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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."
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Which part of "Buy Opera today - For the best internet experience Ad Free" do you not understand?
Except it could be argued, How are we to level the playing field (removing IE-only sites), if we browse pretending to be IE?
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
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.
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.
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?
Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.