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Speaking of Opera, a version 3.61 for Windows was released yesterday. There isn't a list of bugs fixed from version 3.60, but one visible change is that there's no toolbar in full screen mode any longer. You can download the update from the Opera Software website.

Opera is a great browser for power users. (There are quick keyboard shortcuts for everything, and commands to do things like open pages in the background, or display a window of all the links on a page.) It also has far and away the best style sheet support short of Gecko. However, the Linux/X11 port is still in development.

Opera 3.61 is a minor update that provides greater stability and a few improvements:

• Opera 3.61 now works very well with Sun's Java plug-in version 1.3.
• Two security certificates have been updated--see our VeriSign certificate rollover page for more information.
• Cache handling has been improved.
• Memory usage has been greatly reduced. Useage of Windows resources has also been reduced.

The installer is 1.3 Mb in size (seriously small for a browser) and a registered version costs $35US or $18US for educational users. The pricing information for bulk purchases are also available. They explain why it's commercial. Hey, it convinced me to buy a copy - at this stage any decent browser competition is good.

Opera 3.61 is a minor update that provides greater stability and a few improvements:

• Opera 3.61 now works very well with Sun's Java plug-in version 1.3.
• Two security certificates have been updated--see our VeriSign certificate rollover page for more information.
• Cache handling has been improved.
• Memory usage has been greatly reduced. Useage of Windows resources has also been reduced.

The installer is 1.3 Mb in size (seriously small for a browser) and a registered version costs $35US or $18US for educational users. The pricing information for bulk purchases are also available. They explain why it's commercial. Hey, it convinced me to buy a copy - at this stage any decent browser competition is good.

Opera 3.61 is a minor update that provides greater stability and a few improvements:

• Opera 3.61 now works very well with Sun's Java plug-in version 1.3.
• Two security certificates have been updated--see our VeriSign certificate rollover page for more information.
• Cache handling has been improved.
• Memory usage has been greatly reduced. Useage of Windows resources has also been reduced.

The installer is 1.3 Mb in size (seriously small for a browser) and a registered version costs $35US or $18US for educational users. The pricing information for bulk purchases are also available. They explain why it's commercial. Hey, it convinced me to buy a copy - at this stage any decent browser competition is good.

Opera 3.61 is a minor update that provides greater stability and a few improvements:

• Opera 3.61 now works very well with Sun's Java plug-in version 1.3.
• Two security certificates have been updated--see our VeriSign certificate rollover page for more information.
• Cache handling has been improved.
• Memory usage has been greatly reduced. Useage of Windows resources has also been reduced.

The installer is 1.3 Mb in size (seriously small for a browser) and a registered version costs $35US or $18US for educational users. The pricing information for bulk purchases are also available. They explain why it's commercial. Hey, it convinced me to buy a copy - at this stage any decent browser competition is good.

Having one big window just makes it harder to click quickly to other programs. The taskbar in Windows or the Mac's Finder menu help, but don't make up for the waste of screen real-estate by non-essential backing store.

The biggest problem with Opera is that it doesn't to table background colours (not even with stylesheets).

If everything works out OK, we get Opera 4.0 beta this week as well...

I haven't checked out 3.61 yet though, haven't had the time to install it.

I just loaded it under Opera 3.60 on Win98 with no problems. It did point out that I'm missing RealPlayer G2 and Macromedia Flash Player though.

Loading under IE5 on Win95 (I have to VNC for the Opera machine) it installed VB Scripting and still provided the same message. The only difference I could see between the two was the extra colours because I was VNCing in 8bit mode.

Now linux: VNC in 8 bit mode again (Netscape 4.51/Export). I certainly see what you mean, it tells me this.

I especially love the button on the bottom of that page ("Return to fox.com - just bounces you back again!)

Tried changing the User Agent string (using junkbuster) to Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98) without success. Looked at the code and noticed that it's all done with Javascript. Turned off javascript - now the document "contains no data".

Decided I don't really want to see fox.comanyway!

