J0 1hings I Love About Opera

By Heinz Bulos
Iebruary J4, 2002
'e always been a an o Opera since
the time I irst heard about it in 199.
I used to call it "the little browser that
could". It was just a tiny blip in the Great
Browser \ars back then. \ell, it has
come a long way since those days.
Microsot Internet Lxplorer still has the
lion's share o the market, with Netscape
Naigator urther declining, but Opera is
slowly increasing its hold. Version 6.0 is
the latest incarnation, and Opera just gets
better and better. So how do I loe
Opera Let me count the ways:

J. It's small. One amazing thing about
this browser is that it retains its small
ootprint despite adding newer eatures
eery update, unlike other sotware that
gets bloated eery time. Opera 6.0 is just a
3.2MB download, minus the Jaa Runtime
Lnironment or JRL 1.3, which you may
already hae installed in your PC.
Otherwise, it's a 10.MB ile. In contrast,
IL 6.0's Actie Setup ile is 256K but
requires a typical install o 11MB, with
minimum and ull setup ranging rom
8.5MB to 45MB. Netscape 6.0, on the
other hand, is a 26MB download.

2. It's accessible. One aorite eature I
hae o Opera is the powerul zoom
eature, enhanced in this upgrade. \ou
can zoom in close to 1000 and zoom
out to as little as 20. It's a great tool or
iewing sites that would otherwise orce
you to scroll ,set or a higher resolution
than your screen, or squint ,or those
cooler-than-thou sites that use small
onts,. O course, grandpa would loe this
eature as well.

Opera is perhaps the best browser when it
comes to using keyboard naigation.
Pressing the Z and X keys to go back and
orward has always been a quick and
conenient way o naigating, as opposed
to moing the mouse to click on the
browser's back and orward buttons.
Another aorite is G, which toggles
images on and o. l8 too, which
highlights the address bar, replacing the
need to do it with your mouse. A new
shortcut key is l12, which shows Quick
preerences, a list o oten-used options.

1here are plenty o other eatures that aid
users with disabilities, such as
customizable color combinations and
onts, a lot o single-key shortcuts, ull
link presentation control, and sound
eedback.

3. It's obedient. Opera is the most
standards-compliant browser. As you
know, Microsot and Netscape were
notorious or adding their own standard
to their browsers, skipping or moing
ahead o the oicial recommendations o
the \orld \ide \eb Consortium ,\3C,,
in an apparent bid to oer more adanced
capabilities to gain greater market share.
On one hand, this did push the
deelopment o the \eb aster. On the
other hand, it resulted in a lot o
incompatibilities, which gae \eb
deelopers a lot o headaches ,haing to
create two ersions in some cases and
haing to test their sites on both
browsers, and surers a lot o aggraation
,or iewing sites that do not look right on
their browser since they're optimized or
the competing browser,.

It also supports standards o the Internet
Lngineering 1ask lorce ,IL1l,. It
supports l1ML 4.01, CSS1, and CSS2
I
with a ew minor exceptions, Xl1ML 1,
XML 1, \ML 1.2, LCMAScript,
Jaascript 1.4, Jscript, Unicode, and the
\eb's image ormats GIl, JPG, BPM,
\BMP, and PNG. 1he problem, o
course, is that many \eb sites were
designed using IL's or Netscape's
standards, and thus may look dierent
when using Opera. On a quick note,
ersion 6.0 handles Jaascript much better
now. 1he last ersion gae me a hard time
accessing a Jaascript menu o the
Philippine \eb Awards admin site.

4. It's helpful. A new eature integrates
the personal bar with links to aorite sites
and a choice o dierent search engines
or inding anything rom sites and MP3
iles to images and books rom
Amazon.com. Google is the deault search
engine, and you can't go wrong with
Google. 1he address bar itsel can be used
to do searches. 1yping "g" and the text
you're searching or immediately searches
or it using Google. Once you'e accessed
a site, you don't hae to type the entire
URL again, just enter the irst ew
characters and pick rom the drop-down
list. Bookmark management is drag-and-
drop easy. Another useul tool is the lind
in page search box already integrated in
the toolbar, which in IL or instance
requires you to open a dialog box.

A great help is the Quick preerences
menu, which contains useul options.
Opera is the only browser that
automatically kills pop-up windows. It lets
you accept, reuse, or open them in the
background. One big improement o
ersion 6.0 rom 5.0 is that it no longer
automatically resizes windows when a
pop-up appears. Beore, een i a window
is a maximized and you go to a site that
automatically launches a pop-up window,
the main window annoyingly resizes. 1hen
when you maximize it again, the pop-up
window also maximizes.

