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Opera Mini on Treo (30 Days to becoming an Opera8 Lover)

Since it's a Java app it works on any device that can run the appropriate Java VM, and there is one for the Treo 650. I do not use it on my 650, but it is there.

http://operalover.tntluoma.com/preferences/content _preferences/

Go Opera!

Not perfectly ;-)
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; en) Opera 8.50

Okay, it's the current version that produces the above, but as far back as I recall, Opera always appended the "Opera" string at the end. The better log analysers aren't fooled by this.

If you are talking about the modifications to the ua.ini file for types 4 and 5, I don't think there's a lot of people doing that.

Troll, but I'll respond...

Zoom to zero? That'd cause a divide by zero error. 20% is the minimum, which is why it does that.

Mouseover a link, and you'll get the URL.

Home button? You CAN reconfigure the toolbars. Or, enable the Main bar. Or, better yet, use the keyboard shortcut: Ctrl-Space.

Try it for more than five minutes, and READ THIS: http://operalover.tntluoma.com/8/ It's a REALLY good guide to Opera 8, although it's only on day 23 of 30 right now...

http://operalover.tntluoma.com/8/ is the new version. Not sure why anyone would be interested in Opera7 Lover anymore... in fact I should probably setup a redirect.

The problem I have with Opera (flame me all you want, I haven't even downloaded it yet; kinda hard while at school though..), is that it seems to come with all of these features built in. All of this added functionality that one may or may not use. Firefox, on the otherhand, will let you go to a nice directory of extensions that can be sorted by type, name, date, etc. and you can pick and choose what you want.

The fact that all these features are built in is exactly why it so great. I don't have to download each and every one. And I don't have to use them if I don't want to. I'm still using Outlook for my mail, but it was just a simple option to select the default email client for my computer as my choice. Most features don't get in the way either. They are there if you want them, and don't interfere if you don't. Also from what I've heard, when you update FireFox, it can break the extensions you have downloaded and set up. I don't have that with Opera.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing Opera. I actually plan on trying it out as soon as I get home, but from what I've heard/seen, it seems as if Firefox will be the better choice for me (I do plan to go into Opera with an open-mind, though). Because all that matters in the end is the user's opinion.

Please do go into the Opera experience with an open mind. I started using it back when Netscape 4 was starting to really starting to look long in the tooth and having problems rendering. I couldn't stand Internet Exploder from the beginning. So I uninstalled Netscape and deleted my IE 3.0 icons and installed Opera. I went cold turkey telling myself I would do it for a month and would surrender to IE after that if Opera wasn't it for me.

After a month I was having too much fun. Opera just makes the browsing experience so easy. You just have to learn to utilize all the enhancements they have. Check out the Opera community and forums and the site 30 Days to becoming an Opera Lover http://tntluoma.com/opera/lover/8.

What about reading the series updated for Opera 8

See 30 Days to Becoming an Opera7 Lover

Opera does a lot more than most people realize.

Go through this sites pages. 30 Days to becoming an Opera8 Lover. Don't be put off. You can get a good idea what's in the "30 days" worth of stuff in under 10 minutes, and go back for specifics that interest you. http://tntluoma.com/opera/lover/ Opera is a faster, smoother experience for me when surfing than FireFox (don't even get me started on IE). There are a couple of FireFox extensions I wish had Opera counterparts for (AdBlock being the biggest one), but the trade-off of a quick, responsive UI is far and away more important than 95% of the Firefox extensions I've seen. I'd used the ad-supported version for quite a while (with a large monitor I really don't notice the missing space -- other browsers eat up close to that amount with inflexible UIs). Now it's "in effect" free, what better time to take advantage of it? I won't bash Firefox, it's my close 2nd favorite browser. It's the one I turn to if something doesn't like Opera (getting rarer and rarer) but sometimes even Firefox chokes on those pages as well.