Oh - lynx version 2.8.1rel.2 just gives [EMBED] for / and blank for /frameset.html.

I feel the same way, which is why I use Opera as a matter of course, as well as preference, when I'm forced to work under win*. MSIE and I just don't get along. Netscape for windows isn't much better.

and while I have used win98, it was truly a horror to get into until I unharfed it by removing a browser I don't even use from it.

I need something I can work with.

Perhaps MSIE works fine for you in win*... not a big deal. For Linux, you'll prolly be better off waiting for Opera.

(Until then, I'd personally use lynx if netscape gets edgy, which isn't often these days. This, even if there was a MSIE for Linux. It's all about perception, and MS has permanently earned my disdain on this one. I've given them many chances, even when I should've told them to piss off ages ago.)

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Hrm... I kind of rushed off the original message... let me see if I can explain in a little more detail:

IT staff will be punished if they adopt Internet Explorer, as it actively violates the standards that Mozilla will (hopefully) support...

I was syntatically off the mark here. I don't mean to imply that Internet Explorer breaks all the W3 standards, or that Netscape supports them all. I'm merely expressing a hope that a created from scratch, open source browser project will give the users some clout when it comes time to draft out standards. Have you ever noticed that Microsoft "played key roles" in the development of CSS, XML, and other supposed "standards"? Is it that surprising that they are fully implemented in Internet Explorer?

Nevermind the fact that Internet Explorer has bastardized (I know, someone else said this... but I like the word) standards and even forced some of their own so-called standards upon users. Microsoft polluted Java with the "Windows Foundation Classes", called VBscript a "standard" client-side scripting solution (only to back off and use it only in ASP), and told WWW developers to use those nifty new ActiveX controls that tie entire WWW sites to Win32. It was around this time that they started declaring COM as an "open standard". They made a big deal about COM on Solaris, which is now nowhere to be found.

Now, I'm not excusing Netscape in any way. Netscape has failed to support even standards that Microsoft has nothing to do with, and is looking more every day like a huge conglomoration of useless third-party software. Just take a look at the specs for the Wintel Communicator 4.7: It includes AOL Instant Messanger, RealPlayer, Winamp, Betnik something-or-other... It seems they've reved the product for the past year only by tacking new gadgets on.

What I hope can happen, is that the Mozilla project can distance themselves enough from the Netscape/AOL marketing mess to produce a worthy graphical open-source browser, something I've yet to see (correct me if I'm wrong). Netscape/AOL can use it if they want to, but the free software community can guide it toward goals that aren't necessarily world domination of Netscape's Netcenter portal.

I'm not an open-source bigot, in fact I'm using quite a bit of Microsoft software right now. I just think that we could all benefit from having an open-source browser that is at least detached from the motives of a company. (Refer to the article on the Opera site on why "free" is never really "free").

Rant mode disengaged.

Actually, you'd be suprised how much DOs crap is still being run. I know of at least 25 workstations on our network running DOS only, just to access a single app that nobody has bothered to re-write. I don't think it's cheapness so much as it simply works, so why change it? On the other hand, I would love to see more plugins ported to Netscape on Linux. Or a version of Opera for Linux that had them built in. To bad I'm not a programmer, simply a hack who runs networks. I'd jump in in a heart beat.

Windows has the fastest JVM and things run OK under IE. Linux NS crashes every two seconds or so. The Mac NS doesn't properly support JDK1.1.

No-one uses Linux because it doesn't work. Working now involves much more net access than it used to. Linux has no good browser, therefore, it doesn't work. Yes, this is rather harsh, but is unfortunately true.

On the other hand, I think that there's enough pressure for a good browser that one will materialize whether or not Mozilla solidifies. People will simply have to pay for it under Linux where it is free under Windows. (That will be rather a shock, won't it?) For instance, Opera is working on a bunch of ports for their software. I expect to be able to play $30ish for a decent Linux browser (one that doesn't require the use of kill -9 as frequently as "back") early next year.

