Opera claims to be a browser for pros: something that does the job well, and has plenty of features but not so much schnickschnack. It certainly makes a good first impression. Weighing in at a little over 1 meg, the installable file downloads quickly, and the program installs in seconds. Also, when you run Opera, it doesn't insult your intelligence by telling you that your site "does not have a DNS entry" just because you forgot to plug the modem in!
These guys have the balls to put links to both Netscape and Explorer right on their download page. They invite you to go ahead and try both, confident that you'll be back to pay for Opera.
As advertised, Opera is geared a little more to the experienced Internet user. It shows a lot more geekish info onscreen than the other guys do, and the interface is more customizable. You can have multiple browser windows open within one Opera window, and you can even remember them on exit, so you could have a whole set of pages that open on startup, or simply go back to the last sites you were looking at.
There are a lot of other handy features, but…
I don't like the way form fields look. Netscape and Microsoft give a form field a little "3D" border that people have gotten used to seeing. This visual cue makes it clear where form fields are. In Opera, a form field has only a single line around it, and just looks like any ol' little box.
Implementation of advanced elements is spotty. The FONT tag doesn't seem to work sometimes (I know we're not supposed to use the FONT tag anymore, but…). Java and Javascript sometimes work, sometimes don't. The little Java doodad on the Web Developer's Journal home page doesn't work in Opera, so they need to get with it.
The status bar shows a lot of details about what's going on when you load a page. That's very cool. However, it also hides the URL while a page is loading, to show connection info. Not cool. We like to see the URL that we're headed towards at all times, so we can see if it redirects, or so we can grab it or change it at the last minute.
Opera doesn't always handle email very well. If you choose Outlook as your mail program, it'll open Outlook when you click on a mail link, but not actually address a message. If you choose Netscape mail, it will open a new message with email address ready to go, but it also opens a new browser window. With Eudora it works correctly. Hmmm…are they trying to tell us something? Opera has its own integrated email client, too.
These quibbles, though important, are nothing that can't be fixed with a new release or two. If Opera can come through with what they sort of promise - a browser that really implements all of HTML 4.0 - then they'll have a hot product on their hands. What remains to be seen, however, is whether they can cut it against the competition. The two Big Brother browsers may be kind of lame, but they do the job, and are standards of a sort. Oh, and also…Not only are they both free, but most computer buyers these days get Explorer built right in, if not set to pop up the first time they power up the box.
Most surfers don't need two browsers, any more than most people need two word processors. Most folks just pick one of the big boys. And as long as that's the case, Web developers will have to have a copy of each of the aforementioned boys. So it seems to me that Opera may have a tough time finding much of a market beyond their loyal following of Opera-heads. On the other hand, it looks like the team behind Opera know their stuff, and I'm always in favor of more alternatives, especially when the two leading products are so…so…
This product is well worth checking out, and these people well worth supporting. Download Opera, or check out their site, at: http://opera.nta.no.
Who knows? Ya might just become…an Opera fan!
