as well.

http://www.opera.com/buy/upgrade/: All decimal upgrades within one Opera version are free (for example, upgrading from 7.23 to 7.54 is free).

It won't be outdated in six months.

The desktop product isn't the only thing they make - 2 thirds of Opera's revenues come from mobile phones.

Haven't people seen Opera http://www.opera.com/ incorporates a lot of the features talked about is pretty much free and has mouse gestures which IMHO are great....

Try Opera.

* Changing the temporary cache path?

Yes.

* No option to clear cache when done?

Yes.

* Inability to prompt me if I want scripts to run?

No.

* Prompted cookie setting control?

Yes.

* Inline images are either on or off. Eg, no ability to prevent animations (gif or otherwise) from running.
(This is frustrating. I want to see the original images, but I absolutely hate animations of any sort.)

Yes.

* No Zones feature so that I can configure certain security options for certain sites.

Cookies only. Of course, both Firefox & Opera are inherently more secure than IE.

In a previous Slashdot article (a few months ago, I can't seem to find it at the moment), a Microsoftie was quoted as saying he had installed Firefox (among other browsers). Of course, we Slashdotters razzed him for it.

Today, we have someone from Microsoft who says they haven't installed Firefox. This is decried as shameful -- how dare he criticize the application if he hasn't tried it?

Poor Microsoft. They're damned if they do, and damned if they don't. Damned if I care, though; I use Opera, myself.

"Opera is sweet, just not up to standards, quite."

The browser supports Flash. I'd be surprised if it didn't support JS. And besides, you can get Opera for Symbian devices.

Spell checker for Firefox (open source)

Spell checker for Opera (open source)

Spell checker for Internet Explorer ($15)

• No folders
• Labels
• Filters
• Email Search
• Limited contact information ;)

• No folders
• Labels
• Filters
• Email Search
• Limited contact information ;)

You can try Konqueror which I use and seems to be able to handle the iKobo site without major problems. Unfortunately for M$ users, Konqueror is bundled only with KDE which runs on FreeBSD or GNU/Linux. If you are on M$ you can try Opera but it is commercial and I haven't tested it with iKobo.

With default security on Windows XP, each user's cache is accessible to the other users. As are everyone's Outlook data files. This is not great security, but that is not Google's responsibility.

Indeed. Yet another reason I use Opera. With IE, I've never been able to figure out exactly where the cache is, much less how to kill it without trashing the OS. Not that I've tried very hard, because it's so much easier to take care of it in Opera:

* "File"
* "Delete Private Information"
* check all the boxes
* hit OK

Extremely handy when you're at work and you click on a link that didn't go where you meant for it to. Closing the browser is one thing... knowing that goatse guy isn't hiding in some system file somewhere is real peace of mind.

"more feature-packed browser that's on the cutting edge".
Yeah, cutting egde. Being the LAST browser to implement bidi support, and even now they don't get it close to right on anything but the Widnows version (I am talking about 7.53 version on both Linux and MacOSX).
http://nontroppo.org/wiki/OperaAndBiDiLanguages

Sorry, but I refuse to use a browser that displays any Hebrew/Arabic text that appears in a form widget- be it a drop down menu or the text I write in a text area- reversed, making it impossible for me to read what I am writing (and guess what are the options presented to me in the drop down menus).

Not to mention the email client and the IRC client which suffer from the same problem which makes it unusable.

It is ironic, that a non-US browser is so weak when it comes to i18n features. It is sad that Opera is the one that came out with a press release about how great they are for Hebrew-
http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2002/06/2002 0620.dml THat was over two years ago, and they still don't get it right.

I used to like Opera very much, back in Opera 4 days. But after many years, many versions, many bug reports submitted and many unfullfiled promises, I just moved on to FOSS browsers.

At least there, I can search bugzilla and see what is going on with my bug reports, and not be forced to download the next version in the hope that maybe maybe they fixed it now.

Less CSS Support? From http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/ - "Opera 7.5 supports all of CSS2.1". And I'm sure they'll support CSS3 as soon as the specification is complete.

I would consider one of Opera's big advantages over Firefox to be it's lack of bugs or general "dodgyness". Firefox's bookmarks are a prime example.

... and, even more importantly, Firefox has extensions.

Opera has plugins which are mostly just viewers or stand-alone (why do they call them plug-ins!?) programs.

Against safari? They'll probably just employ the same kind of dirty tricks they did against Opera, where they detect the user agent string, and send back broken CSS files.

Hey if you grab yourself a copy of the preview release of 7.60 http://snapshot.opera.com/windows/w760p1.html for the windows download then it works quite well with GMail if you ID at as Opera rather than the default MSIE 6.0 It seems pretty solid to me.

Go here. Or download Opera 7.61

Go here. Or download Opera 7.61

Or, install Opera (http://www.opera.com/), and spare yourself from half those steps. Sweet browser indeed.

Trojan Horse?

I thought you were refering the the possibility that they might put a trojan on their website that will pop up boxes or programs encouraging their visitors to switch.

Heheh, hijack IE's homepage to the Firefox or Opera download page... That'll teach 'em.

