Comments on: Washington Post misses Opera 7.5’s Greatest Hits

By: Pauline MacDonald

Pauline MacDonald — Sat, 19 Jun 2004 17:08:21 +0000

I really like that this article addresses most of (if not all) the objections I’ve recently fielded from friends about using Opera. I’ve been using it since slightly before the beta’s for v3.0 back in ‘97, and the mere THOUGHT of having to browse without it wrecks havoc with my sanity (not like I have MUCH sanity, but I’d like to keep what little IS there). I don’t even USE 1/2 the features of Opera, but the ones I DO use, I can NOT browse without. I think you underscored the individuality of Opera’s nature in this article, and the Washington Post review didn’t even TRY to individualize it a smidge! Kudo’s! p.

By: Fabian

Fabian — Fri, 04 Jun 2004 16:27:59 +0000

Oh, when Rob says there are four reload commands, does anyone know what he’s talking about? I don’t. Again, if this were a high school research paper, points off for ambiguity. I believe he’s referring to the four reload options in the main menu bar’s Navigation menu. IMHO, these should indeed be in a submenu, as there are many things in Opera’s menu’s and context menu’s that could go into a submenu. But part of the criticism must be that these advanced features are not available in Firefox, and therefore ‘weird’.

By: J. King

J. King — Thu, 03 Jun 2004 06:26:53 +0000

Well, Dave, I’m of the opinion that mentioning that Opera has more than just tabs is a big deal. Most Windows applications that deal with multiple documents don’t have tabs. They have MDI. Mozilla breaks with the usual Windows UI by doing it differently, and Opera doesn’t, which for many people would make it more familiar and seamless. I think that’s worth mentioning.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 02 Jun 2004 13:27:39 +0000

While I agree with most of what you say, I think the point about "tabbed browsing" is perhaps worth discussing further.

Tabs are an easy concept to grasp, that many people are already familiar with. Whether or not they can be detached, run alongside each other, or be moved to seperate windows is irrelevant to the average users, who for the most part don't realise that this is anything other than normal for tabs.

As far as the average user knows or cares, tabs are tabs are tabs. Confusing them by going on about MDI and SDI (which most do not understand), as opposed to just saying "Opera has tabbed browsing, which is good" (which most do understand perfectly), is not going to encourage more people to take up Opera.

If anything, it is going to do the exact opposite - and the last thing we want to do is put people off.

That's why I reckon we should still call it "tabbed browsing", despite the fact that might not cover all the benefits.

By: Erkki

Erkki — Sun, 30 May 2004 13:57:55 +0000

All features in Opera 7 work just fine, considering the fact that they are all in one program. There is no other web application that could implement web browsing, mail, news, RSS and IRC all-in-one. Mozilla comes close though. The weakest point in Opera is the newsreader, but that only in comparison to Mozilla. I have a slow connection and in my experience Mozilla loads new postings faster and more reliably. When Opera is set not to download all new message bodies immediately when going online, it takes sometimes incomprehensibly long to get the body of the posting you’d like to see. Anyway, Opera’s newsreader still does the job and I use Opera’s newsreader because I’m using all the other features of Opera as well. Opera’s features work incredibly fine together, whereas Mozilla’s idea of uniting a browser, mail-news client, web page composer and IRC, to be honest, doesn’t work as fine. After trying Opera I’m not satisfied with multiple program windows anymore.

By: TjL

TjL — Sat, 29 May 2004 03:50:43 +0000

I didn't stomp on everyone who thinks that way, because most people shouldn't know better. A reporter who thinks he knows enough about a program to write an article in a public forum ought to know his terms better.

I'd bet that Rob couldn't tell you the difference between MDI and SDI (well, he can now that I'm sure he's read my article ;-) and to me, that indicates not knowing enough to speak knowledgably.

When most folks say 'tabs' I just nod my head because they don't have the vocabulary or experience. I expect a reporter to have both.

IMO. (Note that lack of an 'H' there. At least I'm honest ;-)

By: hbdragon88

hbdragon88 — Fri, 28 May 2004 07:19:18 +0000

I love Opera, but when you stomped the guy on saying they're "tabs" you stomped on everyone else that also thinks the same way too. I mean jesus, I'm not a technical browser geek that knows the querks of each browser (much less Opera's history or revolutionary features). I think that most people don't really appreciate, understand, or know about Opera's finer points. I don't use its mail client or newsgroups or IRC. As mentioned above, I do not know about the difference between MDI and tabbed browsing - but a big thank you for explaining it.

But yeah, I'm glad you mentioned a lot about Opera having it all in one. I got sick of having to download tons of third-party extensions just to get the same features as Opera provided in one download. I mean c'mon, it's a helluva lot easier just to include them rather than force someone to download it in pieces. In my Firefox review I mentioned this many times.

I had to laugh at your comment that you would make out with M2 because it's so cool.

By: J. King

J. King — Fri, 28 May 2004 06:17:19 +0000

Greg: Opera Software chooses not to implement XSLT. I’m sure if they felt it was worthwhile, we’d have a very good XSLT implementation in no time, but it’s frankly not as important a technology as CSS or other common, long-standing Web technologies (like HTTP 1.1, for crying out loud), or technologies that the end user will benefit from, like RSS and—-surprise, surprise—-a robust CSS implementation so users can write versatile user styles.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Fri, 28 May 2004 05:00:25 +0000

You can turn off ads in Opera, too ... try this .... http://www.monroeworld.com/operafilter/index.php

By: Greg K Nicholson

Greg K Nicholson — Fri, 28 May 2004 01:39:08 +0000

Sorry, but it’s the adverts that turn me away from Opera. Yes, there may be adverts in web pages, but I can turn them off in Firefox using Adblock. Even without loading a page, Opera shows more adverts than Firefox ever does. Oh, and Opera doesn’t support XSLT (even IE6 can get this right).