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You heard right, get Opera version 7.0 beta 1 before the page gets slashdotted. Much better than M$ bloated IE crap or that buggy and experimental open source Mozilla browser.

HTTP://WWW.OPERA.COM

HOW ABOUT MENTIONING THAT OPERA HAS REACHED VERSION 7 BETA! Now thats what i call news. Go to OPERA.COM to find out more.

For the moment I ditched Peanut Linux, and went on with Vector Linux, but so far I didn't get X running (not that I tried very long).

JavaScript is good for many things, like eliminating travel to server for doing basic input checks, make HTML documents smaller (and thereby faster to transmit), dynamically creating HTML in a frame etc. Other people can probably give you more examples.

If you got a problem with popup ads, then please download the Opera browser... you'll find F12 to be your best friend. ;)

If you really want to crusade against something, then VB script is a better candidate or why not Outlook... the worst virus spreading software ever created.

agreed.

the "savvy user" is not hunting around the internet for scrolling marques or 150kb animated gifs - they want content and usability. a good web site should be able to stand alone, without needing endless "pretty" crap to keep the surfer interested.

google is one of the most visited sites on the internet, and what's on its home page? very little. it loads fast, is highly usable, and serves it's purpose excellently. there are very few sites on the internet that do this well.

i think most web designers realise this. most pages for the "savvy user" (slashdot being an example) are functional, and really cut through the crap. check out a web site for a less particular demographic (how about disney - oooh! pictures! sounds!), and the site design is certainly different.

and web design brings about another sore point - browser compatability. seeing as most of the world uses ie now, nobody seems to care about what the pages look like in different browsers. i'd never use netscape (personally, i use opera, but i wish they'd get their game together just so there'd be more variation in browsers. those responsible for making the browsers would have to stick to the standards more closely, which would lead to greater browser compatability for all sites (hopefully!).


chris.

And... just because some "flock of narrow-minded OS zealots" says something's good, it must really be bad? After all, enthusiasm itself is a bad thing, right? I agree that many times people blatantly bash non-OSS products just because source code wasn't included, but have you (Coward) ever tried a different browser? Or are you too narrow-minded to try out other products?

So, IE is better because it does not include tabbed browsing, excellent cookie management, selective/smart/total pop-up ad blocking, mouse gestures, customizable default stylesheets, different themes, image loop control, smaller memory footprint, faster rendering (in many cases), and many other features?

I refer you to (available in Windows and Linux):
Phoenix
Mozilla
Opera (by the way, proprietary, but good just the same)

If you are disabled or have a preference for the keyboard, you should know that Opera doesn't support tabindex or accesskey . That isn't mentioned in their accessibility pages though. These features have been defined since HTML 4.0 BTW.

If you are disabled or have a preference for the keyboard, you should know that Opera doesn't support tabindex or accesskey . That isn't mentioned in their accessibility pages though. These features have been defined since HTML 4.0 BTW.

Opera IMO works better then mozilla and has an option to identify itself as MSIE. Normally when I find a site that requires IE I flip opera to identify as IE and it all works :-) Awesome Browser

Opera, maybe? :-)

One way would be to use the browser ID to add a little 'info' strip to the top of pages, specifically for IE users. It could be just a small one-line table at the top of pages -- maybe with a contrasting background to be noticeable, and say something like:

"Internet Explorer has several vulnerabilities that may allow others to take over your machine. You may want to apply fixes or try alternatives.

I can't find the link to the 'master list' of unpatched IE flaws, I had it bookmarked somewhere.. But I would imagine using the browser ID string the client sends to apache, this could be done in PHP or something similar. Yeah, it'd probably be a performance hit, but for anything but the biggest sites, it might work.

I've also noticed that some IE browsers appear to be sending the actual patch revision! Example:

217.81.215.xxx - - [06/Nov/2002:00:00:19 -0600] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 34629 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; QXW0339a; Q312461; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"

Q312461 leads us to a MS Knowledgebase

article. I've no idea what the QXW0339a is, though.

Interesting. So one could go so far as to take the patch version off the browser ID string, check it against a database of strings, and return a comment that mentions the serious vulnerabilities affecting that version. I'd be happy to just run something that added a small tagline to the top of pages for all IE browsers, though. The more sites that did something like this, the more the word would get out. I think it'd be productive. :)

I wanted to spend some quality time with Open Source by running Mozilla, but my need for a stable browser overrode my desire to contribute to the Greater Good.

So I run Opera -- the free version, with the annoying banner ad -- about 75% of the time. About 10% of my surfing is on He That Shall Not Be Named for sites that don't support Opera properly (like Citibank), and the other 15% is spent with Lynx. The Lynx time rises to near 100% at work, where it's a Good Thing to be able to surf without using a graphical browser.

