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Author Topic: Opera: Your mother should know  (Read 4751 times)

Adept

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Opera: Your mother should know
« on: May 06, 2003, 18:51 »
By Ashlee Vance in San Francisco
Posted: 05/05/2003 at 18:16 GMT
from The Register

You can't trust a mother when she praises her child, but you can trust dear old Mum's recommendation for a new piece of technology.
The latest instance of approval from the matriarch followed her installation of the Opera browser. It seems with version 7.1 of Opera for Windows, a bunch of Norwegian programmers have done what Microsoft still can't - make a browser that puts loads of good features right at any mum's hands.

Out of respect for Apple's good name, the squalid lump of code known as Safari won't be compared to either Opera or Internet Explorer on this occasion.

Mum rang up after encountering an endless barrage of pop-up advertisements, while surfing the Web. She needed help getting rid of the buggers and didn't know what to do. Opera was the answer.

It took some convincing to persuade Mum to try out a new browser. At first, she did not even know what a browser was exactly even though she uses one every day. She looked for the big blue E and knew it would take her to Yahoo! mail.

She is, however, the adventurous type and was willing to give Opera a go.

After a relatively painless install, it took all of 15 seconds to shut off the pop-up adds tormenting Mum. Unlike Internet Explorer types, Opera users can dart over to their quick preferences and select from not one but four pop-up options: Accept pop-ups, refuse them, open them in the background and open only those pop-ups the user requests.

This last option is a key addition Opera has thrown into version 7.1 to make its browser truly first class. In the past, turning off all pop-ups meant some hassle was required when, for example, a desired Java applet wanted to start in a separate window. This is a problem no more.
With one goal accomplished, we took the bold move of explaining mouse gestures and led Mum to what many consider the promised land of Internet surfing. After a couple of tries, she was good to go and no longer had to drag her pointer over the back and forward buttons in Internet Explorer.

No, the previous page visited was but a mouse gesture away.

Such treats for the end user continue to elude Microsoft. The company's browser looks more tired than a shemale street walker in San Francisco's Tenderloin on a Saturday night.
Microsoft has clearly put its software investment some place else other than the browser. Once its near monopoly on Internet surfing was secured, Redmond left us all out to dry in a wasteland of featureless code and archaic design.

"We are the only browser more or less that runs on the desktop that actually has to care about people," Opera CEO, Jon von Tetzchner told The Register. "People give us money because they like it. We want to be the good guys. "

"For that to happen we have to innovate all the time. So we try and innovate all the time, like you say, with mouse gestures, which is also about social awareness."

Mum, an artist by profession, found herself marveling at the Opera user interface, saying she never knew something like this existed. Flashing icons and text that lights up under the mouse pointer go a long way to impressing creative types.

She also watched with awe as Web pages loaded with speed unknown in the Microsoft world.

Like any browser, Opera is not perfect all the time, especially for those people not willing to pay the license fee and remove the pesky add window. Users must still lean toward having Opera identify itself as IE to get the most function out of complex Web sites, but with time, this will change.

The key point is that Opera is making the good bits and pieces of browser functionality available to all kinds of users, which is what they deserve. The Norwegians refuse to hold the non-tech savvy crowd hostage.

For now, Mum continues to plug away in Opera with a new found pleasure. Instead of looking for the big, blue E, she searches for the big red O to get to Yahoo! mail.

With most of us spending vast amounts of time in the browser, why has Microsoft failed to produce anything resembling a new feature in four years? ®


I couldn't agree more Ashlee ;)

What do you reckon chorleydave? ;D ;D

Offline Clive

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Re:Opera: Your mother should know
« Reply #1 on: May 06, 2003, 19:41 »
Has anyone else tried Opera apart from Adept and Chorleydave?  If so, we would like to hear from you.  I'm not particularly adventurous but I must admit my appetite has been whetted after reading that.  On the other hand, Moms are very clever people aren't they?   ;D

Offline greenking

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Re:Opera: Your mother should know
« Reply #2 on: May 06, 2003, 20:03 »
OK Adept you've just about sold it to me  :)

Is it free and where can i get it  :P
My goal in life is to become half as good a person as my dog already thinks I am

Offline DJ

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Re:Opera: Your mother should know
« Reply #3 on: May 06, 2003, 20:30 »
Try HERE Greenking.

I think i'll try it soon as well!!