1he menu also allows you to quickly
enable or disable animation, ideo, audio,
Jaa, Jaascript, plug-ins, and cookies on
the ly.

Another helpul eature is lotclick. \hen
you double-click a word or paragraph, a
contextual menu automatically appears,
giing you the option to check the
dictionary or encyclopedia, copy the text,
search or the word in dierent search
engines, translate to some languages
,mainly Luropean,, and send by e-mail.

1he Status Progress bar is also a helpul
tool. It gies you a quick glimpse o stats
like number o images transerred, aerage
data transer speed, and time passed since
loading started. It really helps to know
how long you still need to wait.

Opera does a great job o downloading
iles. It opens a new window and does a
better job o tracking the progress o your
download. \ou can also stop and resume
transers.

S. It's flexible. Opera 6.0 sports a more
modern look. It supports skins and
changeable buttons that can be
downloaded rom the Opera site. 1he
user interace is highly customizable. All
the toolbars can be easily placed top,
bottom, let, or right o your browser
window. 1he lotlist, which when
actiated is either docked or loating ,the
window is resizable,, shows your
bookmarks, e-mail address book, and IM
contact list. 1he items are easily
organized, sorted, and customized.

One major change to the new ersion is
the choice o a single ,SDI, or multiple
document interace ,MDI,. Preious
ersions used MDI, which opens windows
within Opera itsel. 1hat has its
adantages, such as not clogging the
\indows taskbar and tiling just Opera
documents een with other sotware
running. 1he main problem is you can't -
between maximized documents. 1his
time, you hae a choice. \ou can now
hae multiple instances o Opera.

Also, Opera is aailable on arious
platorms, namely \indows, BeOS,
Linux,Solaris, Mac, OS,2, QNX, and
Symbian OS.

6. It's packed. Despite its small size,
Opera 6.0 is jam-packed with eatures.
Aside rom the browser, it includes an
integrated newsgroup reader, e-mail client,
and instant messaging client. Plus it can
iew \AP sites and turn itsel into a
presentation tool.

It also already includes common
Netscape-compatible plug-ins such as
llash, Shockwae, Quicktime, RealPlayer,
Acrobat, Go!Zilla, and seeral others.

7. It's smart. One outstanding eature o
Opera is its ability to sae a window
beore closing and to resume where you
let o when you open it again. 1his
proes inaluable during a crash, or
instance. Opera gies you a choice to
resume rom where you last exited, to
start with no windows open, start with set
o windows saed earlier, or begin with
your deault start page. During regular
suring, it also means you don't hae to
look or the page again or clutter your
bookmark list with yet another link.

Another less-known eature is Opera's
mouse gestures. It makes ull use o your
mouse and not just or clicking or
accessing pop-up menus. Opera added
unctionality to the mouse's right button
using dierent combinations o mouse
moements. lor example, clicking and
holding the right mouse button up and
then moing the mouse down rereshes
the page. Pointing on a link, pressing the
right button, and moing the mouse down
opens the linked document in a new
window. And so on.

Len the basic ile management tools are
smarter in Opera. lor instance, the Open
command in IL requires a second dialog
box to browse iles on your PC, Opera
shows your directory immediately. IL
automatically creates a subdirectory when
saing a page on your PC, cluttering the
directory ater you'e saed seeral pages,
Opera does not, plus you can choose to
include or exclude images. It's also to
import IL and Netscape bookmarks and
e-mail contact list.

8. It's secure. Opera 6.0 supports SSL 2
and SSL 3 ,Secure Sockets Layer, and 1LS
1 ,1ransport Layer Security,, with built-in
support or ull 128-bit encryption, the
maximum protection you can get.

One security issue is illing up orms
automatically. IL can sae usernames and
passwords as well as text you entered in
orms such as in a search engine. It's
conenient in a way since you don't need
to retype it or in the case o text in orms,
typing the irst ew characters drops down
a list o preiously entered words. But it
can be dangerous or embarrassing ,i you
just searched or "pantyhose or men", or
instance, also i you share your computer
with someone else. Opera does not hae
this yet, so there are pros and cons to this.