"The current price for Opera is: USD 29"

The thing is Microsoft can just kill ANY software product that needs a profit to survive. Netscape this or that, could put could not put blah blah. Microsoft doesn't need to argue. They can decide they want Netscape to die and just invest X money on a bundled broswer. That's it, Netscape HAS to close.

Then how does Opera Software stay afloat?

I used to be a huge fan of Netscape. In many ways, NS3/X11 was (and still is) one of the best browsers ever made. Back when the phrase "browser wars" had any relevance, I consistently rooted for Netscape, and I have always and likely will always despise MSIE.

But the sad fact is that Netscape lost because they got overconfident and started sucking. Badly. NS4 was an unadulterated pile of tripe on every platform I've ever had the misfortune to see it running on. (I'm of the firm opinion that Netscape's sending JWZ to play on other projects was a large reason for this.)

From extremely unstable Java, JavaScript, and plugin handling, to a broken DOM, to broken font handling, to simple unmitigated flouting of Web standards, NS4 was a nightmare for developers, system administrators, and end users. And let's not forget that NS4's claim of implementing CSS, while deploying the most insane and broken implementation known to humanity, singlehandedly held back the Web by 2 or 3 years.

My experience with Netscape, the company, seems to bear this out. When I worked for a large company supposedly in a "strategic alliance" with them, they refused to even answer the phone when their phones showed it was us calling. I personally knew several people tasked with deploying Netscape products at the enterprise level, and the painful and unsupported hacks we had to put in place leave me cringing even now. We were supposed to be using the iPlanet server everywhere, but my manager had us use Apache and a third-party servlet engine after Netscape refused to implement basic Java servlet APIs and their configuration manager trashed our configs. When I later worked at a startup, we had one of the Netscape execs at our company, and he was still convinced that his old company's server products would win the day. Netcraft statistics meant nothing to him -- it was as if they didn't even exist -- and he seemed puzzled why everyone refused to mouth platitudes about it.

I use (unbranded) Mozilla now, and I'm very happy with it, but keep in mind that this is basically a complete redesign and rewrite of Netscape, years too late. Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror, and other browsers may win back market share, but it is far too late for Netscape, the company, and for good reason.

Well, I suppose it's time to try Opera. It's not in the ports collecton yet, but is availaible here.

Opera has an OS/2 version. You figure it out.

--- Forunately it won't matter for anyone with popups disabled, but Internet Explorer users beware.. don't click on the "possible scenario" link. --

Ahhh, the joys of browsing with Opera... No popups for me!

:-)

Oh, that's right, you only have to design for IE now. Silly me, I forgot that all the other browsers are dead. That, or maybe, they all render DHTML exactly the same now? (HAHAHA)

(Well, maybe Lynx is dead, it's web page seems to be down...)

In the regular prefs and the "quick prefs" (F12 under Windows version) Opera lets you turn off referrer logging. The only time I need to turn it on is certain sites, like my credit union, which is no big deal...

I use Netscape v3.04 and the Microsoft browser v4.0. As much as I hate to abet the Microsoft juggernaut, this section looks a lot better with the MS browser.

I'm pretty sure both those browsers are grossly non-compliant with the HTML standards. If you'd like to view the web properly, get a browser that complies.

• Mozilla
• Opera

Oh, and Opera supports WML as well.

So with WAP taking up extra resources to develop a separate WAP site and the biggest handheld browser being able to view existing sites without people bothering to rewrite them for handhelds... I guess we have a winner, don't we? And it's not WAP.

then use opera
www.opera.com

There's also some more background information about these pages on the Opera website.

True, nobody *needs* this, but it does do what is does well.

The only website I'd like to view on my phone is the yellow pages.

Instead of presenting table content in columns and rows, tables are reformatted into a one-dimensional structure that better fits smaller screens.

This is why they are working on a fully modular implementation for 0.5, so that you can get the browser, only the browser, but also get mail and news if you want it, and maybe those who like Chatzilla can get that, too.

In a way I think that Phoenix is a great idea - I've always wondered why Mozilla needed to be so huge and slow compared to my old favorite Opera. However, I can't help but think it's really Skipstone done rong. If they're trashing Mozilla compatibility for speed, why keep XUL? I love GTK+ and I think Skipstone makes for a great browser, although it does need some bugs fixed, and it's still too big. I think Dillo is for me, but not functional enough to be usable.

BTW I ran into a really annoying bug with Mozilla's mail client (1.1) the other day. Some of my accounts can't send mail because Mozilla ``can't find SMTP server %S''. Changing things in the accout setting didn't help, so I edited my prefs.js by hand (I had only one SMTP server configured, so I just did a s/smtp[0-9]/smtp1/g. This fixed the problem for a while, then it reappeared. I edited my prefs.js again, and now the mail client allocates outrageous amounts of memory on startup (hundreds of megabytes). I can't really file a bug report because I don't know what triggers either bug, can anybody help me?