DJ1UK

Offline Simon

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Re:Opera: Your mother should know
« Reply #4 on: May 06, 2003, 20:48 »
I tried it a short while ago, and while I found nothing wrong with it (apart from it displaying one of my regular websites incorrectly), my personal preference for a clutter free display meant that by the time I had removed all the extra tool bars and buttons, my 'stripped down' version was in fact not much different to IE.

The Pop Up Stopper feature on it's own would not be enough to pursuade me to use Opera, as there are plenty of programs available free to do the same job with IE.  I would also find the ad panel undesirable, and would certainly not consider *cough* paying for the ad free version.

That's my personal opinion.  I'm not slagging Opera off, or saying it's rubbish - I just fail to see any real advantages it has over IE, although I would possibly pay it a little more attention if it was offered free.
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Adept

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Re:Opera: Your mother should know
« Reply #5 on: May 06, 2003, 21:16 »
Personally I find these features useful:-

1. It's not made by Microsoft

2. Opera has an MDI interface which means that you can have many browser windows open but they are all in the same window and can be switched to by means of tabs. Since I usually have six or seven browser windows on the go at a time plus wp, Dreamweaver, Fireworks and PSP, this really cuts down the clutter on my desktop.

3. The popup blocker blocks ads you haven't asked for but doesn't block popups you actually want.

4. Microsoft doesn't make Opera

5. You can set a page to auto refresh. I often load up "Search New" on Pals and set it to a 30sec refresh. That way I never miss a new posting ;)

6. If you don't like the standard layout, you can change the toolbars and/or re-skin the window.

7. Did I mention that Opera isn't made by Microsoft? :)

Unfortunately, since I have to use Microsoft web-sites for my work, I still have to use IE6 occasionally. Otherwise I'd bin it ...

As Simon said, it's not for everyone. But I'd seriously recommend you try it for a week. It'll grow on you ;)

Offline Simon

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Re:Opera: Your mother should know
« Reply #6 on: May 06, 2003, 21:30 »
5. You can set a page to auto refresh. I often load up "Search New" on Pals and set it to a 30sec refresh. That way I never miss a new posting ;)

I must admit, that is bloody handy.  Is there no way to do that in IE?  Don't suppose you'd tell us if there was, Sean.   ;) ;D
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Adept

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Re:Opera: Your mother should know
« Reply #7 on: May 06, 2003, 21:35 »
It's such a useful feature, someone must've made something similar.

I really should program something into the "Search New" page for the browser-challenged amongst us ;) ::)

Offline Sandra

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Re:Opera: Your mother should know
« Reply #8 on: May 06, 2003, 23:54 »
Have a look here Simon,sounds like it may do the trick and the price is right (free)  :-*

http://www.bevoni.com/webrifle/index.htm

Offline Simon

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Re:Opera: Your mother should know
« Reply #9 on: May 07, 2003, 08:00 »
That sounds quite good, Sandra.  But, before I try it, there's just one slight worry - doesn't the forward downloading of links etc into the cache make for some security issues, especially when visiting some particular software websites?   ;) ;)
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Offline Sandra

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Re:Opera: Your mother should know
« Reply #10 on: May 07, 2003, 13:02 »
I dont know about that so you will have to be the guinea pig  :P
You could always contact them as they wanted feedback and suggestions  :-*

Offline chorleydave

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Re:Opera: Your mother should know
« Reply #11 on: May 07, 2003, 15:23 »
I'm still on Opera 6.5, but the additional popup option in 7.1 might just persuade me to upgrade.  Since changing to the Java version of Opera, I haven't used Internet Explorer once and have now removed the icon from my desktop.  It's still on my machine though, as I pay my bills using internet banking and the Halifax website doesn't like Opera.  :-[

Offline Simon

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Re:Opera: Your mother should know
« Reply #12 on: May 07, 2003, 16:08 »
I use Halifax PC Banking as well, so Opera would definitely be no good for me then.

I dont know about that so you will have to be the guinea pig  :P

You'll have to wait until I feel a bit more adventurous.  I've just found a new pop up stopper (how is it, by the way?), and too much excitement could make my hair fall out.   ;) ;D
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Offline chorleydave

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Re:Opera: Your mother should know
« Reply #13 on: May 07, 2003, 16:32 »
Update!!!!

Am now on Opera 7.10 and the Halifax website is working perfectly.

Offline Simon

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Re:Opera: Your mother should know
« Reply #14 on: May 07, 2003, 17:46 »
Bugger!   ;) ;D ;D
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