Opera 6.0 for Linux Released

e1en0r writes "Opera released 6.0 for Linux and 6.02 for Windows today. The new features include cookie management and plug-in support. I've been using the beta release of Opera 6 for a while now and it's great."

Comments

Java

[dirvish]

I have had problems with Java support using Opera. Have they fixed this yet?

Re:Java

[wikki]

it appears not I jsut got this post from bugtraq

Title: Opera javascript protocoll vulnerability
Date: [2002-05-15]
Software: At least Opera 6.01, 6.0, 5.12 (win)
Rating: High because Opera is assumed to be secure
Impact: Read cookies/local filestructure/cache
Vendor: Opera has confirmed the vulnerability and released
today a new version 6.02 fixing the issue.
http://www.opera.com/ _ _
Workaround: Disable javascript.
Author: Andreas Sandblad, sandblad@acc.umu.se

Re:Java

[wikki]

that should be "it appears so" although it doesn't mention the linux version. This is also a security problem which may or maynot fix your problem.

Re:Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators on Crack.

The guy/girl asks if the JavaScript support is better now in OPERA

How can it be Off-Topic?

Re:Java

[dirvish]

Yeah, what the hell? How is this off-topic?

Attention moderators, please set down your crack pipes.

Re:Java

[tom.allender]

Java != JavaScript

Re:Java

[jaavaaguru]

I've just installed Opera 6.0 on Linux. I loaded a page containing a Java applet that works fine in Mozilla and Konqueror. using JRE 1.4, the applet begins loading in Opera, but only the first class starts to load, and never finishes. So, I'd say there are still some problems.

Re:Java

[Anonymous Coward]

What does Yahoo Chat use? Sorry I am ignorant when it comes to anything Java. Does Opera run the Yahoo Chat properly through the browser? Anyone know?

Re:Java

[hendridm]

So far, I've had luck browsing some of the buggiest Java applets I've come across. Looks great on this end! Incidentally, I'm running Windows 2000.

Re:Java

[DunbarTheInept]

What part of "released today a new version...fixing the issue" did you not understand?
(And depsite how the numbers look version 6.02 is actually older than version 6.0. Folks at Opera have really strange numbering conventions.)

Re:Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiots!

Opera, and browsers in general, don't do java. They pass it on to a JVM. Update your Java Virtual Machine and quit badmouthing Opera for something that is not their fault.

Re:Java

[ozbon]

Yahoo Chat runs in Java applets. And yes, it runs fine in Opera.

I may not be the ultra-secure bod that some people in Slahdot are, but Opera 6.0 has never caused me any security problems, it runs everything I want it to, and doesn't give me hassle at any time because of it.

Of course, it not being IE is also a major bonus... :)

Re:Java

[ozbon]

It's off-topic because the initial Post was about Java, and the offtopic reply was about Javascript.

As another person has already said, Java != Javascript.

Re:Java

[hkmwbz]

Opera 6.02 is for Windows. There has never been a 6.02 for Linux. You may be referring to Opera 6.02 beta 2. Opera 6.02 for Windows and Opera 6.0 for Linux are released on the same day, so 6.02 is not older than 6.0.

But 6.02 isn't out for Linux yet.

Opera really is good

[geneshifter]

I don't think it is as they claim, "the fastest browser in the world", but it's not that bad. I really like the easy preference management and the ad is very small for the free version.

Re:Opera really is good

[Anonymous Coward]

> I don't think it is as they claim, "the fastest browser in the world"

Not counting text only browsers, I would vote for dillo as having the fastest rendering speed.

This is how it was meant to be!

[IamTheRealMike]

This is the sort of news that makes me think that things really are getting better and improving. Not so much because of Opera itself, though it is a fine browser indeed, but more because there are now plenty of good competitors in the web browsing arena.

Especially on Linux, there are at least 3 excellent browsers, or 4 if you count Galeon/Gecko as separate to Mozilla, with none of them having a significant lead over the others as far as I'm aware.

This happy situation, with all the browsers competing against each other on a level playing field unfortunately does not (yet) exist on Windows, but lets hope that soon as Mozilla and Opera both improve the market will balance out again.

Hurray for the benefits of competition!

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[d3xt3r]

Especially on Linux, there are at least 3 excellent browsers, or 4 if you count Galeon/Gecko as separate to Mozilla, with none of them having a significant lead over the others as far as I'm aware.

As long as Windows has 95% of the desktop OS market and IE is the preferred browser on that platform, all of the the browser competition on the Linux front is somewhat meaningless.

I am thrilled to have great web browsers for Linux (my platform of choice), but 4 browsers for a platform that has less than 2% of the deskotp market does nothing to sway web developers to target anything other than IE.

Maybe some decent web browsers will help the cause to increase Linux's presence in the desktop market. I guess only time will tell.

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[ender81b]

You can already see the results of the competition between mozilla and opera with Mozilla introducing Tabbed windows, following Opera's lead. The real 'competive' barrier Opera faces is the fact that it isn't free. 20$ (education) isn't a lot, and I paid it, but so many people are used to free browsers that i don't know if Opera can gain more than a foothold because it costs money. And since it's a small company and not finaced by a huge corporation it can't really afford to make it's browser free, although with the advertising market what it is I can't believe they are making much.

Among the linux browsers I would have to say I prefer Opera better, mostly because of it's speed - better even than IE. Although the super-small d/l size and it's availability across a wide range of platforms is nice also.

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Anonymous Coward]

there are now plenty of good competitors in the web browsing arena. Especially on Linux

Nitpick: the "browser monopoly" argument only applies to Microsoft's IE, which has never run on Linux. So while competition among Linux browsers is still a good thing, it's not where the competition really needs to take place.

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[indiigo]

As an all windows shop, (minus a few linux nextworking devices) we will definately be evaluating running mozilla on our windows boxes. We're sick of the breaches and updates.

We're also looking very closely at openoffice and staroffice, as we do not wish to participate in MS's "upgrade advantage."

Linux can only improve in this respect, especially where cost/benefit is concerned.

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Anders]

Hurray for the benefits of competition!

Yes, it is nice that we can now argue religiously about web browsers and not just editors! ;-)

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Baconator]

Although the super-small d/l size and it's availability across a wide range of platforms is nice also.

Wide range of platforms compared to what? Mozilla? Nope. Netscape 4? Nope? Lynx? Nope. I think IE is about the only browser I know of with worse platform support.

Case in point, Linux/PPC is my main platform. Guess Opera just isn't an option for a lot of us.

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[mblase]

And since it's a small company and not finaced by a huge corporation it can't really afford to make it's browser free, although with the advertising market what it is I can't believe they are making much.

Should I undermind Microsoft by paying for a good browser by a small company, or by using an open-source browser that doesn't cost me or the developers anything? Decisions, decisions....

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Anonymous Coward]

it doesn't work on linux, mod him down

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Janon]

Case in point, Linux/PPC is my main platform. Guess Opera just isn't an option for a lot of us.

You have your PPC binaries here. At least it is an option for you.

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[leviramsey]

Uh, they made a version of Opera 5 for the PPC. I expect that a PPC build of Opera 6 will be released shortly.

Here's Opera 5 for LinuxPPC

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Glytch]

As long as Windows has 95% of the desktop OS market and IE is the preferred browser on that platform, all of the the browser competition on the Linux front is somewhat meaningless.

Not to Linux users.

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Dephex Twin]

Wide range of platforms compared to what?

iCab, OmniWeb, Konqueror...

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[stevey]

This is the sort of news that makes me think that things really are getting better and improving.

I think the same, but for a quite different reason.

The competition in browsers is a good thing but to be honest in the past competition tends to lead to feature bloat. Remember when we had Netscape vs IE - and we had to put up with them competing against each other all the time? (Can you say <BLINK&gt).

The reason I think this is good is that it's another high profile company writing shareware software for Linux.

This sends out a message to other software companies that Linux users are a viable market - and that contrary to some peoples beliefs they are prepared to pay for stuff.

The caveat being that the stuff has to be good - because if it isn't they have the vast array of OS stuff to use instead.

(I've not used Opera - Mozilla's good enough for me - but I could see my sister using it)

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Provocateur]

I run a dualhead computer, and I would like to open several browser windows as I go surfin. I tried Opera before, but it kept all the windows INSIDE the main one, forcing them all to stay on one desktop which doesn't suit me at all. With the new Opera, can I configure it so that they don't have to be 'jailed' inside the main window? Then I can drag them to any desktop that my pager has.

Incidentally, does anyone know how to customize mozilla so that when I select, Open link in new window it will open UNDERNEATH the one I'm currently viewing?

TIA

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah - they had the option to do seperate windows in 6.01

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Anonymous Coward]

In this "competition" Opera still has quite a long way to go. DOM (either WC3 or MS) support in Opera is still basically non-existant. It supports just enough to get some dhtml popups working, and that's about it. Javascript support in Opera is also buggy and incomplete. Regular expression support is one of the most glaring omissions for example. Opera also renders more slowly than both IE or Mozilla. Try something with tables and lots of images for example, and there is a noticeable lag on Opera. In light of that, I'm not sure where they get the claim for "the fastest browser on earth", unless they are only referring to load time and memory footprint. On top of all this, CSS support in Opera isn't as complete as it is in Mozilla either.

I really don't see much of a compelling reason to use Opera when there are better browsers out there that are free, Free, faster, and more standards compliant. Mozilla or Konqueror (with KDE 3.0, DOM and Javascript support is excellent, nearly on par with Mozilla now) are much better alternatives.

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[tshak]

Ya, I guess considering that there are only 3 popular desktop OS's and Opera supports 7+ OS's that it's not available on a "wide range" of reasonable platforms. Oh well, someday they'll make Opera for my TI/86.

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[ender81b]

Javascript support is the most glaring issue in opera as far as I am concerned. CSS support continues to improve with every realase (all browsers don't implement/badly implement some parts of CSS).

As for your 'slower than mozzila'.. what are you smoking? I can render 40 pages of slashdot in opera at once in the same time mozilla can render ONE. No browser is faster than opera, though IE is very close at times.

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am just curious: why is Mozilla good enough for you, but not for your sister?

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Glytch]

DOM support is lacking? Who the fuck cares? Who even bothers to use it?

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you've never tried rendering table heavy pages with a multitude of small images. Most web based forums fit this discription. Try something like http://www.hydrogenaudio.org or http://www.r3mix.net/forum for example. Opera is slow in this regard. Also, both IE and Mozilla often pop up parts of the page as it loads, while with Opera it will wait until the majority finishes loading before anything is displayed. This translates again to slower rendering.

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously not Opera users :)

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Boffo]

Hold Ctrl & Shift, left click link

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[Anonymous Coward]

What OS is 4th in deployed seats behind OS/2?

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[tomknight]

...must...not...feed... the...troll.....

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[IamTheRealMike]

The browser wars only led to feature bloat because two large corporations were cat-fighting. These days there is a much greater emphasis on standards: even IE is getting in on the act, slowly.

Re:This is how it was meant to be!

[stevey]

Sure, but what happens when all current browsers are fully standards compliant?

Development isn't just going to stop, is it?

(I can see that there will be future standards which will need to be implemented - but still, in order to differentiate themselves one of the browsers will add something new; and the others will add it too [If it's useful] .. starting a vicous-bloaty-cycle.)

ASP support?

[Allen Varney]

I wanted to use Opera on my new(ish) Linux box, but it sometimes rendered just the headers of a page (such as Slashdot) and then stopped. Sometimes the failed pages were ASP, but I know it would be a reaaally cold day somewhere before Slashdot uses ASP. Anyway, I never figured out what I needed to set to make Opera load the whole page. Help for a newbie?

Re:ASP support?

[NanoGator]

Actually, ASP is a server side scripting language. Opera doesnt interpret .ASP, the webserver does. If a site using ASP (an MS technology btw...) doesnt render correctly on your machine, its not Opera's fault, it is the site developer's.

One thing that might help is to change how Opera identifies itself. On the version I have, it defaults to IE 5, when I have a problem I switch it to Netscape. I occasionally have good results. The reason for this is sometimes an ASP or PHP site will detect your browser and alter its content based on that.

FYI :)

Re:ASP support?

[Havokmon]

One thing that might help is to change how Opera identifies itself. On the version I have, it defaults to IE 5, when I have a problem I switch it to Netscape.

Except it could be argued, How are we to level the playing field (removing IE-only sites), if we browse pretending to be IE?

Re:ASP support?

[dimator]

You know, it's wierd. ASP *is* a server side language, but 9 times out of 10, ASP pages look like shit. My guess is that ASP developers don't give a shit about browsers other than IE, and only test their layouts under that browser.

Re:ASP support?

[Ronin SpoilSpot]

Must agree. I always set my Opera to identify as Opera. I switch whenever a site tells me that I should be using MSIE5+++ etc. (first to netscape, then to IE if needed), and I take comfort in knowing that even then, the browser-id still contains the word Opera for those who knows what to look for.

Often, I can switch back to identifying as Opera as soon as I have passed the browser-control :) The pages works fine anyway (except those using document.all in the javascript, Opera only turns that MSism on while identifying as IE).

I even made my download manager identify as Opera :)

/RS

Re:ASP support?

[DNS-and-BIND]

When Opera identifies itself as MSIE or Netscape, the Opera string is still in the user-agent. Thus,

Opera/6.0 (Windows 2000; U) [en]

Is my current user-agent. If some idiot has created a page and chosen to restrict viewing to one or two of the many browsers availible, you tell Opera to report its user-agent as MSIE, but the Opera string is still there, and will show up in the logs:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows 2000; U) Opera 6.0 [en]

Knowing the mental qualities of most page-restrictors, this fools their detection scripts quite nicely. This can blow up in your face, however, if the malicious web designer chooses to intentionally exclude Opera, by denying all browsers that contain 'opera' anywhere. I have complained about this to the Opera support groups but they told me it wasn't possible to do a "complete" fake header. If you want that I guess you have to rewrite user-agent headers with a proxy.

Re:ASP support?

[mgv]

I have complained about this to the Opera support groups [opera.com] but they told me it wasn't possible to do a "complete" fake header. If you want that I guess you have to rewrite user-agent headers with a proxy.

One agent (on Windows) that can do this is the proxomitron:

http://www.internetmall.net/prox/

Which I highly reccomend - it can totally rewrite any incoming and outgoing HTML. So it could make IE look like mozilla (No, I can't think of a reason to do this either).

Michael

Re:ASP support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing the mental qualities of most page-restrictors, this fools their detection scripts quite nicely. This can blow up in your face, however, if the malicious web designer chooses to intentionally exclude Opera, by denying all browsers that contain 'opera' anywhere. I have complained about this to the Opera support groups [opera.com] but they told me it wasn't possible to do a "complete" fake header. If you want that I guess you have to rewrite user-agent headers with a proxy.

Or use Mozilla and the UA Toolbar or UA Sidebar

Re:ASP support?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I first started using Opera I actually came across a site that block IE 5, and I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't let me in, when it stated that I needed Opera, Mozzila, or Netscape to enter. After a bit of poking around I figured it out though, how often do you come across sites that block Opera?

Re:ASP support?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Whoops, put the worng user-agent for MSIE up there. Should be:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 2000) Opera 6.02 [en]

Re:ASP support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hotmail even blocks if Opera pretends to be IE.

But recently I tried going over an proxyserver (squid) which only rewrote the agent-string completely with an real IE-fake. And whats was the result? Hotmail just worked fine and there where no problems any more.

the problem is that operas own fakes aren't good enough:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows ME) Opera 6.01 [de]

Re:ASP support?

[WowTIP]

Another funny thing is that older versions of Opera by default, after installation, identified themselves as Internet explorer. You would think that it would be in their own interrest to advertise their browser in web logs..?

Can anybody say if they changed this with the new 6.02 version? I can unforunately not see it myself, since my settings were kept when I upgraded.

Re:ASP support?

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

On the version I have, it defaults to IE 5, when I have a problem I switch it to Netscape.

And here I thought that MSIE was taking over the web! It's just a lot of Opera users masking the user agent this whole time..

Re:ASP support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let Opera identify as Opera. It almost always works, and if it does not you can chew out the webmaster. Spoofing as IE is not a good thing in my opinion.

Re:ASP support?

[Mr_Silver]

I have complained about this to the Opera support groups [opera.com] but they told me it wasn't possible to do a "complete" fake header.