Now if someone would just write all the plugins in Java and get a good Java implementation...we'd be set.

Attention Opera Software: stop announcing new projects and just port the damn thing already. Geez. How can a company diversify a product that doesn't even exist yet? As an aside, there's an old joke about Microsoft promises. The punch line is "My husband's a Microsoft developer and he just sits at the end of the bed and tells me how great it's gonna be when I get it." Sound familiar?

For those of you who cannot hold your breath: Opera is WINEable.

//Mutende
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When Opera for Linux comes out, and it's as good as the hype, I will pay for it. That being said, I find extremely amusing their justification of why nothing is free .

I think this is the real news. Availible beta for BeOs.

KDE comes with a built-in browser, you can type a URL into KFM's location field to use it. It's pretty good at rendering static HTML, but it doesn't support Java(script), SSL, etc.

If you want to pay for a browser, Opera is porting their browser to Linux.

Despite Opera's reputation as "the standards compliant browser", it implements far less of current W3C standards than Netscape or in particular IE. Specifically, CSS-positioning (part of CSS2) appears to be completely non-existant.

Being a web developer that rigorously adheres to standards and closely monitors and occasionally participates in W3C activity, and being knowledgable of browsers in general, I thought I'd take some time to give you all the skinny on this.

Despite Opera's reputation as "the standards compliant browser", it implements far less of current W3C standards than Netscape or in particular IE. Specifically, CSS-positioning (part of CSS2) appears to be completely non-existant.

Since Opera only implements a fraction of the Netscape/IE functionality, and until recently was completely unportable (Windows only), it's not too surprising that it is much smaller and faster.

Anyways, I'll list some of the pros and cons of Opera and some features/misfeatures it shares with its competition (Netscape/IE).

[Oh, one last thing before the list. MDI and SDI have been mentioned. For those of you who don't know what they are, basically:

SDI -- Single document interface. A limitation applying to an application program that only shows a single window giving a view of one document at a time.

MDI -- Multiple document interface. The ability of an application program to show windows giving views of more than one document at a time.]

Some pros:

• Excellent support for keyboard navigation. No need to use lynx and give up graphics just because you hate the mouse. (Of course, the Open Source Mozilla will ultimately allow the same.)
• Fast and small. Despite its lack of features, for most of your browsing you will appreciate the speed.

That's really all of the pros. While only two items are listed, both of them are extremely important and make for a much different feel compared to the bigger fish. Anyways, the cons:

• Non-free. You must pay $30-$35 dollars to use this software after 30 days of evaluation. You may not obtain its source code either [neither with IE nor NS[1-4]].
• Right now, still pretty much Windows-only. IE also runs on Macs, Solaris and HP-UX. Netscape 4.x runs on almost everything under the sun. Mozilla runs under even more platforms.
• Despite "standards compliant browser" reputation, it implements far less of current W3C technical recommendations than Netscape or IE.
• Still has crashing bugs just like Netscape and IE. In particular, with JavaScript enabled there are plenty of sites that bring down the newest versions. (Not nearly as bad as NS4.61 on my Debian box though, which likes to crash 1/10th of the time I close a window. (Wasn't always this bad.))

Anyways, my current favorite browser is IE5 though I almost never get to use it because I'm stuck in Linux with WindowMaker so that I actually have a productive and stable environment. IE5 really does implement most of the current standards and is quite fast (being seemingly hooked into the lowest guts of Windows), though Mozilla will be the true 100% compliant browser and smaller and faster to boot. I hate most of Microsoft's products, but a few things like their browser and Powerpoint (which Linus admits liking) are really okay.

So,

• Use IE5 now if you can. Netscape 4.61 or Opera if you can't.
• Make a 100% switch to Mozilla the day it is released. The current M9 release is actually somewhat stable and usable, and it's really cool to watch the CSS on your pages come to life under that browser.
• Don't switch back to IE or Opera until they implement the standards as good as Mozilla.

That's enough writing for now,
Christopher