I'll add a couple:

- Undo: Press ctrl-z if you accidentally close a tab you didn't want to close and it pops right back up.
- Unconditional back/fwd. Opera never refreshes a page you go back to with the 'back' function. Have the connection time out when submitting some big form? Just click back and you have the form there just like you filled it out.
- Can be used as one fullscreen window only. All links are opened as new tabs regardless of where they come from, making sure you never have to wonder what browser window it was that had that particular tab open. Also closing the last tab doesn't close Opera.
- The F12 -menu that allows changing proxy/popup/browserID/pluginblock/soundblock/etc settings without a single dialog.
- Infinitely configurable to make it feel just like you want it.

- And more! -- See 30 Days to Becoming an Opera8 Lover (seems to be up to day 21 so far)

When you finished /.ing opera.com or still need reasons why to use Opera you might want to have a look at the following sites:

Opera Wiki
Opera Userjavascripts at userjs.org
30 Days to becoming an Opera8 Lover

There are quiet a few reasons I use Opera. Without needing extensions, I get all the following:

• Tabbed browsing that works better than Firefox's. And I can put the tabs on the bottom where I like them.
• Settings for each window can be controled individually. I can have one site open with graphics turned off and another site open with graphics on, at the same time.
• Mouse Gestures.
• Control-D. This does a "Paste and Go". Instead of taking two steps, pasting in a url and going to it only takes one.
• Built in search bar that supports Google, Amazon, Ebay and others.
• If it crashes, I have the option of opening the same sites I was at the next time I run it.
• Can view a page in "user view". Good if a page is hard to read because of poorly choosen background colors.
• And more! -- See 30 Days to Becoming an Opera7 Lover

But yes, I would use a filtering proxy to munge the http headers. I agree that Opera's support for this is lacking.

next they'll add email and IRC clients

throw in an HTML editor too while youre at it

In short, Opera has always been, to put it delicately, rather ambitious on its feature-set, often to the point where even its marketing department is left sometimes clueless. But it mostly hasn't converted that to 'bloat', at least in terms of download sizes so far. One reason, perhaps, is coz they're heavily into developing for smart-phones, and as such, are in a way forced to remain small.

I'll try Opera again (if ever) when they get better spoofing modes, better flash blocking.

You should give Opera 8 a try.

I was pretty much at the same place as you. I was just getting fed up with Opera's Javascript problems and Firefox was getting close enough to what I like about Opera to switch. On top of that, my bank web site started flat out blocking connections from Opera.

I wasn't going to throw for 8 but I found out it's a free upgrade from 7 (if you paid for it).

Here's my favorite feature of 8: each profile has a file called ua.ini. This file is a list of webhosts with a code for each one identifying the user agent that should be used for that site. These codes let you specify the identical user agent string for mozilla or ie, not just the ones that opera used to have that all had Opera somewhere in the string so sites could still filter on that. Whenever you hit the "Check for updates..." menu item, opera updates the file with sites it knows about that have opera blocking code, preserving any changes you've made.

When I heard about this feature, I went to edit that file to stick my banks url in there and lo and behold, it was already there.

I'm back to using Opera for online banking now.My (major west coast) bank is none the wiser.

Besides that, they've improved their Javascript a bunch too. Still not %100, but the sites that I've had problems with were crummy sites that wouldn't have looked any better in Firefox.

The /. crowd is always gonna give Opera grief over the money thing. At this point it's just religion. In my case, Opera 7 was not cutting it and Firefox provided the better browsing experience. Now I prefer Opera 8 to Firefox. It could switch back in a few more releases.

We should just be glad that there's competition again and that it's IE that's playing catch up to Firefox & Opera

That's a very valid point for you, the user, but not for anyone who calls himself a journalist, imo. You have an excuse for not doing the homework (why should you?), but not anyone who attempts to write a comparison piece. He should have been more thorough.

All I can suggest is checking out the site I listed in the grandparent post. Actually, I poked around in the site a bit more, and I noticed he's slowly rolling out an updated guide for the new Opera 8.0. The best thing about the guide, imo, is that is breaks everything down into managable chunks. You will learn something new every "day". That's how I found out about some of the browser's more obscure features.

I even use a custom style sheet at work so I can browse without looking like I am browsing. :)

I'm an Opera fan (you wanna fight about it?) and I was eager to read this article. Am I the only one who felt it ended pretty abruptly, without actually covering anything? All TFA covered was look-and-feel, RSS, and a couple of little things like ad blocking and Opera's Quick Prefs.