"Not possible" or "Not possible because they don't want to do it"?

Of course, I've never seen the code but I utterly fail to see how it's not possible to change a couple of lines of code (at the most) so that "Opera" part isn't in there at all.

Hell, I can fake the IE User Agent *perfectly* with telnet and a bit of typing. I can't see why they can't.

Re:ASP support?

[NanoGator]

I imagine the reason they dont is because if you go to Hotmail with Opera, then you get a message saying something along the lines of 'This browser wont work, T.S.'.

*kicks MS*

Opera may be cool

[Anonymous Coward]

But I think its time is close to done. It used to be a really nice little package. It would run off of a floppy on a 386 with only 6 megs of ram. Since then they have added nothing but bloat to it. It started with version 4, they made the mistake of adding a news and email client. Later version of the 4 series added Sun's Java plugin (which was and still is one of the only plugins that work with opera). With version 5 came the ads, and countless compatibility issues with sites that were coded to the exacting html standards.

Needless to say, I gave up on opera a long time ago, and have since moved on to the efficient, stable, and standard compliant Mozilla browser.

Re:Opera may be cool

[NanoGator]

Man, I havent run a 386 in like 10 years! ;)

On Windows, Opera beats the hell out of IE even with the 'bloat' that you seem to think taints it. I totally enjoy using it, but I do have issues with its stability. Oh well, maybe in version 7...

Re:Opera may be cool

[ergo98]

The irony of you complaining about the "bloat" of opera, and then state that you're using Mozilla hasn't been lost. That's a pretty funny joke, really.

Having said that, Opera has finally achieved a level of functionality (err, "bloat". Of course a browser that fits on a floppy wouldn't offer the features that customers needed, and wouldn't have any market presence) that makes it a very worthy replacement for IE on the Windows platform, at least: In my day to day use, 95% of my browsing is with Opera 6, and pretty much the only time that I don't use it is when visiting msdn.microsoft.com : Apart from that I've seldom had the slightest problems, and it offers fetures (such as multiple-windows in one host: I love this) like being able to accept/reject pop-ups (or prompt), among a whole slew of "quick preferences". Mouse gestures rock and I find myself trying to use them in IE all the time.

Opera is a fantastic browser, and if anything its time is just beginning. The advertising banner is unfortunate, but for people willing to pay the small price it is tremendous and well worth every penny.

Re:Opera may be cool

[IamTheRealMike]

This is true - there's a guy called Davey Winder who writes for PC Pro (a uk computing magazine). He is an Opera fanatic, and is extremely biased against IE and especially Netscape: he insists on making childish remarks about how pros don't use it and how it's slow and buggy and bloated compared to Opera (hah). In fact, I once wrote in and pointed out that he was making factual mistakes, referring to Mozilla's P3P implementation as being "less efficient" than Internet Explorers - he got that right, as at the time Moz didn't have P3P support.

Anyway, I digress. One thing that made me realise how bad Opera's bloat had become was that this Winder guy had run a whole article on theming and customising Opera. Could you do this from the menu bar? NO! Instead, he recommended you download Opera Composer, a separate utility that would let you create a customised executable with the ICQ/Email/News clients removed, and new skins installed. I'd never heard anything so crazy: you have to make your own custom binary to remove the bloat.

At the time, everybody was haranguing Mozilla for being too slow and bloated, yet here was the supposed champ of lightness and fastness forcing you to get extra programs to slim it down!

I'll be honest, though I use Opera at my college, it's because it's either a choice between that or Netscape 4.7 (ie5 is b0rked). I've been using (well, trying to use) Mozilla since the days of M5, and so could be considered one of the faithful.

I dunno. I still maintain Opera is great in terms of providing choice and competition, and they've certainly introduced some cool features like gestures, but I feel they are being outclassed by Mozilla in particular here.

Re:Opera may be cool

[TiggerStripe]

Pardon? "Mozilla efficiency" is unfortunately an oxymoron... note the loading time compared to Opera, resource usage, download size, etc. and please tell me you're joking.

Not trolling here because I kinda dig Mozilla - but Opera 6 is far more efficient.

Re:Opera may be cool

[DiCeR]

Atleast you have the opportunity to get rid of the bloat if you want to...

I cant see you doing that with Netscape/IE/Mozilla short of doing your own build... and thats not gonna win any large marketshare!

Opera is a browser primarily and doesent pretend to be something else. Netscape and Mozilla has fully fledged email-clients, HTML composers (that sucks!) and news readers... and IE pretends to be an OS (that sucks!) ...

Opera have everything I want from a browser. Now I wish the Internet would start following standards. *G*

Re:Opera may be cool

[MobileC]

If you don't like the advertising then press F11 (Fullscreen).

Re:Opera may be cool

[borud]

yeah, that Mozilla sure runs smoothly on my
old 386 with 6Mb RAM.

PS: can you spot the sarcasm?

-Bjørn

Re:Opera may be cool

[eddy]

Now you're the one making factual mistakes. The email and news clients (maybe messaging too, haven't bothered looking) are just DLLs (in the win32 build), whose inclusion is easy to avoid by a couple of clicks in preferences or simply removing the files (worked a while back at least -- I got Opera 5 onto a single 1.4Mb floppy with space to spare)

I have not used this "composer" program, but I seriously question that it works anything like what you have put forth.

I've been a Opera user since 3.x, and I love it. It's not perfect, far from it. I have a whole list of things I'd like to see, like better popup management and more developer features like logging of all HTTP I/O (requests and answers) and the like. I just feel that calling it bloated is plain wrong. I does use a great deal of memory if you allow memory-caching, but that's sort of the point of that feature.

Re:Opera may be cool

[IamTheRealMike]

Atleast you have the opportunity to get rid of the bloat if you want to... I cant see you doing that with Netscape/IE/Mozilla short of doing your own build... and thats not gonna win any large marketshare!

Actually you can install Mozilla with only the browser if you so wish, or only the email client. You don't have to have any of the extra programs if you don't wish to - try using the Installer builds if you don't believe me.

I see people saying stuff like "Mozilla is bloated". That cracks me up. How big is a Mozilla install? About 18mb. Please compare that to Internet Explorer and yes Opera too, and I think you'll find it's favourable.

Now there is an argument that says, well you don't have to install Composer, but parts of it will still be there if you need Messenger, because Messenger uses Composer. This is a valid argument. But really, Mozilla is not bloated as in physically big. I always have it running in the background with FastLoad (when I'm in windows), and never notice it. I can do this, even with IE loaded.

Re:Opera may be cool

[Jon Howard]

Of course a browser that fits on a floppy wouldn't offer the features that customers needed, and wouldn't have any market presence

Speaking of browsers that fit on a floppy, check out OffByOne. It's tiny, fast, functional under win32 or wine, and provides the all of the basics. While it's not the most powerful browser out there, it can handle ssl and is extremely slim.

Consider it a halfway-point between Lynx and Opera. :)

Re:Opera may be cool

[Darren Winsper]

Actually, unless Opera gains some decent DOM support soon, its time is nearly up. After all, with Netscape 4's market share rapidly becoming insignificant, you'll start seeing a lot more client-side scripting and Opera will get left behind.

Come on, Konqueror's development is happening faster than Opera, it can't be that hard.

Re:Opera may be cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla bloated?

% which mozilla
/usr/bin/mozilla
% ls -l /usr/bin/mozilla
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4979 Apr 8 11:58 /usr/bin/mozilla

Re:Opera may be cool

[ergo98]

You know I would have believed this 2 years ago, but there is definitely a major push for cross platform usability of web interfaces now: I personally feel that there is less of an acceptance of just saying "Best viewed on IE 5.x" now than there was a couple of years ago. Why? Animosity to Microsoft has grown, and of course the W3C standards have vastly improved. Opera has committed to abiding by the DOM 2.x spec, and I'm sure that when it matters (it doesn't right now), they will support it. You can take any current product and talk about how it's doomed because it doesn't support some esoteric, unused feature that will be relevant in the future, but that presumes that the product that you're talking about is static and isn't progressing as well.

Re:Opera may be cool

[ergo98]

Firstly, let me say that I think it's awesome the progress Mozilla is making (and it has dramatically improved in the past months). Having said that, many mozilla supporters hold it up as a better than Opera (with a previous post calling Opera "bloated", and then stating that they use Mozilla). Just as a quick test I ran Mozilla on Windows 2000 and loaded Slashdot : Memory usage = 23,304 KB. I then opened Opera and loaded Slashdot : Memory usage = 13467 KB. For mozilla I just installed the browser, whereas for Opera I did install the full package (I'm not sure if this is an optional thing. In other words I have the email client and newsgroup reader). This is hardly scientific, and as you browse both of them bloat up with cached handles and such, however it is interesting to see.

Re:Opera may be cool

[rapidweather]

Press "F11" to go to full screen, and presto, no ad banner!, also, no scroll bars! Just use the up and down arrow keys, and/or Page Up, Page Down. It gets the job done...btw, I am using Opera 6.0 for linux, just released today. Going to get 6.2 for Windows 98 after I reboot to that OS, but right now I am having a fine time with Opera and RHL 6.1!

Re:Opera may be cool

[SealBeater]

I see people saying stuff like "Mozilla is bloated".
That cracks me up. How big is a Mozilla install? About 18mb. Please compare
that to Internet Explorer and yes Opera too, and I think you'll find it's favourable.

Slackware package created by checkinstall:
du -sh opera-6.0-20020510.1-static-qt.i386-pak.tgz
4.6M opera-6.0-20020510.1-static-qt.i386-pak.tgz

And that's the static, not the shared.

SealBeater

Re:Opera may be cool

[Darren Winsper]

Of all the major browsers out there now, Opera has the worst DOM support. This is no secret and promising such a feature is rather useless seeing as you can't just bolt DOM support on, the engine has to be designed around it. Just look at the problems Netscape had.

Re:Opera may be cool

[hkmwbz]

Opera 6.02 for Windows is incredibly stable. Try it if you run Windows.

Re:Opera may be cool

[hkmwbz]

Opera 7 is supposed to have both proper DOM support and a new, dynamic, and even faster rendering engine.

If you read the Opera newsgroups at news.opera.com, you will regularly see Opera developers give out pieces of information about their plans for future versions. At the same time as they are completely rewriting the rendering engine, they are also re-doing the mailer and newsreader from scratch.

Konqueror? It's only available for KDE users, while Opera is available on a number of different platforms. And it's growing.

Re:Opera may be cool

[hkmwbz]

Opera are combining proper DOM support with a rewritten rendering engine with support for changing stuff dynamically after the page has been rendered. It looks like they are doing the right thing.

Re:Opera may be cool

[hkmwbz]

"I see people saying stuff like "Mozilla is bloated". That cracks me up. How big is a Mozilla install? About 18mb. Please compare that to Internet Explorer and yes Opera too, and I think you'll find it's favourable."

Excuse me, but do you really know what you are talking about? Opera installed is about 4 MB! The download is about 3 MB. The Mozilla download is about 11 MB. Mozilla can't even compete with Opera when it comes to size.

Why do you think everyone wants to use Opera for embedded devices? Because Opera is tiny, so they can have the exact same core (as in displaying of web pages) on embedded devices as on desktop computers. While Pocket IE sacrifices a lot, Opera is basically the same core on all platforms!

"Now there is an argument that says, well you don't have to install Composer, but parts of it will still be there if you need Messenger, because Messenger uses Composer. This is a valid argument."

Huh? What are you talking about? The Composer is an online service. The instant messaging client is included in the default install (but it's been disabled by default since AOL keep blocking them - it can be enabled in Opera's "Programs and paths" preferences).

"But really, Mozilla is not bloated as in physically big."

Yes, Mozilla is physically big, both the downloaded package and the installed package.

Opera, on the other hand is about a 3 MB download, and when installed it takes up about 4 MB (before you start getting cached items, download mail and files, add plugins etc.). But Opera itself is very small compared to Mozilla.

Re:Opera may be cool

[hkmwbz]

Bear in mind that Opera will use memory depending on how much is available. If you have a lot available, Opera will take up more memory. But hey, the RAM is there to be used right?

On the other hand, you can disable automatic RAM caching and set fixed values in Opera. This way, you can force it to use less RAM. Or more if you insist :)

Re:Opera may be cool

[Darren Winsper]

Is there any actual evidence of this? You can't just magic up a new rendering engine on a whim.

Re:Opera may be cool

[hkmwbz]

What makes you think it hasn't been worked on for a long time? Just have a look in the opera.* newsgroups (server news.opera.com). Opera developers mention details about coming versions all the time. Here's one:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1103_10160178 25%40axelsiebert.de

"Unfortunately, this bug can not be fixed until the next major release, which will have a new dynamic layout engine and a different EcmaScript-Scheduler."

Re:Opera may be cool

[Darren Winsper]

And where is the stated level of support? For example, will it support getComputedStyle? So far, Mozilla is the *only* browser to support that, despite the fact that it's actually quite useful.

Re:Opera may be cool

[hkmwbz]

Don't ask me. I'm just telling you where I got this information from.

Yes, Opera is great

[weird mehgny]

It might not be open source but it's still a fast and reliable browser and better than Mozilla in my taste.

Re:Yes, Opera is great

[nicarley]

Happen to try mozilla 1.0 Rc2 lately with HTTP Pipelining enabled? Thats fast!

Re:Yes, Opera is great

[tjw]

Happen to try mozilla 1.0 Rc2 lately with HTTP Pipelining enabled? Thats fast!

I tried it. It couldn't notice any speed improvement, and rendering pages with lots of images failed miserably (e.g http://tjw.org/wedding/)

I guess that's why it's disabled by default.

Re:*BSD: We Hardly Knew Ye

[dirvish]

Isn't OS X based on BSD? Don't a whole load of servers run BSD?

Also patches some security holes

[pythas]

A advisory was issued on Bugtraq today, and the 2 holes it referenced are fixed by 6.02.

Here's the description (taken from the advisory):

Opera allows the location of a frame to be overwritten by an url
containing the javascript protocoll. The javascript code will be operating
in the same domain as the url that was overwritten. Thus we can read
cookies from other domains, local file structure and private information
from the cache (history of links visited).

Re:Also patches some security holes

[GutBomb]

but the linux version is only up to 6.0. i wonder if the vulnerability even works on linux or if it is windows specific, since they released 6.0 today for linux, and 6.02 for windows.

Re:Also patches some security holes

[pythas]

Ack. Quick correction. Looks like just one vulnerability, but 2 exploits for it listed in the advisory.

For more info, check out:

http://online.securityfocus.com/archive/1/272583 /2 002-05-12/2002-05-18/0

the killer

[TunaPhish]

Opera is great, but I can't stand the built in ads. I feel like I'm back on NetZero. Besides, Galeon does all those mouse guestures anyway...

Re:the killer

[Anonymous Coward]

You can buy it and do away with the ads if you like it.

Re:the killer

[Anonymous Coward]

You can block the ads by adding these lines to your hosts file. You can also add these servers to the Junkbuster block file.

127.0.0.1 rps1.opera.com
127.0.0.1 rps2.opera.com
127.0.0.1 ins1.opera.com
127.0.0.1 ins2.opera.com
127.0.0.1 rgs1.opera.com
127.0.0.1 rgs2.opera.com

Re:the killer

[fmaxwell]

You can block the ads by adding these lines to your hosts file. You can also add these servers to the Junkbuster block file.

Or you could just pay the reasonable registration fee instead of trying to find some technological means to cheat the people that wrote Opera.

It's ad-sponsored or user-sponsored. Either put up with the ads or register the browser.

Re:the killer

[Anonymous Coward]

...or go to Netscape or Mozilla...

Re:the killer

[Anonymous Coward]

Scum! Ascii goatsex pagewidening crapflooding fp trolls are one and all more enlightened than you. If you don't like the advertisements, and you don't want to pay, don't use Opera. You have alternatives. If you choose Opera, pay up.

Re:the killer

[tomknight]

You cheap fuck. Pay the damn money and help support professional developers. "Oh no, it's not open souce, it must be work of the devil." Just grow up and accept that some people do actually want to make money from their product. Opera's a bloody good browser - once I realised that I coughed up the money.

Tom.

Yay, Competition is a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

As a loyal Mozilla user, I still find it's great to have good competitive options for users. It gives everyone involved more incentive to produce the best browsers possible.

