Latest Browser Download: Opera 8 Beta 2

Opera owns Firefox. You shouldn't let the market dictate your views., Harry McCracken.

But usually when you put out a new browser you want it to compete with the best browser on the market this makes the companies think of new things. Opera is starting to become a blahh thing!!!

Opera is a very very cool browser though, every time I use it I feel like I'm running Linux over Windows: Great features, really stable and smaller but something is missing.
I'm looking foreward to this beta, because maybe Opera will be able to compete again the way it did pre-firefox.

I've been using Opera since Version 4, and they continue to produce a solid leader in the field. Their browser contains about 80% of the tools I use while on the computer; it is my interface to the cyberworld. I also use Firefox, T-bird, and IE6(only when absolutely necessary). Opera will always be my first choice. I even use it when running Linux alongside Konqueror. I guess I'm a two profile surfer " schizo surfer".
Seriously, both FF/T-Bird & Opera are outstanding multipurpose applications that serious computer users need to run concurrently. There are too many functions among the "two" that would leave a void if you didn't run both. It makes accessing the web an adventure. An "Enjoyable" adventure.

Been using Opera since v5.0 and it's been very fast, stable, safe and small enough to get the job done from a browsing standpoint. Could use plug-in support in future versions but that's all I could see as far as improvements. With a built-in email client and now voice-enabled commands, Opera is only going to get better as time goes by.

Opera - Two thumbs up
Firefox - Thumbs down

Well I use Opera because it is the only browser that has a decent zoom capability. It allows free zoom of webpages. None of the other browers are any good when watching web-pages on a 1600*1200 laptop.

/:-)

I use Firefox 99.9% of the time because it is stable and VERY quick. It is fully customizable and has excellent security features. I tried Opera but it seemed cluttered and I did not like the hundreds of pre-loaded bookmarks. Also, after trying Opera, IE6 did not function properly.

Opera, all the way. I don't even know what version I started with, but I've been using it since '98 or '99. It just gets better and better. Last night I downloaded the latest beta update and it's great. LOTS of changes over the ver. 7 releases, not just the addition of voice. It's faster, more nimble, I agree about the great zoom feature. I love the email client being built into the browser, the mouse gestures. I'm sold.

Just recently started trying Opera and Firefox. I'm a little disappointed w/ FF, especially with its bookmark management. I love Opera's sidebar and its RSS reader, which is much better than FF's Live Bookmarks.

I like the layout and features in Firefox, but after becoming familiar with the mouse gestures in Opera- I'm hooked! I would use it for that feature alone. If FF integrated this feature though, I'd probably use it more.

firefox also has mouse gesture capabilities via downloadable extensions.

Opera just suits me. Been using it for years, Tried Firefox with disappointment. K-Meleon is better than Firefox. But Opera takes some beating and is best in my experience. Reliable and quick with excellent tabbed browsing.

Thanks George,
I hadn't looked at FF in a while. They are mostly the same as Opera! With the extra capabilities of FF, I'm going to try it again.

I'm just disappointed that Opera never got the credit it rightfully deserves. Firefox is a newer competitor in the market, a formidable one; but I'd like to highlight that most of the good things from Firefox is indeed copied off of Opera's stong points, which are many :)

Plugins are good and all, flexible and what not, but it is quite a hassle for newbies. Opera is a full-featured power browser. Firefox is a fully-customizable Hotrod. Tinker it wrong, and it can become a bundle to handle.

I've used Opera ever since its 1MB-sized versions. And they've come a looong way in continuously improving on their product. Despite being a shareware, with tiny almost non-existant banner on top, it proves to be the best in my books. Firefox, I admit still wins in compatibility of websites. But in due time...