He didn't touch Notes, of the panels, or the hot bar, or the way they each handle tabs, cookies, the Wand, granularity of popup blocking, proxy servers, the Transfers window (and how Opera/Firefox handle downloads in general), the user-customizable CSS and link style in Opera (does Firefox have something comparable? I wish he covered it so I would know!), Opera's Zoom, quick enabling-disabling of images, methods of caching (including Opera's "delete private data" button), Opera's in-line search functionality, saving "sessions", crash recovery, little neat things like making a page printer friendly with one button...I could go on all day!

I mean no offense to Mr. Shaffer, but this article is really lacking in content. I expected something more along the lines of the 30 Days to Becoming an Opera Lover site (which is for version 7) in terms of depth. Very disappointing. I hope that Slashdot's Opera/Firefox lovers can at least turn this into a nice discussion in the comments. I missed a ton of features, but you can use my little rant up there as a starting point.

I found that like many things, you don't appreciate Opera until you've actually experienced what it has to offer. It is one of those things that takes a paradigm shift. 30 Days to Becoming an Opera 7 Lover http://tntluoma.com/opera/lover/7/ After trying out all the features pointed out on this site, I was hooked for good. Anyone interested in Opera should read that. No, it doesn't have to take more than 1 day to go through the guide. Yes, everything there should still apply to Opera 8. New features added since then are listed in the changelog and discussed by fanboys all over the forums. A few things I really like about Opera: -To search for something on Google just type "g something" into the adress bar. You can enter in any operators you would type in Google. Several different sites are built-in and you can add your own. -Text entered in forms is kept even after leaving the page and coming back to it (for times you get an error or need to get info from another page) -Many great skins, all of which you can instantly change the color scheme for. -Quick, sorted search any feild of any bookmark, email, note, or address book entry -Press F4 for quick access to a panel that gives quick access to search, bookmarks, mail, contacts, notes, transfers, window/tab manager, history, IRC chat, and info about the page your visiting. -Completely customizable toolbars and ability to create buttons. -Don't load images or only load from cache. -Disable sound, GIF animations, java, plugins, referrer logging, cookies, or proxies by pressing F12 -Auto-saving of sessions -Mouse gestures, but not just the click-drag ones. To go forward simply hold down the left mouse button and tap the right one. Or hold the right and tap the left to go back. This is by far the greatest user interface invention EVER.

Not specific to Firefox but here are some of the key advantages of Opera: http://tntluoma.com/opera/lover/7/01/

You should try Opera for a week or two and have a look at http://tntluoma.com/opera/lover/7/01/. That might change your opinion about the relative quality of Firefox and Opera.

I am a Student and I use Opera for years (and paid for it a few months ago to get rid of the ads)simply because I have yet to find a better Browser.

And No, Mozilla/Firefox does not qualify as a better Browser. Everytime I try it there are still literally dozens of things (when I say try I mean try for several days, switching back to Opera before would be biased because of infamiliarity with the new Browser) that are better in Opera. I won't make a list here because as soon as I would name specific things some Firefox Zealot would claim that it can be done with this or that extension but perhaps you might want to look at http://tntluoma.com/opera/lover/7/01/.

Integrated Support for certain Features and Extensions are two totally different things (especially if they break at every update) and the Performance with Mozilla/Firefox could be better too.

I use Free Software for almost everything else but at the current point in time there is no Open Source or Free Software Browser that is good enough (or near) to get me to switch Browsers.

...you'd do your crusade a service by posting what they are.

That would be a long post. If you're really interested, you might want to take a look at 30 Days to Becoming an Opera7 Lover

I've more or less stopped trying to show people that IE is stunting their growth. It makes them onery and defensive. Instead, I like ignoring IE's faults, and show them nifty things in Opera they never knew they needed. Things like mouse gestures, linked windows, tabbed browsing (as you mentioned), customizable interface, crash-recovery, etc etc. Easiest thing to do is link to this Opera zealot's site:

Click

The pacing is well-done. He encourages people to try the browser for a month, because that's how long it takes to really get yourself out of an IE rut.