And, as long as everyone is serious about sticking with standards this time, that's great for all of us. (And bonus points to Opera for its excellent support of PNG (like Mozilla!)... now if only a certain browser produced by a certain company in Washington would support PNG transparency correctly...)

Number of coders

[thetechweenie]

Does anyone know how many people are involved in coding opera?

Re:Number of coders

[tornado_norway]

Opera Software employs about 100 persons, mostly coding, but also some people in sales/admin. At least that's what I remember from Tetzchner(CEO) presentation here at my university.

Re:Number of coders

[Parsa]

This was actually asked in Opera's newsgroups. Someone was guessing around 15 but that was by using this formula:

We know there are about 100 employees at Opera Software, and that about 55 people do the coding. (I say about because the numbers at the opera web-site are from 2000, and I know Opera has 'adjusted' it's workforce since.)Out of them, I seem to recall(borderline guessing) that 30% are programming the windows version..meaning about 15 people.

Also if you're interested their news server is news.opera.no

Re:Number of coders

[k98sven]

About 55, I'd say.. This from opera.com
Of 100 employees (December 31, 2000) 55 worked within Technical Development.

Solaris??? Please??

[The Salamander]

Can we get a Solaris release up to 6.0 now? Please? Its really strange having 6.0 at home, but 5.0 at work. Different "issues"
with different sites.

And its pretty much prevented me from purchasing it as well...

MDI Web Browser?

[qurob]

Puke!

Moderation totals: 5 troll, 10 offtopic, 3,432,121 flamebait

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[Anders]

Of course, Opera 6 has an SDI mode as well, though I usually get along just fine with a bunch of tabs and a single window maximized.

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[hendridm]

Not sure why this was funny, but you have the option of running it as MDI or SDI. The tabbed browsing is nice, but I don't like how you have to "Alt-Shift-Click" to do it. Why not just Shift- or Control- click like Mozilla? To me, this is an awesome feature, and I want it as easy to use as possible since I use it so frequently (as I suspect many other here do).

Tough choice for me between Mozilla and Opera. I like the speed (and don't mind paying for it), but it doesn't feel quite as "comfortable" as Mozilla does yet...

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[doob]

The tabbed browsing is nice, but I don't like how you have to "Alt-Shift-Click" to do it. Why not just Shift- or Control- click like Mozilla?

Strange, i just middle click in both. I'm sure i didn't have to set this up in Mozilla, can't remember about Opera. Have a play with the settings.

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF is MDI? I'm sure the parent thread is truly funny, I just don't get it.....

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[hendridm]

MDI stands for "Multiple Document Interface". It allows you to have multiple Windows nested within the main program (Photoshop is an example), instead of a Single Document Interface (SDI) with one window for the program (like Notepad, where each document open is another instance of Notepad running).

I didn't get the joke either...

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[hendridm]

I don't like to have to configure complex mouse drivers. I'm using Windows so I have to reload about once every 2 months, and I like a clean, simple install (which still takes many hours to redo with so many reboots). I use all default drivers when possible and try to get used to programs using as many defaults as possible.

I'm probably unique, but I also use a lot of different machines at work which can't be configured (easily) to my taste, so I prefer to get used to defaults... It's like using a split keyboard at home and then trying to use a standard keyboard on 50 computers at work. Not fun. I like my software the same way.

Here I go, off on a tangent...

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[MaggieL]

The tabbed browsing is nice, but I don't like how you have to "Alt-Shift-Click" to do it. Why not just Shift- or Control- click like Mozilla?

Or even better middle-button click....which for Linux users means both-buttons-at-once. Nice. No shifting required.

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Outdated FUD. Opera has had an option for quite some time now that enables it to behave like Internet Explorer. Of course, that ruins much of Opera's functionality, but hey, small solutions for small minds.

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[DunbarTheInept]

Correction: "Which for *some* linux users, who are stuck using inferior mice without enough buttons (either by choice or otherwise), means both-buttons-at-once."

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

as long as you realize that your aversion to mdi
is merely your own personal preference and not
some form of revealed truth share by all right thinking people, my response is a big
"whatever".

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[qurob]

Middle button? I'm using a iBook for fucks sake!

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

" but it doesn't feel quite as "comfortable" as Mozilla does yet..."
the key word is yet.
Give it awhile.

This speaks to 90 % of what really bugs the wusses
who complain that Opera's user interface isn't intuitive.

You just aren't used to it.

And this is from geeks who expect doze windows
to learn piles of new stuff but aren't willing to
do it themselves.

Keep using Opera it rocks esp if you are a keyboard user.

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

want a 35 mb windows folder?
copy /win95 from cdrom
extract setuppp.inf from precopy2.cab
edit the line
setuppp.inf=2,,4550 ---> setuppp.inf=0,,4550

then edit out in both setuppp.inf and layout.inf
to comment out any mention of
ohare.inf
mos.inf
athena.inf
inetmail.inf
msinfo.inf

you will have no internet explorer, ms mail products, or any online services (including MSN)
shilling their siren call to use)
prune some redundant help and inf files
and you have windows 35.0 MB.
I saw win98 on a laptop 500 mb.
on xp it was 1.45 GB.

Softy so big and fat.
gut him like the pig he is.
down to the bone.

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, I can't say I've ever met anyone who actually likes MDI but there must be at least a couple.

Re:MDI Web Browser?

[MaggieL]

who are stuck using inferior mice without enough buttons...
Actually, this mouse would probably have a middle button, but apparently some silly person put a big red marble there instead. Think of it as a wheel mouse with two degrees of freedom on the wheel.

If you're into many-buttoned mice, why not just put puck feet on your keyboard? Go directly from Qwerty to Ouija. Do not pass Dvorak, do not collect $200. ;-)

Re:Don't download it!

[Anonymous Coward]

I like Opera a hell of a lot more than I like Mozilla. And people should use whatever they like best.

A banner in the browser.

[robbear7]

I refuse to use the opera browser simply because of the advertisement banner displayed up top. Opera is great, and will continue to get better, dont get me wrong. The day they remove that advetisement banner I will ditch IE. Just my opinion. -Robbie

Re:A banner in the browser.

[Hallow]

You can get rid of the advertisement. You just have to pay for it.

Opera Software makes it's living by selling ads or by selling the browser. They used to have a time limited trial version, but decided to get rid of the time limit by making it adware.

So shell out the $40 (or less, can't remember), get rid of the ads, and support the company directly if you like the product.

You even get a discount if you purchase licenses for multiple platforms at the same time.

Re:A banner in the browser.

[rob_canoe]

Which part of "Buy Opera today - For the best internet experience Ad Free" do you not understand?

Re:A banner in the browser.

[Anonymous Coward]

for linux:
u-iepCR-cRfSL-8zReX-nJ8Ed-KBAEn

for windows:
w-hXxRn-YyU5j-PPHMd-tnfhK-UrTcS

Re:A banner in the browser.

[dinivin]

Which part of "Buy Opera today - For the best internet experience Ad Free" do you not understand?

So if you buy it, they will get rid of every ad on every web page I visit? Now that is worth paying for. Otherwise, forget it.

Dinivin

Re:A banner in the browser.

[cetan]

For a typical slashdot user, the part where you have to give money to someone else for goods or services...

[/troll] :)

Re:A banner in the browser.

[Gaccm]

while they won't get rid of all ads Opera does have a few perks to make ads less annoying. Opera can stop pop ups (or put them in background), it can disable animated gifs, and disable javascript (yeah, i know every browser can do the last one). One last cool trick is that in the top left (or wherever you position it) of the window there is a button which will 1) turn off all images on this page, 2)only display cached image, or 3) normal. So Opera definitely has some nice ad stopping abilities, but it can't block the simple banner ads, you still need junkbuster.

Re:A banner in the browser.

[reallocate]

Just their ads, as if you didn't know.

But then, I suspect you think Opera should simply give the thing away.

Re:A banner in the browser.

[dinivin]

But then, I suspect you think Opera should simply give the thing away.

Not at all... However, I certainly see no reason why I should shell out money for a web browser with nearly the exact same functionality that can be found in other, freely available, web browsers.

Dinivin

Re:A banner in the browser.

[TiggerStripe]

I have a method for removal of the banner... it is called "Purchase" and works every time. Well worth it. You'd be surprised how much better Opera looks without a banner, BTW.

Re:A banner in the browser.

[Nitar]

Which part of "Buy Opera today - For the best internet experience Ad Free" do you not understand?

I don't think that the poster misunderstood that. I think the problem is, there are free alternatives. Why should I pay $39.00 for something that can be obtained for free?

Re:A banner in the browser.

[Anonymous Coward]

As I posted in another thread:

You can block the ads by adding these lines to your hosts file. You can also add these servers to the Junkbuster block file.

127.0.0.1 rps1.opera.com
127.0.0.1 rps2.opera.com
127.0.0.1 ins1.opera.com
127.0.0.1 ins2.opera.com
127.0.0.1 rgs1.opera.com
127.0.0.1 rgs2.opera.com

Re:A banner in the browser.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stopping pop-ups in amazingly valuable when trolling for porn.

Re:A banner in the browser.

[fmaxwell]

Why should I pay $39.00 for something that can be obtained for free?

So that software engineers who produce quality products can earn a living.

The majority of people on Slashdot are either paid by the software industry or want to be -- yet they think software should be free. You don't need a PHD in economics to see the flaw with that line of reasoning.

Re:A banner in the browser.

[PunchMonkey]

I refuse to use the opera browser simply because of the advertisement banner displayed up top. Opera is great, and will continue to get better, dont get me wrong. The day they remove that advetisement banner I will ditch IE. Just my opinion. -Robbie

You could buy the browser to get rid of that :-)

Personally, I like leaving it on, for the past week all I've seen are amusing "Opera" comics.

Re:A banner in the browser.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you very much. It made the browser crash after I applied it, but now I browse ad-free.

Re:A banner in the browser.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then I suggest that you aren't the target user anyway.

I believe that there are features in Opera that aren't present in other browsers. Those extra features are worth some extra money.

If you see Opera as being equal to free alternatives, then by all means, go for the free alternative.

Re:A banner in the browser.

[Isldeur]

I think he's right. What are these extra features which are worth 39$? I would love to have a reason to support these people but the free alternatives (mostly konqueror 3.0 but I suppose mozilla as well) do 97% of what I need. I really would love to find something to differentiate enough that it's worth +$39...

Re:A banner in the browser.

[DunbarTheInept]

And you don't need a PhD in linguistics to understand that "free" has two independant meanings in English and you (and the person you are responding to) are using the shallow one. Opera (the ad-less version) is non-free in *both* senses of the word, freedom and gratis, Opera with the ads is free in the "gratis" sense of the word, but still not free in the "freedom" sense of the word (can't see the source code to modify or fix the thing yourself). And there exist some people who do really care a lot about that to the point where they will pick a tool with available source code over one without. I'm not one of them, I use Opera myself, but to assume that they are always referring to price when they say "software should be free" is to misrepresent their position. Even though I don't agree entirely with them, It still bothers me to see their position misrepresented over and over. It's not fair.

I do have one problem with the "software should all be free" attitude, but it is that people refuse to see that something which is open source is harder to charge money for since people could pirate it with almost no effort at all, and thus software that is free in the freedom sense of the word yet not free in the gratis sense of the word is rather rare. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head. I was about to mention Linux
distros, except that with them the price they charge is entirely on the honor system. It is
perfectly legal to buy one Redhat CD and install it on 100 computers, then burn a copy of it for your friends to install on their computers. It is perfectly legal to download the whole ISO image and burn the CD without ever even buying one initial copy to start with. The only reason they can make money at the model is because there are enough people that are willing to pay them money anyway even though they are not legally required to to get the distribution. This is because most of their customer base consists of "fans" and others who want to see them do well. That model doesn't work if Redhat use was expanded to the computer using populace at large.

But saying, "these people don't realize that freedom of use inevitably leads to gratis distribtion" (which is my point) is very different from saying "These people are lazy-ass bums who want everything to be gratis" (which is how your post ends up implying things).

Re:A banner in the browser.

[hkmwbz]

Two poins:

1. You can also use the G key to toggle images on/cached only/off.

2. Opera 6.02 for Windows actually introduces full URL filtering capabilities! Rumours are it will be added to Opera 6.01 for Linux!

Re:A banner in the browser.

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why they should drop to a nominalware
price of $10.00 or a max of 25.00.

Re:A banner in the browser.

[RFC959]

Strictly IM[E|O]: (some of these things Konqueror may already have; I honestly don't use it very much these days, so if I missed something, believe me, I'm not trolling.)

• Opera generally renders pages better than Konqueror. That's a biggie.
• Very fast and easy switching of preferences. For example, changing identifying the browser from Opera to IE with one mouse click, or changing from displaying images to no images to only already-loaded images with one click. The "author mode/user mode" toggle is a fantastic idea. How many times have you come across a page where the text is 6 point type in dark blue on a dark red background, or something similarly unreadable? Being able to fix that with one click is a great thing.
• Mouse gestures. (Working mouse gestures, not "oh, download and install this extra component...")
• An interface that's both MDI and SDI - you can have multiple windows and tabs within a single window at the same time.
• Very integrated search (and now translation!) capabilities. There's a search field in the address bar, and you can highlight text in a window and right-click to search for that text or translate it.

Lastly, I think it's a good idea to support anyone who writes software for Linux, even if it is commercial software. I'd hate to see Opera fail and then have people point to it as an example of why you just can't bother to compete with Microsoft. In the long run, that's going to hurt us a lot more than paying the $39 will.

Re:A banner in the browser.

[Arker]

So if you buy it, they will get rid of every ad on every web page I visit? Now that is worth paying for. Otherwise, forget it.

Sure, turn off image loading and window creation and you'll get about 99% of them. You can do that without paying for it too. It's not all that horribly difficult to turn the ads off if you're technical at all anyway, of course, but paying a few bucks for the browser is completely reasonable when it's been consistently the best browser out there since 3.12, and upgrades are usually free.

Re:A banner in the browser.

[fmaxwell]

And you don't need a PhD in linguistics to understand that "free" has two independant meanings in English and you (and the person you are responding to) are using the shallow one.

When someone says "Why should I pay $39.00 for something that can be obtained for free?", it would be pretty f****** stupid for me to respond as if he had used the word "free" in the context of "freedom", now wouldn't it?

And neither meaning is more "shallow" than the other. They are just different.

Re:A banner in the browser.

[DunbarTheInept]

When someone says "Why should I pay $39.00 for something that can be obtained for free?", it would be pretty f****** stupid for me to respond as if he had used the word "free" in the context of "freedom", now wouldn't it?

Sure, if your reply was constrained to only talking about that one person. But you then expanded it to the community at large, applying your criticism to everyone who says software should be free yet wants to be paid themselves, as if that was a contradiction (which IS implying that everyone who says "software should be free" is talking only about price. I agree that that is what this one person was talking about, but your rant encompassed more than this one person.)

Great!

[new_breed]

no more netscape, no more lynx...surfing the internet sure has gotten attractive now on Linux. A good browser was still missing in the linux environment..

Opera as fast alternative

[Zelet]

When I first started comparing browsers Mozilla was slow as dirt and really buggy (fixed since then) and IE was/is insecure so I looked into Opera.

At first I thought that the required ads were going to get annoying, but in truth, they weren't that bad at all. Plus, if I hated them that much I could pay a small fee and get rid of them.

But the best part about Opera is it is the fastest html renderer there is out on the market as far as I am concerned. A second high point to Opera, is that it is completely standard compliant. Unlike some browsers... which one you ask? Um... IE maybe, but that could just be me.

The winner in the pack now has to be Mozilla, but a close second right now is Opera.

Re:Opera as fast alternative

[sgtsanity]

Personally, I've found Mozilla to be faster. Turning on HTTP Pipelining in the options makes it a lot faster, but it still has a few bugs in it. One of the reasons that Mozilla seems faster, is that it renders the page as it downloads it, rather than all at once as is the case in Opera. The feeling of speed may be an illusion, but I like it!

Re:Opera as fast alternative

[jmertic]

Very fast alternative. I started using Opera 6 in the beta stages and was very happy with the speed and extensive configuration options. I use Mozilla on my main machine, but on my P166MMX laptop running RH 6.2, this thing runs faster than the Netscape that RH came with; Mozilla ran *horribly* slow on it. Kudos to the development team.

