Opera

Is it time to change browsers again?

I have never used the Opera browser before today, not really wanting to have to purchase it. Opera however is now free (as in beer). I am a big fan of open source, I like how it able to providing a viable competition in monopoly markets (operating system, browsers, office suites, etc), I guess partly because it’s harder to squash a non-profit since they are not in it for the cash. At the end of the day though I will use whatever works the best (and I can afford) — hence why I use OS X (admittidly jam packed with OSS goodies without which it would not be nearly as good).

Firefox on Windows I have enjoyed, but my Mac experiance isn’t so rosy. I use Camino, aand I find that whenever I have a page with some flash graphics (or a few), the browser can really slow down, especially if I am writing text. With Firefox on OS X, the middle mouse click doesn’t open the link in a new tab so it’s out of the question (though I still keep around for it’s excellent javascript console/debugger).

I’ve installed Opera on both Mac and Windows and I have to say I am quite impressed. The installer is a tiny 3.6MB, and it does feel nice to use. I did have to take 5min to “firefox-arise” it a bit including:
- changing the theme, I don’t like having distracting blue tabs in my periferal vision, this was a cinch (Tools->Appearance)
- Showing the status bar, I like to know what I’m clicking on (View->Toolbars->Status bar)
- Re-mapping Ctrl-T to be open a new tab (I could not cope otherwise). This was a little more involved as I have never used such an unusual keyboard mapping dialog. Tools->Preferences->Shortcuts->Edit. Then search for “t ctrl”, click edit, type the text “New Page”, and select “New Page” from the drop down box. Not sure if I like that way of doing it or not — it’s certainly very innovating though.

Some things that seem really nice: The “quick preferences” menu option. Tabs are above the Address bar. This is a little odd at first, HOWEVER, from a usability point of view (I am studying Usability Engineering), the tab metaphore makes much better sense with the address bar as a child of the tab frame (I think the technical term is visual affordance or something — hmm, I do need to study that one ;-) ). RSS suport is a little different to firefox, I have to say I like the “live bookmark” model that firefox adopts.

UPDATE: Oh and you can actually click on that dialog that pops up when a download is finished! Thank you! And I like the “back to start” back button, which takes you back to the first page opened on that tab.

Features like in-built torrent support are just awesome.

Will.