Why you should try the Opera Browser.

The Internet was designed to be Open Standard accessible, but by allowing Microsoft to further monopolize (and be assured, that is their goal) the Web, we (you and I) loose public access. There was a real reason the US Justice Department instituted a legal case against them. Even though the Government did win to a limited degree, in practical terms nothing has changed. While you received a the Internet Explorer browser with your licensed copy of Windows, using the Opera Browser allows you to do your part in supporting independent (ie. not Microsoft) browsers. Contrary to what Microsoft says, the browser is just an application and not a part of the Operating System. You are not required to use Internet Explorer. Opera is available free now.

Putting politics and monopolistic issues aside, here are several reasons to try out Opera.

It has, and has had for the last couple of years, a quick popup blocker. Microsoft is only now including one in there IE6 patch. Some sites sell a blocker for $20. It is available now in Opera, and it not only blocks unwanted popups but will not block wanted popups.

It has a clean and excellent mail client. You will not be subject to all the macro viruses that infect mail through Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express. This mail client is not just a bunch of bins for sorting mail, but a full database for superior access to sorting your email. There are many mail clients on the net, but the Opera client is worth a try.

Ergonomically Opera is way ahead in their mouse gestures. The most handy are using the right and left mouse buttons as the history buttons. I will not explain it but once you start using these mouse features you will miss them on Internet Explorer.

Opera by default uses the same browser for different windows. That is, you can cascade or tab your different windows and keep the monitor screen uncluttered. At times I will have a half a dozen pages open within my browser, all neatly contained within my browser and not mixed with other screen applications.

And while really not a reason to use Opera on a full screen, they have already implemented Opera for small screens such as a Palm Pilot or any of the new hand held devices. Opera allows you to see what it looks like. Here is an example.

Opera does not support ActiveX programs. This is one of the ways that viruses are commonly put into your computer when you access a web page through IE. Do you know how to turn off ActiveX?

Reasons to try out Opera on my Web Sites.

I have hundreds of photos on my sites. All the indexed (thumbnailed and some mapped) photos on my site are displayed as pure jpeg graphics with no underlying html page. Most browsers put them in the upper left corner of your screen, as left justified. Opera centers photos in the middle of your screen. It looks much better. Try it, you will agree.

When viewing a site with a sequence of photos or pages Opera how has (in version 7.2) implemented Next and Back (and Rewind) buttons in the header. This is not the same as the buttons you are familiar with, which are really history buttons. You can also use the keyboard Space key or the Backspace key to go to the next or previous slide. During a slide show just tap the Space key for the next slide. Slick!

Downside Issue

The downside, is some URL pages (tables and framed sites mostly) will not display correctly. Why? Microsoft already has introduced features (methodology or extensions) that it supports in their Internet Tools that are not part of international standards. So if anyone uses their tools to make a web page and uses one of these methods, that web page may not display correctly on other non-MicroSoft browsers. So you think the other browser is no good and you go back to Internet Explorer. Clever, huh?

Want to read other viewpoints? Here is a another view , on Opera, dated 3-22-04. Read an article on other alternative browsers that have features that Internet Explorer does not, dated 3-22-04. An article on why IE is falling behind in features, dated 2-6-04. About Web sites locking out other than IE browsers, dated 11-4-04. For a Wiki article on “why Opera” and a general article, as of 10-23-05.