Re:Opera as fast alternative

[nusuth]

Opera 6 is much slower than Opera 5, that might be why you have a different experience than the parent.

Re:Opera as fast alternative

[QuoteMstr]

Opera doesn't support some standards. Everything involving modifying the page after it has been loaded (e.g., with Javascript access to the DOM) is unsupported. DHTML simply does not work with Opera. I suspect this has something to do with the methods they use (whatever they may be) to achieve their high rendering speeds.

Anyway, this page is fully standards compliant and works with IE >= 5.0 and Gecko, yet Opera barfs on it.

Re:Opera as fast alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera 6 is not fully CSS2 compliant. It's better than IE (by far), but not quite as good as Mozilla. It does, however, support counters, which Mozilla doesn't.

Just for some quick examples, 6.01 (windows) does not support :first-line or cursor.

Re:Opera as fast alternative

[Tadu]

If you want an example of how slow Opera renders a simple page, have a look at this page.

Re:Opera as fast alternative

[sgtsanity]

Actually, I use Opera 5 as when I tried out Opera 6, it didn't like my POS DSL.

Re:Opera as fast alternative

[GizmoToy]

Loaded quick for me... I don't get it...??

Re:Opera as fast alternative

[Sentry21]

It's completely standards-compliant, sure, except that some things don't work properly, some don't work at all, and the rest ranges frmo perfect to buggy as hell.

It's not a bad browser if you have nothing else, but I'm not going to pay $20 for a browser that doesn't work as well as Mozilla in most circumstances, and is a bitch to configure and work with (in my experience).

--Dan

Re:Opera as fast alternative

[tomknight]

Almost instantaneous.

Re:Opera as fast alternative

[hkmwbz]

Opera doesn't support some standards.

Uh. Opera has partial DOM. Apart from that, what is missing?

Oh yeah, I am sure you can dig up a few recommendations from w3.org, but then again one can do the same for any browser. The point isn't valid.

Re:Opera as fast alternative

[Tadu]

_Loaded_ - yes. _Rendered_ - no. If you can watch it redraw the background picture twice on loading or on resizing or on scolling (okay, not this dummy page, but similar ones), that's not instant, It takes ~1.5seconds.

Re:Opera as fast alternative

[hkmwbz]

No browser iss fully CSS2 compliant. Aural CSS, anyone? Opera probably has the best CSS support of any browser out there though. Including Mozilla.

opera as big as netscape?

[GutBomb]

in a world where 90% of page designers design for IE, opera sure has a hard time, but it seems to be getting better. in the logs for my web site i am noticing that 94% of my users are using ie, 2% netscape, 2% opera, and 2% others. i would guess that the others would be spiders, mozilla, (unless this also is logged as netscape)kmeleon or konqueror. With opera gaining the same usership as netscape, even though it is only 2 % looks like the mark of success for me. although I am pretty much forced to use ie if i want to see pages the way they are meant to be seen, i have toyed around a bit with opera and love the mouse gestures.

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[Dstrct0]

But Opera can identify itself as other browsers.

To cut down on annoying "You need MSIE x.x to see this site" messages, I have my Opera set to identify itself as IE.

I wonder how many of those other 94% of IE hits on your site are Opera (or other browsers with such an option) in disguise?

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[jaavaaguru]

You've got the wrong people looking at your site then ;-) Konqueror 2.2, followed by Mozilla, followed by IE5, followed by Konqueror 3.0.

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[GutBomb]

well, my site is a site dedicated to a game that only runs on windows, so i don't see alot of linux based browsers, and i would imagine most people visiting my site have never even heard of mozilla outside of myself mentioning it. when i posted an article about how i got max payne working on linux, everyone simply laughed and told me to get a "real" computer. i get similar responses when talking about opera or mozilla. "get a real browser".

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[jaavaaguru]

Ah, yeah, the majority of games I've played were only for Windows too, except Unreal Tournament and Quake. Even then, I still prefered to use a "real operating system" when surfing then net ;-)

The majority of Windows users I know appreciate how Mozilla and the like are superior, but use IE simply "because it's there" and are too lazy to do anything about it.

p.s. I thought Max Payne was a Playstation game. I'm sure the Electronics Boutique shop my friend works in had a playable version in-store.

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[Fweeky]

> But Opera can identify itself as other browsers.

More importantly, Opera by default identifies itself as another browser.

One of the first things I did when I configured it was to set it to identify itself as Opera rather than MSIE. I can't say I've ever felt the need to revert.

I guess I must have somewhat atypical browsing habits, since I can't say I've seen many problems with layout or JS - the worst I can think of from the past month or so was perhaps an offset CSS/Edge style background image on some site, and that's still rendered better than MSIE.

Certainly as a web developer I find I hit problems with MSIE more often than I do with Opera. I guess that's because I'm not a DHTML weenie :)

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[mce]

It all depends on your public. Our site is oriented to very technically minded people, partly from the ECAD comunity which even is very UNIX minded. Hence, our stats reed more or less like this: 65% IE, 25% NS4, 5% NS6/Mozilla, 1% Opera, 4% all the others combined.

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[Anonymous Coward]

oh yeah, i forgot about the ps2 and xbox versions

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[leviramsey]

However, when Opera spoofs IE, it only says:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Linux 2.4.18-13mdk i686) Opera 6.0 [en]

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[Sj0]

I'm just wondering...What sites say that? I haven't touched IE in months (k-meleon + 98lite makes for an uncrashable web machine, and at work I generally use Mozilla or K-Meleon), and I've never come across one...

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[MaggieL]

oh yeah, i forgot about the ps2 and xbox versions

Get a real console. :-)

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[DunbarTheInept]

It is a little-known fact that that the user-agent string for IE often ID's itself as another browser. For example, the last time I checked, which was back in IE 4.0, IE identified itself as Mosaic, with the only mention of MSIE being in parenthesis, just like the string you show above for Opera. I suspect that websites looking for IE ignore everything but the "compatable; MSIE x.x" part of the string. They just about have to, since the principal part of the user-agent string doesn't tell them that it's IE.

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[leviramsey]

Yeah, all versions of IE after 4.0 identify themselves as Mozilla/4.0

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[Megs]

Well, here are the two I visit:

NYUHome - My university's interface for webmail/file management/various crap. Gives you an error and an invitation to "upgrade" to a supported browser. Works just fine under OmniWeb as long as it is set to identify as one of the "supported" browsers.

Albert - My university's system for registering for classes, checking grades, and all kinds of important stuff online. Second only in annoyance level to the phone system that does the same thing (Welcome...to...Torch...Tone...) This thing is so crufty that it barfs under anything but sufficiently advanced versions of MSIE/Netscape. It doesn't even admit that it works under IE, but it does.

I wouldn't visit these sites if it were optional, but there you have it.

Meghan

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[Ilgaz]

And nobody in your university didn't feedback about it?

At least they could do what Symantec does... They have special netscape 6 version of products page, when I go the with Opera, identifying as Opera, it shows me those NS 6 pages (to be correct, w3c standard pages)

Interesting is, an university webmaster, not a frontpage cheapo company doing it... I mean, ALL are documented. How to detect browsers, both by Netscape and Opera company. If he/she doesn't spare to CUT/PASTE that jscript code to his/her webpage, he/she doesn't deserve that job.

oh, people not saying "Wtf?" to webmaster and changing browser identifying strings to practically lie about the thing they are actually using is another story.

Browsing with Opera identified as Opera since 6-7 months. If a webpage of a shop makes that offense to the browser I choose, I go and find another one, if extremely importmant page does that, I feedback to webmaster.

BTW, especially commercial website authors reading Slashdot... Isn't it funny in this struggling Dotcom days to ignore and OFFEND (go away, you are using a obsecure browser you psycho) users who PAID $37.5 to quality program while free alternatives exist? Um, I mean, advertisements etc... :-)

BTW, check numbers on download.com...

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[Sj0]

Odd. K-Meleon works fine. I'll have to point this to my web server and check out the user-agent.

Re:opera as big as netscape?

[Sj0]

XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX - - [XX/XXX/XXXX:XX:XX:XX -XXXX] "GET / HTTP/1.0" XXX XXX "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:0.9.5) Gecko/20011011"

That's the log entry for K-Meleon. Perhaps the Mozilla revision number is the important part?

woo woo

[drDugan]

< PLUG >

Opera is awesome. I've used Opera since version
3 on both Windows and (lately) Linux. If
anyone else out there is sick of MS bullshat,
think about trying it. The early Linux
versions were OK, but now it is (for me) the
hands-down winner for Linux browser.

< /PLUG >

Re:woo woo

[oever]

I like Opera too, but my bank's website renders horribly with it. Also there is _no_ browser that runs on Linux that can be used for online banking with their site even though it uses only html+javascript.

Sending the bank emails does not help. I don't really want to switch banks because other than this web problem, it's ok.

So here another <PLUG>:
Please Slashdotters, visit this site to put some browsers other than IE in their logs. This might make them sit up and listen to the consumers.

Thanks a lot, Jos

Re:woo woo

[ealar dlanvuli]

I use mozilla at my bank (firstar.com -- proy gona become usbank.com soon) every week or so, it renders beautifully.

It's one of the reasons they have my account instead of the competition, and I let them know that whenever I can.

Re:woo woo

[ealar dlanvuli]

it seems to render fine in Moz rc2, you should try it in that..

Re:woo woo

[Joe Tie.]

I recently moved, and when started up a new bank account didn't notice they had a lot of online backing stuff set up. After not using it for a few months, someone actually called me up to see if I wasn't using it due to not having a computer, or some problem with the site. I mentioned that I'd check it out, but that I was in linux so couldn't use internet explorer. Bad experiences in the past with banks pages had made me just assume there would be problems. But not only was he familier enough with linux to know what a user would have on there, he quickly mentioned that mozilla should have no problem with it. A tiny thing like that, and they easily scored a customer for awhile.

FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Opera run on FreeBSD? All my users are running FreeBSD on their desktop.

Re:FreeBSD

[MajorBurrito]

I am writing this reply within Opera running on FreeBSD. Works like a champ! Make sure, however, that you have the linux-png and linux-jpeg packages. You can probably wait a few days for a package to appear on freshports. Flash works, too!

Opera Interface

[Lord Ender]

Opera has the best interface. They invinted tabs and gestures. Mozilla has coppied these, though. They also were the first with built-in popup blocking. Unfortunately, it blocks all pop-up's even requested ones. Mozilla now does everything special Opera does (exctept for righ-left click for back and left-right click for forward) and Mozilla has superior popup support.

I can't wait till moz 1.0 comes out. I am building my grandpa a computer with OpenOffice 1.0, Mozilla 1.0, and Slackware (with windowmaker). That's all he needs.

Re:Opera Interface

[Ronin SpoilSpot]

I still find the Mozilla gestures less repsonsive and more clunky. That is probably just habit. Also, while Mozilla has tabs (but you have to do something special to open a new page as a tab), Opera has full multi-document-interface (which is fancy-pancy for having windows, which looks like tabs when they are all maximized, but they don't have to be). Missing the left-right and right-left clicking is a show-stopper though. It's like getting your first hard drive after using floppys for years. You can't remember how you got by without it. Opera is not flawless, but hell, what is. It still sparkles like a gem compared to most of everything else.

Me, addicted? I can stop at any time.
/RS

Re:Opera Interface

[dimator]

They invinted tabs and gestures. Mozilla has coppied these, though.

If you want to be specific, both Opera and Mozilla copied those ideas from others.

Re: Opera Interface

[Black Parrot]

> If you want to be specific, both Opera and Mozilla copied those ideas from others.

From whom? (I've been intending to ask, so this looks like a good spot.)

Re:Opera Interface

[jaavaaguru]

AFAIK, Konqueror has ALWAYS had the ability to disable the JavaScript window.open function. The only thing I can see that makes Konqueror worse than Opera, is that fact that it doesn't have tabbed browsing, oh and it needs the rest of KDE. Being a KDE user, I'm more than happy with Konqueror, although I use Opera for big downloads, as it has that nice download manager tightly integrated, and for browsing sites where I intend opening lots of pages at once (although I prefer Mozilla's implementation of tabs now I think - it can have multiple windows, each with its own set of tabs).

Re:Opera Interface

[geekoid]

"They invinted tabs and gestures. "
wrong
"They also were the first with built-in popup blocking."
wrong

Instead of just taking what is spoon fed to you, please try to look things up.

Re: Opera Interface

[Anonymous Coward]

Mentor Graphics software has had mouse gestures for many years now, just to name one. There were probably others even before them.

Re: Opera Interface

[Jobby]

NetCaptor has had tab support since around 1999. It is currently at version 7.0 and was great to use...until I tried Opera. NetCaptor's two main flaws are:

1. It costs $29.95
   
2. It is based on the IE engine, and gets horribly slow and munches RAM like the Cookie Monster.
   

Although Mozilla support for NetCaptor has been talked about, nothing concrete has appeared.

Re:Opera Interface

[mblase]

Opera has the best interface. They invinted tabs and gestures. Mozilla has coppied these, though.

Actually, doesn't Adobe own the patent on tabbed windows?

Re:Opera Interface

[joeykiller]

"They invinted tabs and gestures. "
wrong
"They also were the first with built-in popup blocking."
wrong

You may be right that the other guy's wrong, but I'd personally prefer if you'd also tell us who was first to implement these things.

Even though this is Slashdot one isn't required to be arrogant.

Re: Opera Interface

[leviramsey]

I've been using Opera, with it's tabbed UI since version 2.0, which was, IIRC, c. 1998. So there.

Re:Opera Interface

[DunbarTheInept]

As you well know, the US patent office is so lax on checking things up that just because someone has a patent on something doesn't mean they invented it.

Re: Opera Interface

[Anonymous Coward]

Quattro Pro had tabbed spreadsheets in like 1988. So there.

Re: Opera Interface

[hkmwbz]

As pointed out in Opera's newsgroups, NetCaptor are actually trying to patent tabbed browsing!

http://www.netcaptor.com/tour/1/:

"This screenshot demonstrates NetCaptor's patent-pending browser tab interface."

I say boycott them. Not only is it simply based on IE (with all its security holes and everything), they are trying to push the competition out of the market.

It would be like Opera patenting "mouse gestures in web browsers". If NetCaptor get a patent on tabbed browsing, it could be possible for Opera to patent mouse gestures in a web browser. But let's hope NetCaptor die a horrible death, and Opera will probably never try to stiffle competition by taking patents.

Opera isn't getting my business . . .

[Devlin-du-GEnie]

. . . because they haven't released a final version for Mac OS X. It's been in fourth effin' beta for months, now. When is the fat lady gonna sing?

Fortunately, Mozilla rocks.

Re:Opera isn't getting my business . . .

[First Person]

I have quite the opposite view. I paid for the Mac OS X version almost immediately after I downloaded it. In contrast, I haven't paid a dime on Windows. When Opera determines the priority of each platform, the revenue from each makes a major difference. If you use and like the software, pay 'em a few bucks. If Opera never upgrades, then they'll never make any more money from you. You see, paying money actually gives them an incentive to improve.

Personally, I'm not conviced that Opera is the best web browser. But, I figure that investing a few bucks in the hope that competition drives innovation is worthwhile.

One small thing about Opera that Irks me...

[dmomo]

On Windoze, I set Opera as the default app for opening html docs. When I click on an html file, it opens in Opera, along with ANOTHER instance that displays my home page. Ugggh.

Re:One small thing about Opera that Irks me...

[Anonymous Coward]

you could probably change this by choosing to not open any windows when opera starts up. then it would only require 2 clicks to open your homepage when you start opera normally. granted, it still sucks, but it might be worth trying.

Re:One small thing about Opera that Irks me...

[jakub_sad]

You can turn that off in Opera Prefrences menu (CTRL+P):go into "Start and Exit" and select "Start With No Windows". Works for me, although I am using version 6.01 (upgrading after I submit this).

Re:One small thing about Opera that Irks me...

[TicTacTux]

...anyone out there who knows how to save the page settings (fonts etc.) into a style sheet that can then be used? Hand? Yeuch! --Ben

Memory leak!

[Anonymous Coward]

If Opera removes the huge memory leak from their browser (which forces me to shut it down periodically) I will be one happy camper.

what about Solaris?

[MrDingDong]

It sure would be nice if they'd remember that old OS - Solaris.

