Opera 6.0 - the best just got better (1 Viewer)

[Kimmo Jaskari]

Got an email mentioning that Opera 6.0 was out (in beta 1 form) and downloaded it of course.
So far I love it. They've further refined the good stuff and added things that were missing.
I love having separate search fields up all the time ready to do a search, for example. I have one text entry field that does a direct Google Newsgroup search, one that does a plain Google search and another that searches the text on the page being displayed.
Much good stuff, go get it at http://www.opera.com
Despite being "beta 1" it has been rock solid for me during the half a day or so I have been using it.
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/Kimmo

 

[dd1079]

This is not fair. I was just enjoying having Mozilla as my primary browser and voilá another version of Opera. I don't think I can handle another browser change ...

 

[Greg_Y]

So far I love it. They've further refined the good stuff and added things that were missing.

Agreed! In fact, using Opera 5.12, I was never able to copy and paste quotes like I've just done, when I hit the Reply button. For some reason, it never allowed me to grab text from "internal windows" like HTF uses when making a reply post. Opera 6.0 lets you do it. I still can't get spoiler text to show up though.
I also love their press releases where they rant against Microsoft.

 

[NickSo]

Yeah, still cant see spoiler stuff... i just copy it and paste it into the address bar...
Lessee if the copy and paste works properly..
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[Carlo_M]

I just downloaded their Mac skin, looks pretty cool (on my W2K machine). If they ever get that spoiler tag addressed, I just might be convinced to spend the $39 to support their company. This is one seriously fast browser.

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

The spoiler tag issue really isn't one. Just hit CTRL-G to toggle the browser into user mode, that will override the formatting of the page and display the spoiler text. Then just CTRL-G to get back to author mode, ie to display the formatting that the person creating the web page specified.
Arguably Opera does it right... black text on a black background should be a black bar. But it can be annoying when viewing boards, true.
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/Kimmo

 

[Greg_Y]

The spoiler tag issue really isn't one. Just hit CTRL-G to toggle the browser into user mode

Thanks!

 

[dd1079]

What still bugs me is that (if you don't manually override it) Opera tries to download every single picture on a page before it is displayed. So if there is an image which is not reachable at the moment, you can enjoy watching the blank screen for a long time. This is why I love Mozilla.
[Edited last by Dominik Dröscher on November 18, 2001 at 03:50 AM]

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

I would agree that Mozillas rendering engine is a more advanced one than Operas in many ways, but Opera still feels more snappy in most situations. As for user-friendliness - at least power-user-friendliness

- I think Opera still beats Mozilla.
Of course this is a totally subjective opinion!
Opera still has a lot of work to do on the browser, though. The news-reader and email client both still leave a lot to be desired. Not that they aren't usable now, they are, but there are tons of things that still should be added and corrected.
The things they added to 6.0 from 5.12 though are all good - unicode, so it can now display non-english languages properly, much improved support for PNG graphics (good for those of us who refuse to use GIF's on our web pages), several very good additions to the user interface like searchable bookmarks, a "personal bar" like the personal toolbar in Netscape, ability to mark text with the mouse and then either do a search on it or have translation done (hotclick or some such is what they call it)... great stuff.
Ah well, if you really want to know you can always read Operas own hype instead of mine.

http://www.opera.com/press/reviewer/

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/Kimmo

 

[dd1079]

Kimmo:

The things they added to 6.0 from 5.12 though are all good - unicode, so it can now display non-english languages properly, much improved support for PNG graphics (good for those of us who refuse to use GIF's on our web pages), several very good additions to the user interface like searchable bookmarks, a "personal bar" like the personal toolbar in Netscape, ability to mark text with the mouse and then either do a search on it or have translation done (hotclick or some such is what they call it)... great stuff.

All features also available in Mozilla (even the marking text -> right click -> search for ability (at least in the latest nightlies)).
Now if only IE could include full alpha transparency PNG support, everyone would be happy and could use it.
Of course Mozilla still doesn't feel as fast as Opera, simply because it does not rely on Windows' window architecture. The XUL engine is very promising but will always be the major slowdown. And as you mentioned earlier, a browser with the UI of Opera and Gecko as rendering engine would be great.
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-Dominik Dröscher ICQ: 25318265
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes."

 

[MichaelPe]

That Ctrl-G trick is awesome! No more opening Notepad everytime I want to see a spoiler.

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

Yeah, I had the same revelation when someone told me at one time. I used to right-click and look at the HTML source (!) directly instead...
Since then I've tried to really look at what features are available in Opera. There is much work-saving functionality that you might not notice immediately but love once you find it.