time
Storage? I am Storage!
I haven't used Opera 7.5 much because I found the interface irritating. In fact, I've been busily recommending Firefox to people, partly because there has been no Opera update for more than three months. I was startled when someone raved to me about Opera 7.60. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have bothered to even download it.
It has a slightly different interface, in that the annoying bits have been hidden. Once you disable the Main toolbar, screen size becomes reasonable (if you register to kill the ad banner). After trying it for a couple of days, I think it's a positive step. For example, the button to close each page is now on the associated tab rather than over on the right (like Firefox). This feels strange at first, but it means you can close a series of windows with single clicks even if they don't have focus. Nice.
The 'eye' button hides away the new View toolbar, which clears away some clutter while keeping it within easy reach. The "Fit to width" option works extremely well on small screens - way better than Mozilla's "Resize large images".
And then of course, there's the voice recognition ...
Okay, it's a party trick (and barely usable in this technology preview release), but it's kinda cool for a while.
I particularly enjoyed setting it to respond to the name "HAL".
I'm now going to antagonize Firefox fans (okay, maybe just Merc) by stating that IMO, Opera 7.60 does everything I can think of better than Firefox. Please remember that I've been using Firebird/Firefox for quite some time - I'm not just saying this because I'm a fanboy. I still see no alternative to Firefox/Mozilla for most people, but I'm going to suggest that Opera is now almost worth the money.
It's noticeably faster. It can actually print web pages correctly (sometimes better than IE). It has a proper download manager. And amazingly, it renders web pages better!
I'd be really interested to see examples of pages that disprove that last contentious statement. Note that results will depend on whether you set Opera to identify itself as Mozilla or IE. For example, Opera pretending to be Mozilla does a perfect job on www.hpm.com.au - until you encounter some mouseover menus that the site has scripted to only appear with IE. Switching identity to IE (F12 - T) solves that (although scrambling some text on earlier dropdown menus).
Firefox is hopeless on this site, as I've found it to be on several others. I've also confirmed that the problems I've seen when configuring network appliances are chiefly down to Firefox. For example, today I fought with a router that seemed to be retaining login details even after I'd reset it to factory defaults. After telling the client how wonderful Firefox is, I had to use IE to get the job done. :x This is the sort of annoyance that put me off Opera 7.23. (BTW, the inexplicable pauses seen in Opera 7.23 are gone).
Opera 7.60 is only a preview (alpha) release, so you shouldn't expect too much. However, I've yet to see a crash or even dodgy behaviour.
It has a slightly different interface, in that the annoying bits have been hidden. Once you disable the Main toolbar, screen size becomes reasonable (if you register to kill the ad banner). After trying it for a couple of days, I think it's a positive step. For example, the button to close each page is now on the associated tab rather than over on the right (like Firefox). This feels strange at first, but it means you can close a series of windows with single clicks even if they don't have focus. Nice.
The 'eye' button hides away the new View toolbar, which clears away some clutter while keeping it within easy reach. The "Fit to width" option works extremely well on small screens - way better than Mozilla's "Resize large images".
And then of course, there's the voice recognition ...
Okay, it's a party trick (and barely usable in this technology preview release), but it's kinda cool for a while.
I particularly enjoyed setting it to respond to the name "HAL".I'm now going to antagonize Firefox fans (okay, maybe just Merc) by stating that IMO, Opera 7.60 does everything I can think of better than Firefox. Please remember that I've been using Firebird/Firefox for quite some time - I'm not just saying this because I'm a fanboy. I still see no alternative to Firefox/Mozilla for most people, but I'm going to suggest that Opera is now almost worth the money.
It's noticeably faster. It can actually print web pages correctly (sometimes better than IE). It has a proper download manager. And amazingly, it renders web pages better!
I'd be really interested to see examples of pages that disprove that last contentious statement. Note that results will depend on whether you set Opera to identify itself as Mozilla or IE. For example, Opera pretending to be Mozilla does a perfect job on www.hpm.com.au - until you encounter some mouseover menus that the site has scripted to only appear with IE. Switching identity to IE (F12 - T) solves that (although scrambling some text on earlier dropdown menus).
Firefox is hopeless on this site, as I've found it to be on several others. I've also confirmed that the problems I've seen when configuring network appliances are chiefly down to Firefox. For example, today I fought with a router that seemed to be retaining login details even after I'd reset it to factory defaults. After telling the client how wonderful Firefox is, I had to use IE to get the job done. :x This is the sort of annoyance that put me off Opera 7.23. (BTW, the inexplicable pauses seen in Opera 7.23 are gone).
Opera 7.60 is only a preview (alpha) release, so you shouldn't expect too much. However, I've yet to see a crash or even dodgy behaviour.