I am using (loosely speaking) Opera 5b1 on Solaris, yet it either core dumps or bus errors at least 15 times a day on me.

I am used to Opera from Windows and Linux and would like to use it on Solaris at work, but it is pretty bad. Does anyone know if a usable Opera will ever be released for Solaris?

Re:what about Solaris?

[QuMa]

Running it both on sunOS 5.6 and 5.8 without major problems apart from the annoying 'this is an alpha' box..

Not only under Linux...

[FFtrDale]

I'm running an old Win98 box at work and Opera wins hands-down over IE for me. Speed is the issue; I spend less time waiting for stuff to load. I also don't have to wonder which confidential data it's busy sending to MS Corp. while I wait.

Does it work yet?

[aussersterne]

Numerous pages that load correctly and look the same in Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Konqueror were simply botched by Opera 5. Have they fixed it yet? Opera may be great, but I have no interest in missing information or not being able to use a needed Web site just to support this particular organization.

If Konqueror can get it right and Konqueror is free and well integrated with my Linux system, Opera had better do it much better -- at least as long as they want me to leave open source and to pay for it either with my money or with my "eyeballs".

Re:Does it work yet?

[ck1dog]

Appears to be better. 6.02 on Windows displays everything I use almost exactly the same as IE or Moz, however I have more javascript errors pop up than ever before. Even Hotmail works fine now. Same with 6.0 on Linux, finally fixed the only problem I had before, which was strange fonts being used for many things.

Re:Does it work yet?

[eddy]

Numerous pages that load correctly and look

Did the pages validate? If not, don't blame the browser, blame the incompetent chmucks who wrote the markup.

This is not trolling. This is my gawd damned honest to truth opinon on crap webpages resulting in blame being cast on browsers which actually tries to play by the book, as written by the W3C and the IETF.

Re:Does it work yet?

[ChozSun]

If your code is not crap, IE is very forgiving and will attempt its best to display the code.

Opera is not forgiving and is possibly a webmaster's very best friend.

I do not code my pages for IE (despite the number of people who use it because they do not have the sense to use a better browser) but rather for Opera.

Re:Does it work yet?

[Darren Winsper]

Actually, most of the problems are caused by Opera supporting sod-all of DOM.

Re:Does it work yet?

[eddy]

I'm going to have to ask for evidence for this assertion.

With the ratio of invalid to valid documents being what it is, I seriously doubt MOST of the problems are created by any lack of DOM-support. I suggest that development time is best spent elsewhere until such time that compliant documents are widespread.

Re:Does it work yet?

[Darren Winsper]

Here's one:
http://truffula.net/~quotemaster/countdown.s html
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~dwinsper/sch edule_ moz.php3?force_tree=1

That second one also shows Opera's lack of support for fixed positioning. While they may not validate, it is not the reason they don't work in Opera.

Opera bigger than netscape, most likely

[XJoshX]

Because some webmasters a truely morons, some websites cannot be accessed by anything other than a browser reporting to be IE. For this reason Opera has an option to report itself as other browsers (Mozilla is also an option). I know I have this checked and I'm sure many others do, so so its quite likely the percentage of opera users is much higher than 2%.

Re:Solaris??? Please??

[MrDingDong]

I wholeheartedly agree. I'd definitely pay for a version of Opera that actually works on Solaris.
Version 5b1 totally stinks on the Sun what with all the bus errors and core dumps.

Re:Don't download it!

[Anders]

Every Opera download is a one lost Mozilla download.

Actually, I download pretty much all releases of both of them (not counting nightlies), so no downloads are lost to Mozilla. It is just that I like Opera better, generally.

Whenever a page is not working in Opera, however, I will usually try it in Mozilla (if the page is important enough to me), and it will work. So if the Mozilla interface is ever improved to be as fast and with all the nice shortcuts of Opera, they might indeed get my "download".

I guess someone will tell me to use Galeon now; I tried, never got it working reliably.

Opera's the best

[Parsa]

I've been using Opera for Windows for some time now. When I can use my Linux distro I prefer to use Opera for the browser. The one thing that always gets on my nerves is when I'm entering my username and password for Yahoo! mail I always get, "A script wants to read your password." I know it's for protective reasons, it's just annoying. I will upgrade to 6.02 and hopefully this will be taken care of. If anyone knows it is, a reply to this stating so would be much appreciated.

Re:Opera's the best

[talks_to_birds]

• "...I always get, "A script wants to read your password." I know it's for protective reasons, it's just annoying..."

This attitude is just why klez.*, the Outlook exploit of the hour, the IIS compromise of the day, is always so effective.

"I don't really care about security. It's so much easier to just keep my head in the sand."

Opera's warning you about that for a reason.

And you want the next version to knock it off.

Why don't you just use IE and get it over with?

t_t_b

Re:Opera's the best

[jesser]

"...I always get, "A script wants to read your password." I know it's for protective reasons, it's just annoying..."

This attitude is just why klez.*, the Outlook exploit of the hour, the IIS compromise of the day, is always so effective.

IMO, his attitude is closer to one that might actually promote security. Outlook viruses work because Microsoft overestimates the effectiveness of warning dialogs. "Opening an attachment may be dangerous" does not work, especially when opening a .txt file gives the same warning. Neither does "A script is trying to read your address book" or "A script is trying to read your password", because by definition the script already has control over your computer or the web page. Getting rid of unnecessary security dialogs can help security by reducing dialog fatigue and by eliminating the chance that 10% of users clicking "yes" is enough for an attacker.

Let's See... Symbian, QNX, OS/2...

[great throwdini]

All these wonderful ports of Opera to "lesser" OSen. I realize there is little sense to challenge "Pocket IE" (bundling and all) but why won't Opera develop a version for Windows CE / Windows CE Professional / PocketPC / PocketPC 2000 / PocketPC 2002 / Windows CE .NET ???

Something nice and small for my WorkPad z50 to boost the productivity of Windows CE. There were rumors about of Mozilla/Netscape bringing NSPR to Windows CE, but here's a company willing and apparently able to port to handhelds / palmtops. Even a trimmed down Opera would be better than Pocket IE. They could even throw in Personal Java support for applets!

Signed,
frustrated with P.I.E.

Re:Let's See... Symbian, QNX, OS/2...

[JaseOne]

It probably doesn't help you at all, but Opera is ported to atleast one handheld that being the Sharp Zaurus SL5500. I just can't wait to get my hands on one of those. Also I'm sure you could get it running on an Ipaq if you hack Linux onto it as per handhelds.org.

J

Re:Let's See... Symbian, QNX, OS/2...

[great throwdini]

Yep. Not much help. Not really willing to dish out the dough for either a Zaurus or an Ipaq ... I am impressed with Opera making the effort to pare down their regular *nixy offering for the Zaurus.

The best I can hope for is to load NetBSD onto the z50 and see what I can see there. That, too, is just an end-around on the CE operating system, though. :P

alpha as in alpha version, not alpha cpu :)

[QuMa]

alpha as in alpha version, not alpha cpu :)

I wonder if it works on freebsd now? (like 5 did)

[JamesGreenhalgh]

I use Opera 5 for linux in under freebsd. Its very fast (freebsd linux emulation isn't *really* emulation, just x86 code execution..), and it's very stable.

Each time a new V6 beta comes out, I install it, then moments later revert to V5 because 6 appears to have a problem with multiple concurrent connections - try opening a gif heavy page and half the connections just hang forever.

Does anyone else have this problem with 6 betas on freebsd? Does the new one fix it?

Opera is great

[CaffeineAddict2001]

Behold the Lord High Web Browser! A browser of noble rank and title-- A dignified and potent explorer, Whose functions are particularly vital! Defer, defer, To the Lord High Web Browser! Defer, defer, To the noble Lord, to the noble Lord, The Lord High Web Browser!

Ok, just got Opera first time...

[ackthpt]

Does buying it make these stupid ads go away?

Re:Ok, just got Opera first time...

[killmenow]

yes...so please do.

Re:Ok, just got Opera first time...

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, you get then some registration code, which will remove the ads.

Re:Ok, just got Opera first time...

[Fweeky]

> Does buying it make these stupid ads go away?

Yes.

Putting this in your user css file and setting it up in Opera/Mozilla makes most of the stupid ads on websites go away too:

http://freak.aagh.net/code/user.css

Just in case you need a reason to dump MSIE :)

Re:Ok, just got Opera first time...

[DNS-and-BIND]

Finding the crack makes the ads go away. Google, my son, google...

Re:Ok, just got Opera first time...

[Anonymous Coward]

if you are implying that you can disable the ads
don't be such a cheap bastard.
if you don't like Opera with ads pay or don't use it.
parasite.

Re:Ok, just got Opera first time...

[joebp]

Finding the crack makes the ads go away. Google, my son, google...

Support good closed-source software developers. Opera has come along amazingly since version 4 -- their dedication to their product is laudable, and it should be rewarded and praised.

If you cannot afford to support good closed-source software developers, support good open-source software developers.

Mod this idiot leech down.

No. Not in the past. In the present

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Go to hotmail.com
2) Note the "Sign Up" link and where it points to
3) You will see the IP address 216.32.182.250
4) Go to Netcraft. You will see that Hotmail's back end is still FreeBSD.

Re:No. Not in the past. In the present

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeBSD is Microsofts Bitch

How many of you?

[unixmaster]

I wonder how many of you licensed it or using it with ads? Answers? ;-)

Re:How many of you?

[LPetrazickis]

I am using it with ads.

Competition, Schmompetition

[geoffsmith]

Yes, competition is good, but there is a point where there are just too many browsers. As a maker of all things web, it is very difficult to work around all the quirks of these browsers (and yes, *all* browsers have quirks) I have Opera users tell me they are MSIE in their user agents, I have Galeon users thinking they are running Mozilla, and bizarre rendering bugs across the board.

Making things even more difficult, I have to contend with varying and often non-existant toolbar API's which make things like the superb Google Toolbar and (in my mind) the also superb StumbleUpon Toolbar impossible to develop for browsers that are not Mozilla or IE.

I think its time to go for a little Darwinian Selection. Survival of the fittest browser. And I think that browser is Mozilla. Its the most full featured browser out there, it's free, it's open source. I had a couple problems with it, I filed bugs, and they were both fixed within the week! I'm having a hard time finding any flaws with RC2, it's brilliant. For all those who are using alternate browsers because Mozilla is "bloated" and "buggy", check again.

Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon

Re:Competition, Schmompetition

[geekoid]

drwinianism doesn't work if one species can controll the complete enviroment.

Not to mention that its the web master who do not keep with the standards that are at fault far more often then any browser.

Re:Competition, Schmompetition

[tetsuo13]

I think its time to go for a little Darwinian Selection. Survival of the fittest browser.

That's not what we need. What will ultimately make a difference is when all browsers render HTML according to the standard. It's only then that if a page doesn't look right, it's because of the HTML'er and not the browser (which is the main problem now). Simple.

Don't give me gadgets and gizmos in the browser, just give me something that's fast and complies to the standards -- I'll take it from there.

Re:Competition, Schmompetition

[IamTheRealMike]

Yes, competition is good, but there is a point where there are just too many browsers. As a maker of all things web, it is very difficult to work around all the quirks of these browsers (and yes, *all* browsers have quirks)

That's like saying there are too many makes of car. Nobody says that, because all cars conform to some basic defacto standards in terms of height, roadwidth etc.

The solution is to have much better standards compliance. Mozilla is spot on. Opera I think lacked DOM support, not sure if that's fixed, I'd guess it is by now. KHTML is also pretty good. IE sucks of course, but IE6 is getting there (level 1 while moz crew start on level 3)

Re:Competition, Schmompetition

[Anonymous Coward]

I have Opera users tell me they are MSIE in their user agents, I have Galeon users thinking they are running Mozilla...

And they do this to compensate for brain-dead browser detction scams, er, schemes. Mayb YOUR system actually has a real need for such. Alas, most do not, and spoofing evolved to compensate for the idiocy.

Me, I set it Opera to ID as Opera. Site that can't deal with that aren't worth my time anyway.

Re:Competition, Schmompetition

[Anonymous Coward]

I have Opera users tell me they are MSIE in their user agents, I have Galeon users thinking they are running Mozilla

And you have IE users telling you that they're using Mozilla/Netscape, too. IE starts its identification as Mozilla/4.0. Isn't the world funny? :)

(Opera, even when faking other browsers, has Opera in its string, so you can always tell.)

Re: Nitpick

[ackthpt]

[IE not for Linux] competition among Linux browsers is still a good thing, it's not where the competition really needs to take place.

True, however, the innovation which takes place in the Open Source arena pushes Opera, Konqueror, Mozilla, et al, to new heights of user friendliness, usability, and features, which is all the better for Linux to underscore it's strengths and the weakness of someone's FUD about modular operating systems.

Not to be confused with the Borg's idea of embrace and extend.
Not bugs, security holes, standards non-compliant, e.g. IE.

Mouse Gestures In Opera

[John_Booty]

It's really the mouse gestures in Opera that make it the winner for me. They seriously make browsing much faster. Since I'm authoring and reading web pages all day, I really notice the small difference adding up. Especially when I have to go back to IE or something. :)

For the uninitiated, mouse gestures in Opera are Palm Graffitti like mouse motions that take the place of button-clicking for some operations. For example, right mouse button+moving the mouse left is like pressing the Back button. Similarly-simple commands exist for maximizing/closing/minimizing windows, etc.

Does Mozilla have similar gesture support? I thought I remember reading about that a while ago, but I haven't been able to find it.

Opera's also very fast. It eats up a lot of RAM by default, but you can edit the RAM cache size in Preferences, which actually makes it run pretty lean (or as lean as you want it to).

The built-in mail reader is quite nice. Fast and simple. The contact list management is nice. It's got instant messaging built-in, but I haven't tried that yet.

Opera does tend to crash at times, but it loads quickly, and when you load it back up it gives you the option of reloading all the URLs it was surfing when the crash occurred. After a crash, I'm up again so quickly that I hardly mind, although it is a bit annoying. Hopefully, this 6.02 release is even more stable.

Well, that's just my two cents about the Win32 version, anyway.

Re:Mouse Gestures In Opera

[zrodney]

yes -- mozilla and galeon have gestures now

I used to use opera for the gesture feature,
but galeon and mozilla are getting better so
quickly, I've switched back to galeon.

there is a preferences option to switch the
gesture features on, hidden in the settings pulldown

Re:Mouse Gestures In Opera

[NeoSkandranon]

They did something with mouse gestures in that crap game Black and White, they sucked in there...hope opera got it right

Re:Mouse Gestures In Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

I use a mouse with back and forward buttons on it. Even faster than gentures.

Re:Mouse Gestures In Opera

[American AC in Paris]

Does Mozilla have similar gesture support? I thought I remember reading about that a while ago, but I haven't been able to find it.

Try:

http://optimoz.mozdev.org/gestures/

Re:Mouse Gestures In Opera

[mr3038]

http://optimoz.mozdev.org/gestures/

In addition, unlike Opera, optimoz users are able to define which gesture does what. Simply edit bin\chrome\mozgest\content\gestimp.js under the Mozilla installation directory and change it as you like. For example, I have "D" (down) binded to nextTab() and "U" (up) binded to previousTab(). Adding new actions is easy too because support for gestures implemented in pure javascript.

Re:Mouse Gestures In Opera

[gosand]

I use a mouse with back and forward buttons on it. Even faster than gentures.

Hmm, I doubt it is faster by much, if it is at all. And with your mouse fwd/back buttons, can you:
- open a new, blank window, in the foreground
- open a new, blank window in the background
- open a link in a new window, in the foreground
- open a link in a new window, in the background
- close a window

I love the gestures, even though when I first heard about them I thought they sounded cumbersome. They really rock. I get so used to them I find myself trying to gesture in other apps. :-)

Re:Mouse Gestures In Opera

[AmX]

Does Mozilla have similar gesture support? I thought I remember reading about that a while ago, but I haven't been able to find it.

I don't know about Mozilla, but Galeon sure has them in version 1.2.x. I thought it would be a useless feature at first, but now I can't live without it.

Compatibility

[andyapple]

I've used Opera 6 for Windows for probably nearly a year now. It's really great but the only thing that annoys me is that i still have to use IE for certain things. www.cdcovers.cc for example just wont download through Opera. MSN chat rooms aswell just fail to work in Opera. if they fix these sorts of things, it cant be too long before it replaces IE as the most popular browser.

