Belchfire Search Engine Marketing

You know I miss the browser wars of the 90s. I still have fond memories of Netscape vs IE but preferred NCSA Mozaic myself, which IE was based on (NCSA Mozaic was the first browser with a full-screen mode).

So like probably everyone else, for years I had used Both IE and Netscape, and later Mozilla and then Firefox, switching back and forth as I got fed up with one or the other, or to get the latest new feature. Or IE would crash, or Firefox would randomly lose my profile or bookmarks, etc., etc. And don’t forget all the security holes that come up on a seemly weekly basis with some browsers. You know, standard stuff we are all used to and have just come to accept.

Well I say that you should not be accepting the problems, flaws and shortcomings of your web browser. So I wanted to tell you a little about Opera.

Opera is (was) a commercial web browser offered in an ad-sponsored free mode or a commercial ad-free version. I had tried the ad-sponsored version some time ago but it would have been around the same time Firefox really took off so I just uninstalled it and used Firefox, until now…

As of Sep. 20, 2006, Opera permanently removed the sponsored ads and licensing fee for it’s award winning browser (and that list is truly impressive). So you can now download and use, free of charge, the world’s best web browser.

I won’t speak to the plethora of features in Opera, but rather just a few of the notable ones that really set it apart and the reason I recommend it over all other browsers. For a full list of features, visit the Opera web site.

First, and my favorite, ‘paste and go’ and ‘go to URL’. In all other browsers, if you copy a web address and paste it into the address bar, you must then perform another step in order to go to that URL, either by clicking a Go button or similar, or by hitting enter on your keyboard. A step that should be unnecessary. Opera allows you to paste and go in one action. Go to URL works in the same manor, but for web addresses within the content of a page that are not hyperlinked. You just highlight the web address and right-click and Opera recognizes the highlighted text as a web address and takes you right there in one mouse click. Awesome.

Second favorite feature? Zoom! If you use IE, you’ve probably tried to increase the text size on occasion and found that it works for some pages and not others. Or if you use Firefox/Netscape/Mozilla and tried the same, it worked but the layout of the page sometimes gets buggered because only the text size increase, not the images or page dimensions (to accommodate the now larger text). While you can change the text size in Opera also, Opera goes one step better by allowing you to zoom the entire page; text, images, and dimensions. This is a terrific feature, especially for those of us who’s eyes aren’t as good as when we were a teenager, or with failing sight. In my opinion, this an indispensable feature as many web developers still create websites optimized or designed for 800×600 resolution (catering to the lowest common denominator). Those web developers are living the the past, what with ever increasing LCD sizes and ever dropping prices. I personally have a 20” widescreen running 1680×1050. Trying to view the itty bitty text on some sites is really eye straining. Opera does away with this through it’s zoom feature.

I should note that the new IE7 Beta also now has zoom, but it doesn’t have enough options (the next step up from 100% is 150%, far too much zoom), and it’s not smart enough to center the page so you have to scroll side-to-side constantly to see the right hand size of the page when zoomed. Anyway, this article isn’t about IE7 and things may improve once it goes green, but from what I’ve seen, IE7 at best, is just playing catch-up and even when release officially, won’t hold a candle to Opera so don’t bother with it…

On the subject of zoom, Opera also has more language support, more platform support, and better accessibility features. Included free with Opera is also Voice. Voice is an optional download (it’s rather large so they don’t included it in the default Opera download to save bandwidth). Voice allows you to both navigate and perform common tasks by speaking to your computer (microphone and soundcard/speakers required of course), and allows you to have your computer read to you aloud the text on any web page. Just click the ‘Voice’ button on your Opera toolbar or select a block of text and right click to have Opera read that text. Both male and female voices are available.

Did I mention mouse gestures? You can even enable mouse gestures in Opera and when enabled, you can navigate and perform common tasks by simply moving your mouse in a particular fashion. Each gesture is pre-defined but you can even create your own. I’m just getting into mouse gestures - very cool…

Tabbed browsing. Okay sure, it’s been in Firefox for a while but again, Opera wins the day by allowing you to tile and arrange tabbed windows within the Opera display!

For those of you that subscribe to RSS feeds, Opera has the best RSS support I’ve seen.

The Wand is Opera’s password manager. Have you ever used IE and told it to remember a username and password for some site you have to log into? And then upon returning to that page, you double-click in the username box and IE shows you the full list of all usernames and passwords you’ve ever entered in any page? Yeah, okay that’s useless. Opera trumps IE and Firefox again by not only correctly remembering only the usernames and passwords you entered into a particular page, but highlights the username and password boxes, indicating visually that it has login info for that page saved. You then simply click the Wand button once to propagate the fields and log you in at the same time. Again, a small thing but replaces serveral actions necessary in other browsers with just one. In addition, you can also enter common contact info into Opera’s preferences so you can then use the Wand to pre-propagate common contact info forms with one mouse click (name, city, state, phone, email, etc.). Most other browsers require third-party software or add-ons to do this.

Finally, if Opera does crash, and lets be honest, any browser may crash if it tries to load a page that is so poorly coded or loaded with javascript or purposely crafted to kill your system, when you re-open Opera, it remembers and automatically loads the last page(s) you had open and even remembers the history so you can still use the back button to remember how you got to that page in the first place. Now that’s slick. Have you ever been searching Google and gotten pretty deep into the results, clicked a link and your browser crashed? Most times you never remember the exact search terms you used so can never find the pages you already visited or have to start all over again? Not so with Opera.

So there’s just a few of the little things that Opera does that makes browsing so much easier, faster, and more fun. And isn’t that the point? Out of frustration comes innovation, and Opera is one innovative product. I’m still discovering new things about Opera every day. Like Notes (but I’ll let you discover these on your own).

If you haven’t heard of Opera or tried it yet, I highly suggest you check it out. I’ll warn you now, the interface is a little different from what you’re accustomed to, but give it a few days and you’ll have it down pat. It’s well worth the time spend.

Last point. Opera claims to be The Fastest Browser on Earth and they’re not kidding!