---
One day, authors will be judged by the content of their sites, and not the color of their characters.

I was on www.foxnews.com and if you leave it up for 5 min or so with javascript turned on it pops up. I think its just an add that looks like a windows message.

But seriously, this NetBIOS messenger problem is quite real, and is (almost) entirely the fault of the end-user. Putting a Windows machine on the Internet without some form of firewall (software or hardware) is an invitation to get violated in some way or another. All I have to say is, these people are already once lucky - their file and print shares are exposed to the world, so with a bit of password trickery (or exposing one of the many NETBIOS vulnerabilities that exist at various patch levels of each of the Windows OS variants) one can easily access the data and/or send malicious print jobs (hint: MS Paint, black background, 100 copies. Else, SPAM)

There are also cases of people who actually run/administer a firewall that's obviously mis-configured to the point of being futile, so don't expect the mere presence of such a thing to protect you. One individual on the Security Focus Incidents mailing list is reporting this very same 'problem' on his network running Microsoft ISA firewall.

If you're unable (for whatever reason) to install a software firewall, obtain and configure an Internet router. There are dozens (hundreds) on the market, and the vast majority of them (that we've dealt with/sold) come with port forwarding to the internal machines disabled per default. For single-computer owners, SMC makes a one-port Internet router that could simply be installed inline with the users' cable/DSL 'modem' for security and peace of mind. Moreover, it saves the user from having to install annoying PPPoE client software on their machines.

Like the poster before alluded (rather amusingly) to; if you leave your door ajar, don't be surprised when you come home to find people roosting in your house, or that some of your things are missing. Sure, the person may have broken the law, but putting out the welcome mat is just asking for trouble.

I can't find the story on SlashDot but the same company was suppose to bring on this PDA for Christmas. They has created thier own XML language.

I posted this earlier, but I think the Simputer is a different baby. Kaii will use Opera and hence presumably feature more mainstream markup languages.

It's the second Indian PDA, after Simputer.

Incidentally, the Simputer has also been developed in Bangalore and runs GNU/Linux as its OS, although it's being developed by a non-profit organisation. Interestingly, the Simputer runs a browser for IML (seems to be a language developed by the Trust), while Kaii runs Opera.

First things first. Singapore has a (Government-linked?) cable company that delivers satellite television and internet over cable. It also has a local English-language news channel, three primetime English channels (one of them being 24 hours), delivered by two media companies. In fact, I seem to be finding a lot of familiar names out there in those pages; do the names "Con Air", "Seinfield", "CSI", "Star Trek - Enterprise" and "Survivor" ring any bells?

And oh, if you are worried about censorship in Singapore, consider the webcast of a familiar news channel. Not all video content there is free of course, but heck, it's still $39.95 a year.

Now you were saying....?

Obligatory Warning:- SCV's crummy webpages are apparently designed to perform best in IE alone. I don't know if it's me, but the pages are rendering bad in Opera.

This is just inconsiderate interface-design. Nobody really wants to have to hover-and-peek before every click.

A few minor points:

• The Web site isn't supposed to dictate interface. Interface is up to the browser. Web sites consist of text and links. It's up to the user agent to determine how to present the embedded metadata.
• That's the point of the status bar. If you find it too difficult to glance at the bottom of the screen, use a browser that lets you reposition the status bar. Or you could hack an existing one.
• Obviously you haven't been on Slashdot that long.

libXm.so should be installed with X in /usr/X11R6/lib. Try adding a symlink from /usr/X11R6/lib/libXm.so to whatever version you have installed there and running opera.

I found the solution to getting opera working under RedHat 7.3 here.

In somewhat related news, Opera released a new beta version of their browser last night, Norwegian time. It has many new features, including improved anti-alias and Java handling. The "hidden" distribution place is here. Incidentally, native FreeBSD builds are provided for the first time.

I'd rather have popups.. I use Opera ;)

- DRFSR

Either that, or Opera.

I'd switch to Konqueror in a heartbeat if it supported a way to hand off the URL of a link to another program, though. I love Konqueror, but I love Downloader for X more.

Offtopic, but did are KDE developers going nuts on optimizations? Built 3.0.3 yesterday, and it just flies on my old K6-500.

Does anyone know if it's possible to selectively allow pop-ups on some sites you visit, but disallow from all others?

Uhm, not excatly what you ask. Well not what you ask at all.

However, I just learned the other day that Opera can do image blocking using a hidden preferences system. See the kiosk description and scroll down to URL filtering. The filter actually works for any URL, not just images, and accepts wildcards.

To get this back on topic, I hereby express that it would be nice if Mozilla would also accept wildcards in its blocking systems. "This site" is not exactly fine-grained.