Re:Compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

So... you're waiting for them to fix what are likely bugs on the server end? If people write standards compliant code, this wouldn't be necessary.

Re:Compatibility

[Anonynnous Coward]

Welcome to reality. IE is the standard now, thanks to "embrace and extend." Third parties would do well not to say "but the web page your trying to load is broken," because people will then just use IE.

Re:Compatibility

[andyapple]

Oh i see, so its actually CdCovers.cc's fault that they dont support Opera. that makes sense. in that case i guess it'll be years before everyone starts using Opera. I guess its another MS tactic to block all competition. soon www.microsoft.com, www.hotmail.com etc will only be viewable in IE.

Re:Compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

IE is not a 'standard' until it runs on *everything*.

Re:Compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless there is a bug in Opera's code, then yes, yes it is.

There are quite a few sites that just say "You're not using IE? You can't use this." That's not what the web is about. That's part of the reason Opera has the ability to fake other browsers behaviors.

Re:Compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, by your definition, then a few years ago, Netscape was the standard.

Guess what? Things change.

The point is there are actual defined standards. And IE breaks them too. Have you seen IE's PNG support? Probably not, because it sucks, and as a result, few people use PNG. This is just one example. Do you want to live in a world where things only happens because Microsoft wants them to?

Mod this shit down

[Anonymous Coward]

This poster is a total frat boy.

Not one reference.

Not one proof by example.

". . .efficient, stable, and standard compliant Mozilla browser."

hmmm. No doubt a mozilla employee.

Personally...

[graphicartist82]

... I'm very impressed. I've quit using opera a while back due to lack of [decent] CSS implementation and a few other quirks..

I just downloaded Opera 6, and I must say, i've found a new web browser!

(It's very easy to switch since it can import your bookmarks from IE , Netscape, or KDE)

The only thing i've noticed so far is that if you have a </p> tag with no <p&gt it ignores it, whereas IE & Netscape see that and start a new paragraph..

Re:Personally...

[Anonymous Coward]

A closing p tag is only necessary in XHTML... anyone using it in regular HTML is just wasting space and looking for browser problems, such as that.

Re:Personally...

[hkmwbz]

Lack of decent CSS? You are aware that Opera's CSS is probably the best today? Haakon Wium Lie, the guy behind CSS, works for Opera!

Of course Opera ignores closing tags without an opening tag. It is supposed to.

Slashdot mods strike back

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly is that flamebait?

Re:Slashdot mods strike back

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly is Opera Open Source?

Re:Slashdot mods strike back

[Anonymous Coward]

"It might not be open source but it's still a fast and reliable browser and better than Mozilla in my taste."

Where in that sentence do you find anything saying that Opera is open source? Retard.

It's 6.0 only for i386+ machines

[Syris]

I'm running debian on a Sparc 5 and, alas, the latest version for linux on sparc hardware is 5.0.

It's too bad, I use Opera almost exclusively on my WinNT machine at work.

Opera vs. Mozilla

[ilyag]

I've been using Opera 6.0 (for Windows) for a while, but now I switched to Mozilla. Mazilla and Opera are almost equally comfortable to use - as long as you install Optimoz for Mozilla. Also, if Mozilla wouldn't have tabs it would be far behind.

One great feature of Opera is that pop-ups don't ever get to your taskbar, and there is an option to force them behind all other windows. Even if Mozilla could open pop-ups in tabs behind all others, they would still occupy the whole window. Still, it would be have to have this in Mozilla. Also, when you start a download in Opera, it already is downloading the file when you are dealing with the "Save As..." dialog. Another thing I wish for Mozilla.

There are several reasons I switched to Mozilla. First, it seems to render IE-oriented pages better. In fact, I haven't seen one page I really needed to open IE for. Mozilla as fast in browsing (and as slow in startup ;( ) as Opera (or, seems so). It also has a much greater number of plugins for it (look at mozdev.org; my favourite after Optimoz is BannerBlind. Mozilla Mail is useful, while the mailer in Opera seems lame to me. Finally, no ads and adware on the computer...

So, Opera is great, but I like Mozilla better.

Re:Opera vs. Mozilla

[Mikoca]

What about this one. I actually happen to know the developer. (and yes, she is cute) Any suggestions?

The choice is very hard now

[ciryon]

Ok, this is getting it even harder to choose which browser to use in Linux.

Konqueror is really great and comes in handy especially when you want to use drag it to drag and drop images or files from webpages and FTP servers because of it's tight KDE integration. I hear they have tabs in CVS now too!

Mozilla 1.0rc2 which I'm currently running is stable, has loads of features and actually works with almost every page (including my bank). It is very rare that this browser crasches. A lot of work has been done here for the past few months.

Opera is the non-GPL browser and I actually try to get away from it a little. But once you get used to the mousegestures and the superfast page rendering it's hard to getaway.

Well, off to download!!

Ciryon

Re:The choice is very hard now

[Darren Winsper]

I must say I've been quite impressed with Konqueror 3. I recommended people not use Konqueror 2.x because its rendering engine was worse than Opera's, yet version 3 is *very* good.

Opera, on the other hand, is becoming the new Netscape 4. It simply doesn't support modern standards and if you have to support it, you'll be held back if you want to use DOM.

Re:The choice is very hard now

[lkaos]

But once you get used to the mousegestures and the superfast page rendering it's hard to getaway.

Mozilla _has_ mousegestures.

As far as superfast page rendering, how much faster than instant can you get??? Maybe it's just the sites that I goto, but I never have a noticable page loading lag...

two words

[C_nemo]

"Mouse Gestures"* the damn thing just becomes a habit real fast. have cought myself gesturing in galeon, konqueror and explorer. it also has a nifty hold down left/right button, click the other, and *bam*(back forward).

btw have had 6.ob2 chrasing quite frequently under linux

*back/forward by holding down right mouse and "gesturing" left/right

Re:I wonder if it works on freebsd now? (like 5 di

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes,
it works now.

Has since beta2

Re:The Mouse gestures are great

[Guru2Newbie]

Is anyone else very satisfied using Opera's mouse "gestures" to:

go back or forward pages

open link in new window

open a duplicate window (handy for forking searches)

switch browser windows (if you have a wheelmouse)

minimize a window

close a window?

Sure saves me time going to the Back icon or minimize or other buttons. See the Help..mouse menu for instructions. Yay Opera!

Re:woo woo -- Linux still sux!

[ealar dlanvuli]

erm, linux is a kernel. Why don't you try afterstep or windomaker if you don't like whatever WM you were using. I use as daily and I find it's more intuitive than m$ interface once you get it to your liking.

Bloat

[2names]

Popularity usually leads to software bloat, and I hope this doesn't happen to Opera. If it does, we'll have to change its name to Operah.

Re:Bloat

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean "Oprah".

I farted...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and a pea rolled out.

Re:woo woo -- Linux still sux!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have problems understanding windows. Now, how in the world am I going to install and run a new WM on linux. Not very good with this computer stuff. Linux will never rule my desktop(and all others) until dummies like me can use it! and I prefer not to spend hour reading howto faqs which provide more insight into the programmers mind set than a unified logic system that linix uses to manage itself.

Then pay

[DABANSHEE]

Its that simple

Opera and ads...

[jgkastra]

...go away if you press F11 and make it go fullscreen. I devote a desktop to it (Afterstep makes this nice), some might not prefer that.

It's my choice for my 233.

Requested popups arn't blocked on mine

[DABANSHEE]

When I'm in Opera, with 'block popups' enabled, rightclicking & opening in a new window still works.

Unlike IE with a anti-popup applet (don't matter which), which gives you a prompt whether the popup just poped up, or you right clicked & asked for it.

Re:Requested popups arn't blocked on mine

[Anonymous Coward]

requested popups being people who choose to use the window.open function when you click on a link to have a new popup open with a specified size/style. like the onion's used to do with their left-sidebar, i believe.

DOM support...

[jvmatthe]

I have been working with javascript, DOM, CSS2 for fun in the evenings, and so far Opera doesn't do enough of what I want it to do. Mozilla seems to be the only browser that supports the DOM as outlined by the W3C, and for that reason, I won't be using it, regardless of how fast it is.

See an example of what I've been doing with Mozilla here. It's a card game that I enjoy on my Handspring Visor and "ported". Works great in Mozilla, but dies in every other browser I've tried.

Ah well. Go Moz!

Re:DOM support...

[jesser]

I was about to complain that your card game didn't fit in my Mozilla window (maximized at 800x600), but then I tried doing a text zoom, and it worked! Thanks for using em units.

Re:DOM support...

[ism]

I hear you. Mozilla is the only one that supports the W3C's DOM Level 2-Events model. Even the newest Internet Explorers still use the proprietary event capturing/bubbling mechanism from IE4 days. So much for cross-browser.

Mozilla on Windows

[Mikoca]

I have a middle-aged computer at this point and I run Mozilla on it both under Windows and under Linux and I have to say that, appart from a few minor and hopefully fixable gitches, Mozilla is a great browser even under Windows, better than IE for a number of reasons.

I think Opera's older

[DABANSHEE]

I've been using it for yonks & it's always had tabbed browsing

huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

how is this 'offtopic'?

Reading passwords

[Anonymous Coward]

6.02 adds a "don't show this dialog again" checkbox to the warning in question. Can't tell yet whether that's per page/domain (as in "don't show" on trusted pages) or universal. Probably universal. Oh well.

Well, Seven Cows just fell over

[Anonymous Coward]

slashdot finally puts out it's first story specifically on an Opera for Linux release since
Oct 26 2000.

the moon will be blue tonite.
way to go Slashdot.
I knew you guys had it in you.

Re:The Mouse gestures are great

[MaggieL]

Tabbed browsing in Mozilla has vastly reduced my use of the "back" button...or context menu.

Of course I hear Opera (and the latest Konq) have tabbed browsing also.

The Ads

[Anonymous Coward]

I really really hate that big logo! The loading speed is also very slow...

The pighead approach..

[Anonymous Coward]

...is to avoid buying opera and wait for the company to be bankrupt, and so ask them to release the code under GPL

mod quirks

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot. Where the relavent question is modded down to 3, an answer which isn't applicable is modded to 3, and an actual answer is still at 1.

Re:The Mouse gestures are great

[DerekTheRed]

I'll second that. I don't know how many times rightclick-dragdown-release has saved my butt, but Opera smokes all comers. My girlfriend is afraid of the interface, and I guess I was too, when I first downloaded v.5.whatever. Once I realized how easily you could customize it, tho, I loved it. F12! P.S. Use the real Opera interface -- don't cheat and use the IE-emulation mode. Everything about IE is as fucked up as a football bat, interface included.

Opera 6

[fdisk3hs]

rpm -U --nodep operablahblah

Done, baby.

Looks nice, remembered my 5.0 layout,

me likey. Pulled down the RedHat RPM from www.planetmirror.org and jammed it onto my Mandrake laptop (work machine), very fast and nice new look.

LR

Features we really need

[StupidFodder]

The new features include cookie management and plug-in support.

What a waste of effort. When is going to finally have the "doesn't crash mysteriously" and "renders popular pages properly" features?

Re:Features we really need

[nagora]

and "renders popular pages properly" features?

If you mean "renders common IE specific quirks" I don't care; if you mean "The full DOM and all of CSS2" then the programmers are saying version 7.

TWW

Resource usage on Windows: Opera rules!

[Gryffin]

In another post, someone is bemoaning how Opera, which previously shipped on a single floppy, has added too much bloat.

Bloat? BLOAT? PuhLEEZE.

Try this on Windoze: from a fresh log-in launch Opera, Mozilla, Internet Exploder and Outlook Express. Then press ALT-CTL-DEL, and click Task Manager, then click the Processes tab. Then take a look at how much RAM each is eating up.

I did this at home, so I don't have the exact numbers handy, but as I recall Mozilla ate about 24MB, IE 7MB, OE 13MB (yikes!), and Opera 6 about 7MB.

That's with no sites loaded. Now open up some good, large, complex pages; I tried Slashdot, Salon, CNN, and a few others, the same sites in each browser. In OE, Opera and Mozilla, go sign onto my IMAP email server, just for good measure. Now Mozilla uses 30+MB, IE is up over 20MB, OE is still eating 13MB or so, and Opera is using... about 12MB. Not too shabby.

Now close all the browser windows and log off email. Guess what? Moz is back to 24MB, Opera's back to 7MB, OE still hasnt' changed much, but IE is still sucking down 24MB. Nice garbage collection there, Microsoft.

When you consider that A) Opera provides the functionality of IE *and* OE, and B) some of IE/OE's resource usage is hidden in assorted other "OS" DLLs, Which one is bloated again?

Oh, one last little test... open up a loooong site in each (nice fat thread on Slashdot at Score:0 will do it), then press and hold the down arrow key and see how long it takes to scroll to the bottom. Opera is about twice as fast as Mozilla, and about half again as fast as IE. Add in Opera's industry-best standards compliance and rendering speed, what's not to like?

Re:Resource usage on Windows: Opera rules!

[Sentry21]

Wheee....

I checked my usage a while ago, and Windows 98, running IE 4, Mozilla (multiple tabs), Trillian, Winamp, XChat, and the Norton Systemworks System Info app ate about 50 megs of my memory, total. I had 30 megs of free physical out of my 80. Not bad, I thought.

You 'don't have exact numbers handy', but you pull a lot of numbers out of your ass. You can't say 'I don't know what the numbers are' then quote a half dozen. Your point may be valid, but get real numbers or don't quote any. Besides, everyone knows that Opera takes up a million bajillion gigs of ram. I don't have the exact numbers handy, but....

And lastly, you rate scrolling speed as an issue, which is the dumbest argument you have. Not to be abusive, but browsers can set how much they want the page to scroll per arrow key, so every redraw redraws a certain amount, which could be changed. I could make Mozilla scroll to the bottom of a document instantly when you press the down arrow. Does that mean I have optimizations, or just silly preferences?

You also ignore the fact that Opera's DOM support is sub-par at the moment, and in 6.01, it didn't even support the CSS width: attribute on a table cell properly (width:150 ended up taking up most of the screen; I had screenshots up once, but cleaned out my homedir, or I'd link them :( oh well).

Opera might be up there, but it's not there yet, and it has a ways to go before I'll pay $20 when I have a half dozen other browsers begging me to use them. Good luck.

--Dan

Re:Resource usage on Windows: Opera rules!

[Gryffin]

Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, no matter how wrong it may be ;{D

For the record, my tests were done on a Toshiba Portege 7000, 266MHz PII, 160MB RAM, Win2K. In other words, a reasonably modern OS, although on somewhat less than state-of-the-art hardware. Win98 might lead to different results. YMMV. I wouldn't let that abomination anywhere near my Wintel machines.

Yeah, I didn't have the *exact* numbers handy when I originally posted that, but now that I'm home and can review my notes, it turns out I remembered them correctly to within a meg or two on all numbers quoted. Not bad at my age.

Besides, if you actually read what I wrote, you'd notice that even if I was off 5MB or so, it's *quite* clear that Mozilla is a bit of a pig, the combination of IE and OE are surprisingly wasteful of resources (especially once you start opening windows; what the heck does IE *do* with all that RAM?), and Opera kicks all their butts.

If you really wanna quibble about inches when I'm talking yards, that's your perogative, but it doesn't really add much to the discussion.

You might be right about the scrolling being a mere setting issue; but it was the most concrete example I could think of off the top of my head of my favorite Opera feature: it's responsiveness on low-end machines. The other PC I run Opera on is an ancient HP Pentium 166, and it's slick as snot even on that creaky old iron. Mozilla lasted about two days on there before I uninstalled it.

As for DOM support, I never claimed Opera was perfect. IMHO it's no worse than IE 4, for which I also develop. Of course, I also have to support Netscape 4, so I'm very careful what DOM features I try to use. That said, I've been quite pleased by Opera's compatibility. No complaints here. If you like to live on the bleeding edge, yeah, you might find more glitches than me, but hey, it's your choice. Newsflash for ya: lotsa users *aren't* running Mozilla, Netscape 6, or MSIE6. If you wanna alienate them, that's also your perogative.

If you want to use a free browser, fine. No one's stopping you. If you want to use the Browser of the Beast, with all its security woes and dubious privacy policies, more power to ya. I happen to think that a solid, high-performance, standards-compliant browser that gives me more control is worth a few bucks. To each his own.