My advice, for PC Novice-Intermediate, use and start with Opera as your alternative/primary browser. For the more Advanced-Guru PC users, fiddle your Firefox until it becomes the Opera you always loved :p

-Peace-

i just have to say that i started using opera about a year ago and absolutely love it. i got a bit hacked off when it didn't integrate with gmail but that have fallen for it again in the latest betas. for me, it really sets the standard in tabbed browsing, speed, ease of use, features and all round web experience, mozilla is really playing catch up here. and it is faster than any other browser accross the board as recent tests have shown. the integrated email is great. really simple and customizable. my only negatives are that firefox has some great extensions and a flexibility therewith that opera lacks and the feed reader is a bit basic, not suitable for managing mre than about 20 feeds.

I use to use ff but did not want to mess with extensions...and why should i when opera has it all built in...and its what 4 mbs, if that...(more with voice features) id rather download one and get everything i want then download 20 things to get what i want

I'm stickin with Opera been using for years love it i've tried ff and just don't see what all the hype is opera's done most of the same things for years but you all dont give it the credit it deserves mopera all the way!

why is opera so hard to sit up on windows pc have a hard time thank you have a good day

I was excited when I heard about FF and gave it a try. For 3 wks I tried. There were many problems..web pages loading slowly and not completely..blank page coming up when I tried to open ff...bookmarks completely disappearing...extensions causing problems.
I was disappointed, I truly wanted to use FF. I gave up yesterday and decided to try Netscape..so far so good. If FF gets straightened out I will go try again. I did try both 1.0 and 1.01and 1.01 was worse then 1.0.
I love reading PC world.. You give alot of useful information!!! Thank you

Well guyes, Opera is the Fastest, the Best looking browser with the most features! Well it's more difficult to use as Adobe Photoshop is more difficult than Paintbrush !
I just do not get it why people use FireFox and MOzilla and NEtscape and IE! It's just not logical at all.
By the way I am IT In UN and I have all the browsers just INCASE and I know what I am talking about. And by the way Downloading is even Faster in Opera....lol.

The only thing that Opera need to compete with Firefox is...Free of pay!!!. That is if the opera are free i know that more people use. Beacause that everybody or somebody don't like ads and thing like that, Opera with ads don't move and more if you have to pay 29 or 39 dolars, when you get Firefox for free and both doing the same thing in diferent ways.

i am a recent convert from ie .... opera is way way better (only wish that there is way to sync with pda or what-have-yous like the outlook in the email/contact things
as for ff, somewhat disappointed with all the buzz, it is but a fraction of opera in terms of useful and important features

Not one person has mentioned the greatest thing that attracted me to Opera since v5. The quickkeys for quick navigation. All the Ctr+Alt and so on and so on has made the internet much more enjoyable. FF has some quickkeys but no where near on par with Opera. I have to agree with other people when they say they are not impressed with FF. I tried it, so what's all the hype for?

Firefox is an Opera wannabe. It is slower, harder to set up and quirky handling tabs. Three times I set it as my default for at least 2 weeks and I always rejoiced when Opera returned as the default. I use FF as an alternative to Opera. IE??? ONLY when there is absolutely no other way to interact with something M$.

I think out of the box opera is slightly richer than the FF. But extensions... they just make it completly different browser. I would especially mention the "Tabbrowser Extensions" I usually start the magick with. There are still several nice features of the Opera to be implemented, rather minor though. I have AMD 700MHz - quite slow nowdays and therefore especially sensitive to the performance issues. The comparison results are mixed. FF starts faster, that I appreciate a lot. Opera is slightly more responsive in work, with smoother and faster scrolling.
I also recommend to use both depending on the task and taste. Both of them are MILES above IE.
Well I have to mention very important advantage of FF -its Open Source.

I use the Opera sice V4 and this stupid system
for download is continue !!! Some of sites is
not possible to download.
In V7.45 existed selection for Frames download:
Right click/Frame/download as... but in V8.0 Beta
this function is out. Why ? Why authors don't
inbuild download system as has for example
IE, Mozilla, FF and next others...
Opera is my preferd browser but a must use
also second browser for downloadin pages with
frames...it is nonsence

I have used IE, Netscape 7, Opera (versions 6 through 7.54), and Firefox. My overall favorite browser has been Opera7.x, every once in a while I keep running into websites,usually for downloading, that don't work properly or at all in Opera. I use Firefox almost religiously because, with extentions, I get all of the functionality that I had with Opera without all of the clutter and extra features that I never took the time to learn plus some extra features not in Opera. I haven't noticed any significant difference in speed in my browsers (I use a T1 connection), and I have yet to find a website that it doesn't work with (except for Windows Updates).