If you had actually just taken the time to go to their website , you would have seen it does run on Solaris. The Linux version seems indeed to be x86 only, but the Solaris version is for SPARC. I don't know what it's worth, I don't have a SPARC handy ;-) Only my G3 and diverse x86. Sorry, can't help you further than that.

A browser is never forced to use the document's suggestions for display in well made documents. Well made documents also provide detailed (but flexible) suggested criteria for display. Embedding fonts is hinting, and if someone is breaking web pages by requiring included fonts for proper display then they are abusing the spirit of both CSS and font embedding. The current font embedding technologies are based on CSS, which has the goal of making a site look good both on 75 and 133 dpi. If the default suggested size of the text really bothers you that much, get a browser that supports one-button usage of your own stylesheet.

Not sure about window dimensions and the ilk, since I use it in tabbed mode, but Opera will certainly let you carry on where you left off.

Goblin

I do all the time (or did, before installing OpenOffice.org), and I'm not a lawyer. I'd much rather have a word processor where I can see the "source" (through the "reveal codes" feature) than one where I have to struggle against the black box (e.g., Word), which forces the user to either agree with invalid assumptions about what the user wants to do, or go through grotesque convolutions to work around those assumptions. Word is a terrible mess of counter-intuitive design; WordPerfect empowers the user. Unfortunately, the fatal-error bugginess prevents me from calling WP "superior" to Word, because stability is a mighty important "feature." (That's a lesson that Opera still needs to learn, IMHO, but I digress...)

...Quattro oh yuck...

Heh, no argument there!

So when they need to learn Word and Excel because they need to know them to get a job in the real world they will have to by MS Office.

Why? Because "they" are such cretins that they can't learn one word processor and apply the same general concepts to another? I learned on WP, and I work at a place that requires Word. Did I do what your assumption implies, and go out and buy Word? Nope, I still use WP. Somebody who can't take the basics from one word processor to another has bigger problems to face in getting a job than learning the "wrong" word processor!

In Opera, MDI windows are not necessarily maximized.

For a very simple example: Screenshot @ Opera.com

I don't really see the difference between forced-fullscreen MDI and SDI.

"Actually, the browser identification settings ... [are] not an attempt to emulate MSIE.

Well, I've said this before, but you're not quite right there. Certain "features" are added/removed depending on the setting of the "Identify as..." feature. For example if you choose "Identify as MSIE 5.0", calls to the JavaScript object document.all will be successful. If you choose "Identify as Opera", the same calls will fail. It's explained in detail here.

Actually, the free basic version of Opera doesn't have standard Cydoor technology in it. As evidenced in this mailing list message, Opera did work with Cydoor, but only for the purpose of designing a totally new system for delivering ads. Cydoor never coded any of the advertisement software in the browser. Opera has a pretty extensive description of what their advertising software does. It explicity states that there is no spyware, and even gives, in great detail, how the system works. I use Opera daily, and I've never seen any evidence of spyware, so I doubt highly that there is any need to worry.

Actually, the free basic version of Opera doesn't have standard Cydoor technology in it. As evidenced in this mailing list message, Opera did work with Cydoor, but only for the purpose of designing a totally new system for delivering ads. Cydoor never coded any of the advertisement software in the browser. Opera has a pretty extensive description of what their advertising software does. It explicity states that there is no spyware, and even gives, in great detail, how the system works. I use Opera daily, and I've never seen any evidence of spyware, so I doubt highly that there is any need to worry.

heck theres 6.05 now with better SSL support. as seen in the changelog here
---
Opera 6.05 Changelog
This version implements changes in OpenSSL.

Security
Applied OpenSSL ASN.1 patch
Fixed an issue where HTML content could be inserted into directory listings
Added new certificate authority roots

Miscellaneous
Not possible to invoke "meta refresh" in an e-mail
Fix for Java-related slow navigation
Fix for handling of initial Byte Order Mark (BOM signature) in *.ini files

Opera has great support for CSS2. Saying that CSS2 is a "hard problem" is nonsense.

Sure, it has bugs, but so has every single other browser. We could always play the "list the bugs" game and I could list Mozilla bugs and you could list Opera bugs, but there wouldn't be any point in that. The simple fact remains that both Mozilla and Opera are superior to MSIE when it comes to CSS (and in most other respects), and rather equal to each other on the CSS front.

As a web app deveoper, I'd love to add another browser to the lists that I can support. Unfortunately, the list of unsupported features is longer than the list of supported ones. Hopefully they'll stick with the standard and implement the useful features of the dom (the ones they support now leave much to be desired).

The MacOS X version is still in beta. There hasn't been an update since February. I would think this isn't a good sign.

However, one thing in Opera's favour is that they are very reasonable in their pricing. Right now they have a 50% off promotion, and if you are a student you get further 50% off. How many other companies offer such large student discounts? I find this very competive, and worthwhile for a browser that I can use on a P100 with 32mb of RAM without a hitch.