You can get Opera here

Install Firefox and apply an IE-like skin - of course after testing that your webapps will still work. The security record of Firefox is not perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than that of IE. If you prefer to pay money for security and support, you can always go for Opera instead.

Besides, if you're working in a company of 50 000, I'm sure you have a proper rollout-tool!

OMG. I APOLOGIZE!

I was unaware that Opera had changed ad providers, and I am appalled that they have chosen an advertising system that relays one's browsing habits to a third party.

Opera GoogleAds privacy statement.

By god. I can't believe they did such a thing. There was such an outcry in the first iteration of their sponsor-based browsing, which it turns out didn't share URIs with the advertisers, that I thought for sure they'd never do such a thing.

Shameful.

Sorry, parent poster. My bad. Opera bad, too.

Fixed link: **better** browser

The Linux version, of course.

Fixed link: **better** browser.

``Something I don't think has been promoted enough is that Firefox works brilliantly on older computers.''

I honestly think Opera does a much better job there. I find Firefox dog slow to launch and only barely acceptable in use (on a modern computer), whereas Opera just blazes away.

On the other hand, Firefox is overtaking Opera in functionality and configurability, and is much more tolerant of broken web pages.

Here Apparently you haven't ever used the free version of their browser. The ads cannot be turned off. I am proponent of not paying for somehing I can get for free, (Not steal, just free). I guess that leaves me with the Mozilla or IE browsers. I don't have to pay and I am not force fed advertising.

What sort of "interview" only includes four loaded questions? Wired gets hold of the Microsoft "security program manager", and these are all the questions they ask? I'm no M$ fanboy (though I must admit I make a living writing programs for Windows), but surely they can do better than this obvious hatchet job:

WIRED: It's been more than a month since the first news of Download.Ject, and you still haven't issued a real fix for Internet Explorer. How long is it going to take?

In other words: So, when will you stop beating your wife?

Meanwhile, Firefox and Opera look awfully appealing.

Ok, the guy really stepped in it here when he plugged Firefox (though I'm an Opera fan, myself).

What about removing capabilities from IE to beef up security?

You think you'll get him to promise to cut off "capability"-dependent programs (and their programmers) at the knees?

Seems like you're fighting a losing battle.

Objection: counsel is badgering the witness. The only appropriate answer would probably be, "Yes, we are, f*** you very much."

Here's where to download:

*nix

windows *

Here's where to download:

*nix

windows *

...Opera support...

Note that Opera 7.6 (currently in beta/development) has enhanced Gmail support. I just saw there is actually an entire website devoted to Gmail on Opera.

> What you wrote applies to GPL programs shipped with the distro only.

Not really. More and more proprietary vendors understand that users do not want to lose time with strange non-standard installers. For instance, Opera comes in RPM and DEB flavours.

> Commercial software (Acrobat Reader, Mathematica) installs into /usr/local/$somedir and that's it. The most you can expect is some links created in /usr/local/bin.

Well, if they come into non-packaged form (hence with no easy uninstall procedure), I would rather have them install into a well-defined place anyway (although I would prefer /opt rather than /usr/local), so I can just rm -fr /usr/local/foobar when I don't want them lying around anymore.

> I'd like to see a Mathematic .rpm package conforming to FHS, but that's just a dream.

That's a sorry situation, indeed. Did you try to voice your concerns to Wolfram ? I'm not a Mathematica user, but I seem to remember it's an expensive piece of software, hence I would expect to get good support for my money, including adequate packages for the mainstream distros. And since such a sophisticated software probably has a fair number of Linux users (at least I would think so), there's probably a good chance the publisher will do something. Just a guess...

Bah, it works great in the best browser on Earth, Opera.

FYI Opera's M2 email client already does this searching thingy (more about it) and not having to download emails especialy the ones with attachements is a *good thing*.

No, I'm sure he means 7.5. Of course, 7.54 is out by now.

You mean like in this screenshot? Yeah, I wonder how it's possible to get any work done with all of that clutter. Better to download the extra 7MB for Mozilla instead.

My favourite presentation system. Shouldn't be difficult to add support in Firefox, Safari, etc; nothing in it that's not in the CSS spec.

If your phone can run Opera (Nokia Series 60, SE P800, P900) then it can read pretty much any version of HTML or XHTML.

The disadvantage is that it will download huge images then resize them to fit. That makes it expensive when you're paying for GPRS by the KiloByte. Fortunately if you make a mobile stylesheet you can use CSS3 to selectively replace images with their alt text using img#myimage {content: attr(alt)}

Opera for example doesn't just action any URL type. It will only pass on those that have been configured to be trusted.

Many alternative browsers like Opera (which I use at work) and Safari (which I use at home) allow you to identify the browser as IE 6.0. I believe this is the default setting for Opera. So those statistics can't be relied upon for the true number of IE and non-IE browsers.

(Warning! Will crash non patched browsers!)

How is my post a flamebait? I was used to the original RDF site summary definition, and surprised to see there were others... Naming conventions nonwithstanding, I still like RSS and use it a lot now that my browser is RSS-enabled.

right here