Opera is the best.
1. Firefox is slow. If you browse like I do (open dozens of pages in multiple windows), try that on firefox and minimize firefox, then after doing some other stuff like setting winamp playlist and/or browsing your hard drive, when you restore firefox window, it'll take years for firefox to restore the windows (i.e. take out all the data from paged file on hard disk). Try the same thing on opera.
2. Heavier on memory. Like above, try opening the same number of pages in firefox and in opera, where opera takes (say) 40MB of memory (check that in task manager, in windows xp, you have to choose "Virtual Memory Size" from View->Select Columns in Task Manager, the total space used by a program is the Memory plus the Virtual Memory), firefox will take like 90MB.

3. Firefox is a pain in the a** if your internet conneciton is slow, it won't open the pages for literally minutes, and in the end you'd have to right-click images and "View Image" which will open the image alone and the whole page will be gone. Click back button and it'll load the page from scratch...
4. crashes and you lose all the track of the browsing (download a plugin? where from? how many plugins to search and download to get its functionality close to opera's?)
5. Firefox won't resume the downloads (search and download another plugin for this basic functionality?).
6. In opera, you can go through the multiple tabs by clicking "Ctrl+Tab" (just like Alt+Tab is used to switch between windows). In firefox, it'll switch between tabs but it'll only go serially, like if you're on tab3, it'll only go to tab 4 by Alt+Tab, whereas in opera it'll switch between the last two tabs you've used, say, tab#8 and tab#2.

7. In opera, you can browse serially through the tabs by pressing the keys "1" and "2". "1" for previous tab and "2" for next tab.
8.In opera you can change the positions of the tabs, like click on tab#3 and drag it to move it next to tab# 9, so that you can have the similar pages together. Also, you can drag one tab and drop it into another window. None of this can be done in firefox as far as I know (if I have to do some research on google to find out how to do this stuff in firefox and then download some plugins to do this stuff, isn't opera light years better by providing all the functionality in about 3.6MB?)
9. Even worse, you can't minimize a tab in firefox. If you have to switch between tab # 5 and tab # 11, you have to go find the tab#11 by randomly clicking some tabs. And then to switch back to number5, you can't just minimize the tab#11 so that tab#5 comes to the front, which can be done in opera (again, do a research and download a plugin for firefox?).

10. In opera, you can middle-click on a tab to close it, you can do that in firefox as well. But in opera, you can middle-click on the empty space near the tabs to open a new tab, that you can't do in firefox (download another plugin? why shouldn't I just ditch firefox and use opera instead?).
11. In opera you can view the history of all the pages you've ever visited (since last erasing the history). In version 7.54, you can also search in the history and it'll narrow down the results dynamically as you type each key, whereas firefox's history is almost as useless as IE's (well, it's not as 100% useless, but still, it's not as good as opera's).
12. In opera, you can save the session as a small file and take it to any other location in the world and resume all the browsing, can't do that in firefox (search and download another plugin for firefox?)

13. In opera, if you try to open a page from last week's history (or even older), it'll open almost the whole page from the history on the computer when you're working offline, whereas in firefox, you can't even open a page from five minutes ago, it won't even bring the url by auto-complete in many situations (yeah, it sucks when you don't have internet connection wherever you go, and you want to load the image from the history because of a slow conneciton, opera does help).
14. In opera, if you're browsing some pages while its status is set to online, and you want to open some pages from the history that you want to be opened from history rather than downloading the whole page with all the images from internet, you can set opera to work offline and type the url of that page and opera will open that page from history, and it'll keep opening the previous page from the website (that you ordered when it was set to work online). Firefox will just stop browsing if you set it to work offline.