Re:Resource usage on Windows: Opera rules!

[Gryffin]

I gave your comment a little more thought, and came to the conclusion that you're comparing apples to oranges as far as RAM is concerned. You may have had 50MB used / 30MB free, but that's *physical* allocation. I was quoting from Win2K's Task manager, which states *virtual* RAM utilization. Your Mozilla may have well been allocating the same 24MB virtual as mine, and simply had most of it swapped out. On an 80MB mahine, that's pretty much a certainty, in fact.

If you wanna use Mozilla, hey, I'm down with that. I like Mozilla, a LOT, but not on my low-end machines.

But if you haven't installed and tried Opera side by side with it and MSIE, like I did, then please refrain from attacking my empirical results with complete non-sequiturs. If you wanna do the work, come up with your own numbers, THEN we can talk, m'kay?

Re:Resource usage on Windows: Opera rules!

[sputti]

You cant compare the base 7MB of IE to the other browsers, since components of it are already loaded after the system start.

Re:Resource usage on Windows: Opera rules!

[leuk_he]

OK, good info.

But i am still using opera 5.12 on this win95 64MB office pc. 6.00 & 6.01 were way too slow.

Re:Resource usage on Windows: Opera rules!

[Gryffin]

Um, that was one of my points. The actual resource load from IE is actually higher than indicated. However, since Micro$oft has gone to such great lengths to prevent you from removing IE, it's really a moot point. Those resources are just plain lost.

I also noted that IE isn't very good at releasing memory if you browse with several open windows and later close them. Which is born out by my experience that extended surfing sessions using IE eventually result in the machine slowing to a crawl, requiring me to quit IE (or sometimes even log off / log back on) after a while.

Considering how "tightly integrated" into the OS it is, you'd think it'd be better behaved than that.

Re:Resource usage on Windows: Opera rules!

[millette]

Same here, using opera 5.12 on my old p90 running w95. v6 and above take care of skinning, which seems to bring opera to its knees far more quickly.

I'm gonna give 6.02 a try, but I don't believe it's gonna be any help. Well, I'm sticking to moz. on my new machine, it can afford it :)

Re:Resource usage on Windows: Opera rules!

[HR]

It really wasn't a non-sequitur to ask for your data. You have to admit it's somewhat suspicious when someone says "I don't know the numbers exactly..." and then proceeds to give you a slew of precise numbers.

Re:Resource usage on Windows: Opera rules!

[moeffju]

Industry-Best standards compliance? Puhleeze!

Opera's DOM support is far from "industry-best". Any other of the major browsers does a far better job of supporting CSS and ECMAScript, the most notable being Mozilla.

best font solution for browsers?

[Anonymous Coward]

as an occasional novice user for linux, mainly to test dev site at my i386 partition before uploading to my hosting, i'm curious about font issues in most linux browsers. There must be a better solution that i'm not aware of. Cus viewing most web sites from linux is not very pleasant, especially with recent mozilla. What am I missing here?

Opera's release numbers are screwy.

[DunbarTheInept]

Due to the confusing nature of how Opera numbered their releases, Opera 6.2 beta for Linux is actually an OLDER release than Opera 6.0 for Linux. (Because, you see, when it went out of beta mode into official release mode, they reset the version number to 6.0 again. It's as if they expect the dropping of the word "beta" to be more signifigant in people's eyes than the actual release number. I don't get it, since I ignore whether software has "beta" after it's name or not. The only difference between beta and released is number of bugs that have been fixed SO FAR.

But at any rate, the upshot is that when he said "6.02" he was actually referring to an older version than the recent 6.0 release, despite what the numbers might make it look like.

Re:Opera's release numbers are screwy.

[hkmwbz]

Please, this is just confusing people!

The version number you are referring to was 6.0 beta 2, not "6.02" or "6.2". There has never been anything but a 6.0 for Linux. No 6.02, no 6.2. Just 6.0. In the 6 series that is.

For Opera 5 they had a 5.0 and a 5.05.

The 6.02 version people are referring to is the Windows version.

Re:Opera's release numbers are screwy.

[DunbarTheInept]

Hmm, well, I admit that my memory could be off, I distinctly remember it being called "6.02 beta". Unfortunatley I already clobbered the old version with the new version downloaded today, so I can't go back and check now, and I doubt the old beta will still be at Opera's site now.

Debian dependencies still broken

[Quietti]

So I installed the final Opera 6.0 release and, surprise, it still complains that:

opera-static recommends libXm.so.2
libXm.so.2 does not appear to be available

I have both posted on Opera's bug report site and previously e-mailed their tech support on this a dozen times and still get the same clueless answer that "there is something wrong with the Debian dependencies". The correct answer is that Debian dependencies are not file-based but package-based. For some reason, Opera people do not appear to have the brains to understand this simple concept and thus Opera still insists that a recommended file is not instalable, where it should instead look if a series of possible packages known to provide the file are available.

Re:Debian dependencies still broken

[hkmwbz]

You must be a troll. You obviously haven't contacted Opera's technical support.

Opera support will actually tell you that libXm.so.2 is Motif. It even says so in their FAQ!

Just look at:

http://www.opera.com/support/supsearch/supsearch.c gi?options=index&name=621

Now please stop trolling willya!

Re:Debian dependencies still broken

[Quietti]

The fact that they know (and so do I) that libXm.so.2 is Motif (or any of its clone) does not excuse them from not knowing how to make Debian packages. Now, you stop the trolling and crawl back into your cave.

Re:Debian dependencies still broken

[hkmwbz]

Is that so? Didn't you just write this?

I have both posted on Opera's bug report site and previously e-mailed their tech support on this a dozen times and still get the same clueless answer that "there is something wrong with the Debian dependencies".

How can they have said that "there is something wrong" when they obviously know what it is about? There's nothing wrong, apart from the fact that you need Motif. How can telling you this be a "clueless answer"?

Oops - typo

[DunbarTheInept]

I meant 6.02, not 6.2. (Figured I'd get that in before someone reams me over a typo.)

Moz has no cookie control

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>Mozilla now does everything special Opera does (exctept for righ-left click for back and left-right click for forward) and Mozilla has superior popup support.

Obviously you don't use a recent version of Opera. It has the best "cookie control" of any browser. Mozilla doesn't measure up there. Opera users can also make the built-in email and news clients disappear (try doing that in Mozilla). Opera has many user-friendly and customization features that Mozilla users only dream about.

Bad Analogy

[geoffsmith]

You can't compare mechanical engineering and software engineering. Like it or not, all large software projects have bugs... lots of bugs. In a perfect world, there would be no bugs, but in this world the bugs are the standard. Since IE6 is the predominant browser, people code HTML to work around IE6's rendering problems, and if other browsers do not account for these bugs, they will render incorrectly. No browser will ever support W3C's standards perfectly, Mozilla sure doesn't and neither does W3C's own reference browser!

There is only one solution to this problem, and that is to limit the number of browsers. Otherwise there will simply be too many rendering problems for web developers to worry about, and a bunch of the browsers will get left behind. I do not have the time to test my pages in every browser, and neither does anyone else.

Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon

Re:Bad Analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you actually tried the "Standards" mode in Mozilla and IE6? They both turn it on based on the right doctype... and for the most part, they do pretty well (although IE still has a few strange quirks and lacks proper CSS2 support.) Quirks mode is full of just that.

Standards support is almost there, it's just up to developers to take advantage of it. Of course, it'd be nice if IE had decent PNG support.

And, cars do have bugs. That's why they occasionally have recalls of certain models as problems are found.

SMS Panel In New Version

[Dan-DAFC]

The new Windows version includes a module for
I've been using Opera for about 18 months now. I use it all the time at work on Win NT, I haven't touched IE for months.

When I was working on e-commerce stuff it was much better for testing stuff, better standards compliance, right-click validate HTML option, useful JavaScript error messages (unlike IE), etc.

The "hold right button/click left" for back and "hold left/click right" for forward have become indispensible.

I also use it as my main browser on Linux at home (using it now), occassionally use Mozilla to check the look of pages, but Opera's number 1 for me.

The hotlist is useful too. Can set up a page of links to include in the sidebar, or using the integrated news client, browse USENET groups easily. I've got the Slashdot headlines in there as well.

The MDI knocks spots of IE and even the tabbed browsing of Mozilla/Galeon.

Along with <a href="http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net">Fluxbox&l t;/a>, it's one of my most valuable pieces of software.

The Link

[Dan-DAFC]

Well I ****ed that up didn't I? The link is here.

Opera with no ads, free

[Myco]

There's a simple way to get rid of the ads in Opera. It's called full screen mode. With mouse gestures and intelligent ctrl-tabbing and whatnot, there's no need whatsoever for any menu bars, so why not go full screen? I believe you can even set up a command line switch to make it always load in full screen mode.

Opera is wonderful. I have been using it since version 3.41 for Windows. Opera users, unite! Set your browser to identify as Opera! Stand up and be counted!

Not how it was meant to be!

[Anne Thwacks]

I will pay them $20, or even $30, but NOT UNTIL THERE'S A NATIVE FreeBSD version, and it renders the web sites properly. I have to keep using Konq because Opera cant handle loads of sites.

Try Silicon.com if you want an example that fails. And yes, I HAVE told them.

Re:Not how it was meant to be!

[ender81b]

I can't say much about a native FreeBSD version but as for the rendering web sites improperly.. that isn't Opera's fault. Running silicon.com through the W3C's HTML validator brings up around 89 errors. This is not the fault of opera it is the fault of sloppy web design which has become prevalent around the web.

The reson they, probably, ignored your request was the fact that you where lucky it ran at all since Opera supports, and strictly adheres to, the W3C's standards. Sloppy HTMl,XHTML,XML, etc is very prevalent today and only recently have company's begin to insist on error-free code - something the rest of the programming world tries to do but most Web coders ignored for years. If you are going to bring up the "browser-blah renders it fine" argument yes, it will and Opera won't because opera doesn't have the same type of error control built in on purpose. Strict standards and no more unsupported tags (Netscape was famous for this) are a must to have a truly interoperable web.

BTW, i am curious to see what you mean by 'loads of sites.' I use Opera excuslively and haven't had any problems for months. Even silicon.com was usable. make sure Opera is set to identify itself as 'opera' and note MSIE or Netscape - sometimes people use activex controls or other unsupported crap which might be what is causing silicon.com to not work.

Re:Not how it was meant to be!

[fferreres]

Strict standards and no more unsupported tags (Netscape was famous for this) are a must to have a truly interoperable web.

While I at it, I preffer to see the web as it was mean to be (the way the lazy programmers did it), even if it means 20MB less of ram.

When everthing is w3c conforming (or XMLd :-) i'll start using Opera and the like.

I know i'm not right (in the sense that having "enti-error" in the renderes slows correcting the code), but hey, at least I can show some Windows users that what we have is better (i use the MS fonts so that it looks exactly the same, but with tabs, etc.). And they judge based on what they can see. No evangelion tactics work against the ALL MIGHTY eye.

Re:The Mouse gestures are great

[nagora]

Of course I hear Opera (and the latest Konq) have tabbed browsing also.

Opera's had it for a loooooong time.

TWW

Email the webmaster...

[leighton]

Yes, Opera does choke on some webpages, but the overall number has dropped substantially with version 6.0. The problem seems to stem from web designers who don't bother checking their HTML properly. It seems that the average arrogant web designer tests his pages on IE 5.5, and, if you're lucky, he'll give 'em a run on Netscape/Mozilla. If he's really good, he'll remember the portion of the population that has old computers and test them on earlier versions of IE and Netscape. If he's actually competent, he'll run the pages through a validator and then fix it so it works with multiple versions of both browsers. And if he's fantastic, he'll check it with Lynx, too.

I have a standard email that I send whenever I encounter a page that doesn't render properly with Opera. It takes me maybe 30 seconds to fill in the necessary information and send it. It varies a bit depending on the nature of the page (store, personal website, etc.) Sometimes people fix it, and sometimes they don't, but at the very least they'll have heard of Opera.

no autocomplete in the address bar

[Scryber]

It has that lame autocomplete dropdown that happens when you start typing, but that's extra movement off the home typing position to the arrow keys. A waste of motion and it takes too long. (IE still has inline autocomplete--it's one of the first things I turn on when I customize a new PC.)

Hope they add in the inline autocomplete, because otherwise it's a nice browser.

processes-to-windows is a one-to-many mapping.

[DunbarTheInept]

It is false to say that each window being open in an SDI situation has to be another instance of the program running. One running process may be in control of multiple windows. This is how Netscape works, for example, which is why if one Netscape window locks up, they all get locked up. (unless you created the windows as seperate netscape launches instead of picking "file | New Window" off the menu to make the second window.)

Re:woo woo -- Linux still sux!

[Anonymous Coward]

uhh.. install like Mandrake Linux or something .. all graphical, easy to use, piece of cake ..

Missing support for bookmarklets

[jesser]

Opera 6.02 for Windows is missing support for bookmarklets. If you use bookmarklets, skip this release and go back to 6.0 or 6.01.

This is sad because while Opera never supported advanced DOM2 bookmarklets, it supported simpler bookmarklets better than other browsers. For example, clicking a bookmarklet in Opera would not cause the page to stop loading, and changes made by bookmarklets would not be lost after hitting the Back button like they are in other browsers.

Rant: first IE 6 doesn't support bookmarklets longer than 508 characters, and now Opera 6.02 doesn't support them at all. Recent versions of Mozilla have a bug where windows created by bookmarklets end up behind the current window (108394) and a bug that prevents the linked-images bookmarklet from working on porn sites (123293). I'm frustrated. Regressions suck.

So where are the insightful opensourcers?

[dzym]

Opera is neither free as in speech nor free as in beer.

Where are our favorite open source zealot insightful comments?

Re:So where are the insightful opensourcers?

[greylouser]

As others have pointed out, Opera is free as in beer, as long as you're willing to tolerate a small advertising window. (Or are familiar enough with Opera's keyboard and mouse-gesture navigation to use full-screen mode all the time.)

Re:So where are the insightful opensourcers?

[glwtta]

Where are our favorite open source zealot insightful comments?

I think you are it buddy, sorry.

Very nice purchase model

[Dr. Zowie]

I use Opera. I downloaded the ad-containing version to start with and then, when I realized how k3w1 it was, I sent in the $30 they asked for. It's the fastest and smallest of the full-featured browsers, and that counts for a lot.

Anything but that!

[fmaxwell]

...or go to Netscape or Mozilla...

[sarcasm]Yep! We must do anything we can to avoid paying money to people who develop high quality software. When a company offers a good software product at a fair price, we have to immediately start looking for free alternatives.

Remember, if we all work together, we can drive small, innovative companies like the one that produces Opera out of business. If we really try hard, we might even be able to increase unemployment and drive down wages in the software engineering field![/sarcasm]

Re:Anything but that!

[Anonymous Coward]

*yawn*

Re:Anything but that!

[fmaxwell]

*yawn*

Yeah, potentially putting people out of work and damaging an entire industry sure is boring isn't it?

Moron.

Re:Anything but that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, potentially putting people out of work and damaging an entire industry sure is boring isn't it?

It's called capitalism. Yes, consumers will look for something cheaper or ideally free. If they're happy with what they can find for free then they're not going to be queuing up to pay. This is how things work in the real world.

If Opera want to stay in business then they have to sell their product. They have to convince people that their product is good enough to pay for. That's not only better than the alternative but enough better to justify the cost.

If you want to buy products out of a sense of charity then go ahead. But you're going to have to get used to the fact that most people won't.

Re:Anything but that!

[fmaxwell]

If you want to buy products out of a sense of charity then go ahead. But you're going to have to get used to the fact that most people won't.

It's not a sense of charity. It's the ability to see past the individual purchase. Do I want to have competition or not? Do I want Microsoft to simply be the only major commercial software vendor left in ten years?

Look at Mandrake's business model: "Give us money if you like our product." That's the whole idea behind shareware (real shareware, not the crippleware that poses as shareware now). I register programs like Trillian, UltraEdit, and Opera because I think that its fair. It's not because I can't find a crack for them or, in the case of programs like Trillian, use them for free. I recognize that paying for software keeps the industry healthy and helps insure competition. That's more important than whether I could save $40 here and there.