Another eature it lacks that IL has is the
ability o its e-mail client to automatically
open an attachment. It also doesn't
support LML ,Outlook Lxpress Mail
Message, and is thus not ulnerable to
Nimda and other iruses that speciically
attack Microsot Outlook Lxpress.

As or cookies, you hae options in
handling them, such as rejecting all,
accepting all, or accepting only selected
cookies. 1here's also an option to
automatically delete all cookies upon
exiting Opera.

\hile the ad-supported ersion displays
banners within the browser, the ads do
not track computer use and Internet isits
or collect personal inormation, unlike
spyware such as Gator, so you can be
assured o priacy.

It's easy to manage cache and history. \ou
can delete only password-protected pages
and data or the entire cache. Clearing
history iles is also lexible - you can delete
isited pages, typed-in addresses, isited
links, and transerred iles.

9. It's fast. Opera has always been a ast
browser, deinitely aster than Netscape.
IL, on the other hand, has continued to
improe its speed perormance. On sites
that are "optimized" or IL as well as
those heay in multimedia, such as llash,
IL runs aster, as in the case o
Shockwae ,it's already a huge
improement that Opera can already
display Shockwae properly, the last
ersion couldn't as the site was designed
or the main browsers in mind,.

Real world suring indicates that Opera
6.0 is indeed aster than eer, but when
you hae seeral windows and
applications open, it's bound to slow
down as expected. \e ran some tests on
popular sites and it's a close match
between Opera and IL, with the ormer
leading on aerage. loweer, i we
include sites such as Shockwae and een
\ehey, which at the time o this reiew
had a really heay llash ad, IL moes
ahead.

J0. It's free. 1hankully, Opera 6.0
remains ree, with the ad-supported
ersion. An upgrade rom ersion 5.0 is
also ree o charge. I you want to get rid
o the ad, pay up US>39 or US>15 i
you're upgrading rom ersion 4.0.
Around P2,000 is a hard sell considering
the alternaties are ree, but die-hard
Opera ans or Microsot critics should put
their money where their mouth is.

laing said all the nice stu, there are still
areas or improement. lor instance, the
Address bar isn't capable o moing
between punctuation marks such as ","
and "." within a URL by pressing and the
let or right arrow key, as in IL. So you
either hae to click your mouse on the
speciic spot or press the arrow key per
character. 1his is a minor complaint, but a
time saer when you need to add or delete
subdirectories to get to where you want to
go.

1he large ad space, standard banner really,
is immoable and takes up quite a space,
especially i your resolution is below 1024
x 68 pixels, thus reducing your browsing
area. But it's a small price to pay or a ree
excellent product. At least it's not spyware
and you can customize the kind o ads
you want to see. 1he Opera Daily Comics
is also a nice touch.

One other small gripe: iewing listory is
not as useul as in IL, which opens a
separate toolbar at the let side, letting you
click on preiously isited sites organized
by date and domain name, and opening
them on the browser window. Opera
opens the ile in the entire browser
window itsel and shows only the isited
sites or the day.

On some drop down menus, you need to
click on the down arrow button and not
on the ield itsel to keep it steady,
otherwise, it opens and closes beore you
can een pick an option. Also, on some
sites that use Jaascript, it may not
support all commands, as in opening a
new window in Shockwae, or example.
And perhaps at no ault o Opera, some
sites do not recognize it, and will only
work with IL or Netscape. lor instance,
the \ahoo Media Player doesn't work.
1he same problem crops up when it
comes to add-ons. I hae Robolorm
installed on IL, a big help in automatically
illing up online orms. Opera does not
support it because it didn't proide the
Robolorm APIs necessary or its
operation ,DOM,, though Opera's tech
support says it's something they'll
deinitely add sometime next year.

Opera 6.0 does crash occasionally,
especially when multiple windows are
open, but not extraordinarily more
requent than IL or Netscape.

But really, these are things that Opera will
eentually correct and improe on. 1he
only obstacles are those sites that only
recognize the two major browsers, which
is really a pity. At this point, Opera is
already better than Netscape, in my
opinion. I wouldn't say it already beats IL
in terms o eatures and perormance, but
it deinitely has plenty o tricks up its
sleees that Microsot should learn rom.
And as much as I hate to admit it, using
IL has become a orce o habit, with
Opera sering as my alternatie browser ,I
hardly use Naigator anymore,. Opera still
is not my deault browser, but all it needs
is a little - okay, big -- push rom its ans
to gie Microsot a run or its money.