15. In opera, if you press middle click on the page (where there's no link), and move the mouse down, it scrolls the page, and stops scrolling when you mouse the mouse upward. In firefox, it won't let go until you press middle click again !!! (download another plugin?)
16. In opera, you can zoom the whole page instead of only the text, a function which (as mentioned above as well) is not available in firefox, and perhaps any other browser.
17. In opera, you can press Ctrl+D in the address bar to "Paste & Go", in firefox you have to download a plugin for this luxury.
18. In opera, if there's a url written on the page which is not actually a link, you can select the text, right-click it and select "Go to url".
19. In opera, if you select some text and right click on it, you get lots of options like Search with Google, Amazon.com, Dictionary, Translate English to German, German to English and lots of other combinations, I don't see that in firefox (maybe another plugin?)

And the list goes on…. and I'm even not used to mouse gestures yet (didn't bother to read the readme/help files), I'm not using opera to its full extent and still I can't help falling in love with it.
the list goes on... Hey you firefox's advocates, what do you have to say about these issues? If you're a firefox/mozilla fan and haven't used opera yet, it's just like being an IE fan who hasn't used any other browser of the world. And if you've used opera and still don't like it, I don't know what makes you stick to firefox/mozilla.

Is there anything in firefox that is better than opera? Well, firefox is IE-like in a bad way which helps when you're browsing sites like gmail that don't open in opera. Can anyone mention any other advantage of firefox over opera?

Mozzila Firefox Rocks..
I would say it is the spring in microsoft's cold domination.Supports great feautures but no active x cotrol available.This is a plus and minus for firefox.Some websites may not function probably but it also prevents execution of malicious code.Good interface and no hijacker posibilities or annoying ad toolbars.Much more securer over ie.Great plugin and skin support with great plugins currently available.And the best is free and open source.

About the complaint of live bookmarks posted above it can be changed to sidebar.Just go View-->Sidebar-->bookmarks,or just use shortcut key control + b.

Opera is a truly great browser with many innovative features. It is especially good for tech savvy or 'power' users.

Firefox is also great. Especially for beginner users due to it's clean interface. Use extensions to get more power. It's free.

Being a commercial product is in some ways one of Operas advantages. It creates a different focus in the developers that obviously produces results. The huge array of features crammed into Operas tiny 3.6MB size is rather remarkable.

What can I say? "I love Opera!". Tried to use FF, but got dissapoited a bit.. I love that in Opera, after hitting "back" button the page is shown instantly from history. I also love that "right M/B + left M/B" - page back, and "left M/B + right M/B" - page forward. Very handy when posting in forums and you want to check other posts again and do not want to load a separate page to view them. Even the text that you've written does not disappear after going backwards and forwards. Okay, it's possible to configure even such garbage as IE to act like that, (Also possible on FF I believe?) but why should I do that when I have that already configured in Opera? I also love all the key combinations in Opera. Actually in the beginning it was annoying to be distracted by that banner-ad, but after some time I started to fail to notice it :)
Have not tryed the latest 8.beta, but going to do it right now!

Opera 8 Web Browser Released Today !

Opera 8 is now available
(no ducking beta) i havent tried it et

i love Opera because i am opera's fan

Waqas actually wrote seven posts to bash Firefox. If you have that many problems, why not contribute code to the project? Firefox is naturally Free and this makes it ideal for inclusion in Linux distributions. Opera is commercial software which provides other advantages.

Middle clicks vary depending on the OS so it might not be fair to criticize Firefox for using default behavior. Also remember Firefox's "find as you type" directly conflicts with switching tabs with 1 or 2 and is probably better.

My favorite feature is the Adblock extension. Block any component that annoys you. No more "shoot the duck and win an xbox". Opera comes with an an ad banner.

Finally all the Opera vs Firefox hostility is misdirected. Both are fine replacements for IE. I bet Opera users would love if all pages were designed for Firefox or vise versa. Instead both have to put up with Microsoft using their browser to exclude content from competitors (anything non-Windows). I bet they laugh at our in-fighting.

i like opera and i also advise to my friend use opera. shahid.