If only Opera had pop-up management

[Mustang Matt]

Under Windows, I finally switched from IE to Opera during 5.02, but the one feature they're really lacking is javascript popup management. If they'd just add the same support they have for cookies, it would be perfect.

Re:If only Opera had pop-up management

[pukeAndCry]

Opera added pop-up management in version 6.0. There is even a hotkey (F12) to pop up a menu to turn them back on quickly if you need to.

Re:If only Opera had pop-up management

[glwtta]

eh? Way back in the 5 days I used Opera for Windows for a bit (before switching to linux and galeon), and I remember it as being the first browser that did have pop-up management. Did they remove that feature or something?

IANA-Web page designer but ...

[muck1969]

when I first tried to make a webpage, I used FrontPage and tried to view it in Opera. Frontpage sucks. I gave up on FrontPage and learned on my own how to craft HTML in NOTEPAD

At least Opera is a program that actually inspired someone to self-improvement

Ah, but does it...

[Guppy06]

... integrate well with Sun's StarOffice 6.0, which was also released today?

Mouse gestures

[patrikr]

Instead of Alt-Shift-Click, hold down the right mouse button over the link and move the mouse downwards. Gestures rule. :)

Re:The Mouse gestures are great

[sveinhal]

Am I satisfied?!
I am VERY satisfied.

The only problem is that I find myself doing that right-click-drag thing eveywhere else, whenever I want to get back. I do it without thinking three or four times in explorer (the file browser) before I realize that I'm not in Opera.

I say more programs should copy this feature.

Like most shortsighted people

[Chuck Chunder]

You think the web begins and ends at the desktop.

It doesn't. A major piece of Opera's business is embedded space. That their embedded and desktop browsers share the same lightweight core is an enormous boast. Mozilla is too bloated in this respect. Part of the reason it's lightweight is because it doesn't attempt to kludge around the errors of browsers past. It's standards support still remains strong. The only thing seriously missing being DOM support, but DOM usage should be reserved for applications in a closed environment, not the public web in any case.

Opera clearly identifies itself in it's UA string, a knowledgable webmaster can easily deal with that. The UA spoofing is only there for the scarily large percentage of clueless webmasters....

opera.linux newsgroup

[distributed.karma]

For those of you itching to report bugs (yes, there still are some minor quirks), go on to opera.linux on usenet. There are Opera staff around to help you with problems, and accept bugreports. It's the best computing support I've ever got for free.

jisms are best served when nobody expects them

[Anonymous Coward]

I have played around with most browsers, I found Opera to be really cool, except for that banner ad. Does anyone know how to get rid of it

Re:jisms are best served when nobody expects them

[mlk]

I've found that buying it removes the banner adds

All software at somepoint uses screwy release no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should Opera be any different?

And if you know some that don't give them a while.
Like the weather that too will change.

No, I want real pop-up management

[Mustang Matt]

I want to turn it on and off per site.

The way they allow you to allow and reject cookies per domain.

Quick Preferences

[Pyrosophy]

The one feature of Opera that really won me over for Opera was when they implemented Quick Preferences in the File drop-down. This allows me to two click turn off Javascript, Java, Cookies, pop-ups, and identify as a different browser. Don't even have to open a dialog box. I can also two-click to my proxy account for my school.

This kind of feature is what endears the Opera programmers to me -- fast, cheap, and totally in control.

Just change the user string

[Anonymous Coward]

mehgan,

from the menu bar
file|Quick Preferences|

Identify as Mozilla 5.

both pages show as they should.

face it Opera is good.

[Anonymous Coward]

it is you who suck.

Open

[Anonymous Coward]

Open the Source and we will all be able to see how great it really is.

Re:The Mouse gestures are great

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it kills me to have to drag my mouse up to that button. I often use IE if I am viewing a site that won't work in opera, because Java.

why wd I need Opera?

[Anonymous Coward]

With Mozilla in available source code - why would I need Opera?

Does Opera has XPCOM or something similar?

Can I create a commercial product by customizing Opera?

How about plugin support for Java and Flash?

How many Linux platforms are supported by Opera behind Intel platform?

How many developers are behind the Opera project?

Is there any integration with groupware software? Calendaring? Chatting? E-mail? News? Messaging?

I don't think that answers for such questions will prove to move from Mozilla to Opera. Neither for me nor for my emplyer.

Re:The Mouse gestures are great

[WowTIP]

>Of course I hear Opera (and the latest Konq) have tabbed browsing also.

Yes, and Mozilla also has got mouse gestures, another thing plagarized from Opera.

Btw, anyone want to bet against MSIE 7.0 having tabbed browsing and mouse gestures?

A lot of people like MDI for Web Browsing

[Arker]

So many, indeed, that Mozilla is copying it. Imitation is the sincerist form of flattery.

Just purchased my registration code!

[N3P1u5U17r4]

I've been using Opera on Linux since the early version 5's... and most recently was running the beta 6. People told me that the new Konqueror on KDE3 is the best so I've been trying that for a while... but I have to admit Opera is the best browser out there. I can handle paying $39 for it as I think it is worth it.
Konq, Mozilla, Netscape and Galleon just aren't as fast and do not render as perfectly as Opera.

A little bit offtopic, but...

[WowTIP]

No, but talking about Opera coders, I saw something today:

Opera software is hiring C++ programmer, Linköping, Sweden

The page is in swedish and the link *might* not work for very long (ams.se frequently changes their links).

But if you live in Sweden and want to work for Opera (well, Hern labs), go to www.ams.se and then click Platsbanken/yrkesvis/Teknik|data/dataspecialister/ Östergötlands län/... There you will find the ad. :)

Sorry, Mozilla is TOO good

[evilviper]

Opera is a very good browser, as far as the engine goes, but it comes up short where the interface is concerned.

If you have multiple tabs open, and close one, the next one made active is the one last opened. That means that the order can been terribly random. With Mozilla, you close one tab and it takes you to the next one to the left. Quite simple.

Opera's interface has always been bulky, and a bit weird. You have forward and back buttons on the main toolbar, but the stop button (was) only on the windows' toolbar.

Mozilla allows you to better customize javascript permissions, and don't even get me started on Opera's bookmark system (hotlist).

As far as I'm concerned, the only thing Opera has to offer that Mozilla hasn't, is the button to easilly toggle from 'Autor' to 'User' Mode. What this does is allow you on a per-window basis to easilly switch between the colors & fonts the page has defined, and the color/font you have defined. You'll appreciate this if you've ever visited a page with fonts so small you couldn't read them, or page colors that either blind you, or blend the fonts with the bacground so you can't really read it.

I realize that Mozilla eats up much more Memory and CPU power, but that's just something the needs to be gradually improved on. Even as it is, it's requirements fit my machines just fine.

Re:Sorry, Mozilla is TOO good

[Rev. Rudolf]

If you have multiple tabs open, and close one, the next one made active is the one last opened. That means that the order can been terribly random. With Mozilla, you close one tab and it takes you to the next one to the left. Quite simple.

Opera has a "preference" setting for that under the "Accessibility" section. I haven't tested it, but that's what it claims to control...

Re:Sorry, Mozilla is TOO good

[chickerino]

The Opera engine is good, but far from perfect. In every new release they seem to be ignoring half of the ECMA DOM. This is very frustrating as a web developer and is stopping us from moving forward, or preventing us from fully supporting Opera in our applications.

Re:Sorry, Mozilla is TOO good

[evilviper]

Perhaps you can change that action under Windows, but I am rather sure that option doesn't exist on the Linux version.

Re:Sorry, Mozilla is TOO good

[UpnAtom]

Full DOM support is scheduled for v7.
This has been public knowledge since v5.

It's like this

[incunabulum]

I used Opera and I turned pop-ups off. I was thrilled for some time. Then I went to play a Yahoo! game under it - it didn't work. I immediately concluded that there was some Microsoft-Yahoo! conspiracy. Although I am sure there is one, I was wrong in this case. I had to turn pop-ups back on under Opera in order for the game's script to run correctly. Lots of sites like to open up windows for you that are actually useful ones and not just advertisements.

Warning... This is a rant.

[kaoshin]

I don't mean to offend anyone, this is all IMHO.
I'm using netscape 4.77-2 until I can visit all the sites I need (mapquest, and so on) in a web browser that runs in a framebuffer like zen or something. Everything else is trying to be like friggin emacs and add in a world of crap, or treat you like clippy and give you all this overly user friendly BS. It sucks enough to have to use X windows/netscape (and drain all kinds of resources, and run auto nice daemon to cope with it going crazy) just to have a descent browser that supports all these sites with javascript etc. I checked out mozilla and opera both, and guess friggin what? I know this comes as a crazy shock, but all I need is a full screen browser window, not fifty buttons and a logo and all that crap. KDE and gnome browsers may not be as bad, but they still require Xwindows on top of KDE or Gnome (I use neither), and blah blah blah.
Anyway.. I'm going to go listen to slayer and cool off. I'm not really mad, but I just think its pretty obvious that ALL of the graphical web browsers suck in some huge way or another. If they just sucked a little it would be okay but I'm talking big deep throat sucking. I'm going to go do something constructive now. Thank you.

Re:I wonder if it works on freebsd now? (like 5 di

[Anonymous Coward]

is "Linux-Emulation" under the GPL aswell?

Re:The Mouse gestures are great

[MaggieL]

...another thing plagarized from Opera...

Oh, dear...I suppose that choice of words is yet another way you can tell Opera isn't open-source. :-)

So I assume Opera patented tabbed browsing then? ;-)

*BSD is D - E - A - D -- It's dead, Jim

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a *BSD user
and I try hard to be brave
That is a tall order
*BSD's foot is in the grave.

I tap at my toy keyboard
and whistle a cheerful tune
but keeping happy is so hard,
*BSD will be dead soon.

Each day I wake and softly sob
Nightfall finds me crying
Not only am I a zit faced slob
but *BSD is dying.

Re:Browser Agnosticism

[aebrain]

A page that reports what your browser is telling it, and what the page thinks is actually the case, is here Yes, it will detect Opera, even if Opera's masquerading as something else.

I ripped off^H^H^H^H^H re-used the code from elsewhere - leaving attribution in the source, then modified it a bit. If anyone knows a better bit of javascript to do this, I'd be interested.

Any relative novice who aspires to the title of Webmaster could do worse than having a look at the whole About This Site section, which deals with making pages browser-agnostic, fast to download, accessible to the visually impaired, and not reliant on plug-ins or even scripts. I'm the author BTW, and most certainly not an expert, or even good. Just better than the Frontpage scriptkiddies that masquerade as 31337 htmlasters. Anyone who can give me some more tips on how to improve the site, feel free to contact me.

KGesture

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anybody know whether there are any plans to port KGesture or create a new gesture mechanism for KDE3? KDE would rock if all KDE applications had gestures support.

well, mozilla should be the choice (;

[sputti]

I know that competition in the browser market is good, but what is not good is the fact that all browsers display and interpret things differently. If all browsers would go exactly for the standards (or interpret them the same way.. yes yes (; ), there would'nt be a problem with this, but if you try to develop something, you know what I mean. Its no fun at all. You have to check things for at least three different browsers. Some browsers doesnt support this e.g. CSS tag, some interpret it different.. its just weird. What I positively can see with Opera 6, that it now tries to show things as nearly the way Mozilla does, but some CSS stuff is still missing. For me Mozilla is still the choice, because it really shows things as you would expect it to do. Plus, Mozilla is open source and can be ported to nearly all platforms. A website designed for the Gecko engine looks the same everywhere, no matter what platform it runs on. Just as example, IE/mac and IE/win.. . And I cant reproduce that Opera renders faster than Mozilla, it just uses less memory. Thats all what I can see. When tested with some websites, Mozilla always renderd faster thatn Opera, and I use aa fonts in Mozilla, but not in Opera. Well, ok, just my 2. --dac

Re:The Mouse gestures are great

[seanm666]

There used to be a shareware program called Sensiva that added gesture support to all windows programs, even allowing you to customize your own gestures. However, new Sensiva products seem to have become more and more bloated with all sorts of irrelevant features and are a lot more restrictive than the older versions :(

Konqueror does all of the things...

[Moritz Moeller - Her]

You are trolling. Denying it is not helping anyone.

Opera does NOT render pages better than konqueror. In fact opera does not even allow setting a background with CSS!

Konqueror does have fast switching of settings. Install the kdeaddons for additional menue entries, you can put any of them in the toolbar. You can choose a custom stylesheet("author mode")

Mouse gestures are being developed, so that might be valid, they are not ready yet.

Konqueror is MDI, SDI and split.

Konqueror has integrated search. Just type
gg:my search term
Or ggg: or ggl: Or hotbot: or rpm: or sf: ....

Re:Konqueror does all of the things...

[hkmwbz]

In fact opera does not even allow setting a background with CSS!

Yes it does.

Re:woo woo -- Linux still sux!

[ealar dlanvuli]

I'm not saying that linux needs to rule the desktop, but saying you don't like the GUI is far diffrent from not wanting to learn how to configure it.

I honestly see linux as a programmers playground, and a server enviroment; it's fairly ill suited for most other tasks (though, I would'nt find it hard to set up a 'desktop' machine for an older person who wanted it anymore, I still don't think it's the best suited choice for that envirment)

Want a fast free browser?

[Ed Avis]

Obligatory browser-plugging comment: Dillo is free and very fast. It doesn't support frames or Javascript, but they suck anyway. I'm using it to read Slashdot and post this comment now (while pouring hot grits down my pants ;-)).

Re:Want a fast free browser?

[jbuilder]

So... using Dillo makes you want to pour hot grits down your pants. I think I'll be avoiding THAT browser.. thanks anyway.

Here is the proof about Tabs

[Ilgaz]

Well, they invented them... For web browser. I saw the first version shown to public. With a funny name, thats why I can't seek and find that page shows its screenshots. If anyone can, would be great.

It shows 4 windows in 1 main window showing different HTML pages. It was a "demo" only. From 1994...

Re:Here is the proof about Tabs

[Ilgaz]

http://www.igd.fhg.de/archive/1995_www95/proceedin gs/posters/31/index.html

Aha, that one... Check the name too MULTItorg Opera

Sorry for replying to own post

Re:The Mouse gestures are great

[WowTIP]

...I assume Opera patented tabbed browsing then...

Nah, some Amiga browser (IBrowse I think) had tabbed browsing before. So, I guess Opera plagiarized it from them, in turn.

Bloat?

[hkmwbz]

The Opera Composer is not a program. It is a web page. It creates a custom installation package. The only thing you download is an installer with a customized version of Opera.

Note that it doesn't actually let you remove parts of Opera, just disable them. But that doesn't matter. Opera's emailer, newsreader and IM client are all so tiny.

But anyway, how the heck can you talk about bloat when the full Opera download is about 3 MB, including everything?

"theming and customising Opera. Could you do this from the menu bar? NO!"

YES! Of course you can. Haven't you even used Opera? You can access stuff from the View menu, and skinning and buttons can be set in Opera's preferences. The Opera Composer is only there to give you the option to change the defaults on install. It is primarily aimed at ISPs and other organizations that want to, say, replace the splash screen with their own and perhaps have a different bookmarks file. That is what the Opera composer is about. It doesn't to anything you couldn't do directly in Opera without downloading any extras.

Again, the Opera Composer does not add anything, it lets you change the default install. I hope I've made myself clear :)

"At the time, everybody was haranguing Mozilla for being too slow and bloated, yet here was the supposed champ of lightness and fastness forcing you to get extra programs to slim it down!"

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Opera is about a 3 MB download including everything, while Mozilla is about 11. And you are actually suggesting that Opera is bloated? It just doesn't make sense.

good news/bad news

[Lord Omlette]

Good: Opera 6.02 is small and fast.
Bad: Opera 6.02 STILL can't remember my slashdot cookies.

Re:good news/bad news

[Anonymous Coward]

Tick off Preferences -> Privacy -> Throw away new cookies on exit.

How scientific...

[sorbits]

Oh, one last little test... open up a loooong site in each (nice fat thread on Slashdot at Score:0 will do it), then press and hold the down arrow key and see how long it takes to scroll to the bottom. Opera is about twice as fast as Mozilla, and about half again as fast as IE.

The time it takes to scroll to the bottom is proportional with font size (the accumulated height of the page) and line increment assigned to arrow down.

So that test doesn't really show anything besides perhaps a little bit of ignorance on your part ;-)