Download from: http://www.opera.com/download

Current Version: 10.50 Build 3296

Unless you follow the world of Computers fairly closely, you may not have heard about Opera, the Web Browser. Opera originated in Norway, but has a fierce fan following across the world, primarily due to its innovations. Opera was the first with Tabbed Browsing - something that is taken for granted today, in all Browsers.

Opera is STILL the only Browser we know, that lets you save your Bookmarks as Thumbnails of the live website, allowing you to update the Thumbnail when the website undergoes a change of looks! Called 'Speed Dial, it can store nine Websites as thumbnails. It is only now, under Apple Safari 4, that you get to see something similar to Opera's Speed Dial. Apple calls their feature "Top Sites". While CometBird and Maxthon too have something like Opera's Speed Dial, they are text-based, therefore far less exciting or attractive.

Oh yea, Google Chrome has Thumbnails-based Speed Dial too (they call it "Most visited sites"). However, Chrome does not let YOU set up your favorite sites. Instead, it merely displays the sites you have visited most often in the recent past. We wonder whether Big Brother Google wants us to only visit the same sites over and over again!!

Opera also lets you save website Passwords and Auto Complete Web Forms, through its "Wand" tool. Wand is extremely easy to use and works very well. We believe Opera was the first to introduce the save passwords feature too - of course today, every Browser has this it!

Despite all this innovation, Opera is small - the current Opera 10.10 weighs in at just under 9 MB. It is also fast, beautiful and stable.

Opera has been around even before Firefox, though not for as long as Internet Explorer or Navigator. Despite being innovative, being real fast to start up and building a band of loyal users from all over the world, Opera has failed to make it big, where market share is concerned.

We have also observed that with various new releases of Opera, websites display a little differently. Eventually, the bugs are ironed out, but it would have been nicer if there weren't any in the first place!

Ever since we changed the Menu of WellOiledPC from DHTML to Java, we noticed that under Opera, none of the submenu links worked - except for the first one under each menu! This happened with Opera alone - none of the other Browsers exhibited this 'dead link' behavior! Versions 9.25 onwards exhibited this 'dead link' behavior, until finally, Version 9.5 corrected the glitch completely! Versions 9.5 onwards are well-rounded and you now have a sound, innovative, fast and fantastic Browser!

Here is the link that tracks Browser Usage and publishes Browser Statistics: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Opera does have an unusual method for displaying the progress of sites loading up - it separately shows the progress of images and text that is loaded. However one gets used to it soon, though one does wonder whether there is a need to show the progress of images and text separately, for a visited website. No, it does not slow down the display of visited web pages!

Opera is also a very secure Browser as it has its own Browser Engine. Both the Internet Explorer and Mozilla Browser Engines are used much more and as a consequence, are the target for hackers! Opera has a built-in Popup Blocker as well the ability to block sites you know are risky. Opera 9.26 is also skinnable, thus letting you change its looks. You also have fairly flexible and extensive options for customizing its Menu!

Opera has a built-in PoP and IMAP mail client, much like Outlook Express. However we have not used it and therefore cannot review it here. Setting it up is a snap, the interface is beautiful and you have essential e-Mail options such as setting up Spam Filters, etc... The only reason we do not use Opera mail is that we are just too used to Microsoft Outlook! Similarly, Opera has Chat support too - a feature that we did not explore any further, having no use for it...