You know, I just accidentally closed the window before I copied over the link address, but instead of having to search for it again, I just hit ctrl-alt-Z to re-open the last window I closed. Little things like this is why I can no longer stand IE. No offense intended to those poor souls who still like using the back button, or can't turn off images with a single button, or natively block popups without a third-party app.

For those wanting an *exhaustive* (and yet likely incomplete) description of what it has to offer, look here.

Oh, and the trolls whining about bloat should get a clue. It's only 3-4MB, browser, mail, and everything else included. It's one of the least bloated apps I've ever seen (possible exception of windows/total commander). When your browser alone is twice that (firebird/fox/?), I don't see what grounds you have to complain.

And while I'm at it, although Opera *is* ad-or-payware, might I mention that it does its advertising in the best way possible: a context sensitive Google text ad in the toolbar. Not annoying at *all*, and it can even be useful occasionally.

And I could go on, and on, and on. But I'll just mention that the default configuration (both UI and otherwise) is halfway braindead (popup blocking *off* by default, when it's one of the main selling points? wtf?), so just make sure to customize it (which is rather simple, and takes only a few minutes).

And since this is a Mac forum, some good OSX-esque skins are Safrad (which I use myself, not because I want to emulate a mac, but because it actually looks good), Sofa King, and Lars Kleinschmidt's various OSX and iMac skins. They're available here. (Oh, and by the way, this is a preview release, and there is supposedly a new default skin in the works, just so you know.)

Though I'm not entirely sure what the Opera 7 browser brings to the Mac world as I'm mostly a PC user, nor could I say how it stacks up against Safari, but I can vouch for it's performance on Windows.

1. It's VERY customizable. Aside from the hundreds of skins you can download... Buttons, toolbars, panels, etc., can be dragged anywhere you want. There's even a window you can open with all the possible buttons that you can drag'n drop onto where you want them on thr browser. This may not be as much of a selling point for Mac users (i.e. iTunes brushed metal look vs. Winamp's nearly unlimited possibilities for it's GUI/appearance), but being able to alter the browser to fit my needs, instead of having to learn to adapt to the browser's limitations, was very much appreciated.

2. Want to search for something on google? Type "g query" in the toolbar, and you're here. Amazon? "z query". Ebay? "e query". I can barely program, but even an idiot like me figured out how to alter a few lines of code so "t query" gave me the results at thesaurus.com for a word I needed synonyms for.

3. DAMN GOOD implementation of mouse gestures--which of course are highly customizable. I can open windows in the background, open links in new windows, go back a couple pages, with the quickest of movements. I barely even touch the navigation buttons.

4. This is what F12 quickly lets you do.

5. It's frickin' FAST.

6. I can turn off images/stylesheets with a quick click.

7. Userful for when web designing: Opera shows current size of window in it's title bar. Also, checking if a page's code is validated can be accessed by hitting ctrl-alt-v.

Opera is a nice browser, but honestly how many people do you know that actually regged it?

• Bright (download) is the best non-dithering quantiser in the whole world, and reasonably fast, too; based on dlquant
• pngrewrite sorts the palette
• pngcrush removes junk chunks, fixes Photoshop's gamma bug and tries many filters to find a smaller filesize
• OptiPNG is similar to pngcrush, but executes much faster
• pngout uses an alternative deflate, yields sometimes even smaller filesizes
• tweakpng manipulates chunks comfortably with a GUI
• pngquant quantises PNG24 with alpha transparency to PNG8 with transparent palettes, the result is alas mostly ugly

sleightplus demonstrates how to overcome IE's rendering bugs without polluting your markup or styles; no silly style inlining required, either. Use PNG images or backgrounds all the way they were intended.

Predecessors with only support for foreground images: Youngpup sleight, WebFX PNG behavior, mongus pngInfo, Bob Osola. PNGHack, a server side solution, is doomed to fail because of dysfunctional browser sniffing.

If that was useful for you, and you are a C hacker, I have a plea. Take the dlquant sourcecode (see above) and massage it so it works with PNG instead of the archaic PPM. I want a functional Bright clone for Linux that takes a true colour PNG and outputs a paletted PNG. Can you do that?