Opera Web Browser 5

Once upon a time there was a small, fast browser called Opera. This excellent product had just 3 flaws. It was only available as a 30-day trial. This subsequently became a 30-day demo that timed out. Then the software has issues with ActiveX. And it was hopeless with sites designed for Internet Explorer. Finally, there were a pathetic bunch of plug-ins.

I just checked out the latest build, Opera 5, which was released on Friday, 8 December 2000. And find that most of my gripes have been addressed. The browser is now free. And has no time use restrictions. It handles ActiveX and Java. Works fine with most sites bar a few. And still has (in comparison) a hopelessly dated bunch of plug-ins. Well, one con against so many pro is pretty good going.

Opera is free and displays ads. If you hate this blatant use of advertising, you can register your copy. The browser is available for free download in two flavours: Lite without the JRE (Java Runtime Engine) and the complete caboodle with JRE. The first is a 2.5 MB download. The second a larger, 9.5 MB one. I did download the Lite version, but found that any site with even the tiniest hint of Java appeared screwy! Trust me; download the full build.

For a change, the JRE seems to be behaving itself. However, I have suffered a couple of near-terminal slow downs and system lockups (on Windows 2000). These I attribute to a historic antipathy Microsoft products have with Sun's Java implementations. And vice-versa. However, the Opera 5 Lite version had no such glitches. But then that comes at supremely reduced functionality.

Install was pretty painless. The setup took care of both the browser and the JRE. I haven't kept up with Opera. But the new, visually smooth build took my breath away. The browser window shows the Hotlist enabled by default. And lists the book marks, email and contacts.

There is a fair amount of status information available. This includes the overall status including links, the number of images found and those loaded, the data received, the transmission rate, and the time taken. Also displayed by default is the document zoom (20-1000%) and a search box. You can also add the system time.

Web sites opened are displayed as tabs. That can be parked at top, bottom, left and right of screen. Ideally, top or bottom is the best since the other two positions use valuable screen real-estate. The tabs indicate if the page is loading, done or has an error. However, the indicators are not as clear as NetCaptor's. Also, as the tabs don't appear on multiple lines, they just keep getting smaller.

Opera includes support for email, chat and news groups. You can sign on for a free OperaMail account that uses a Web-based interface. Or POP your email directly into Opera. You can even add a signature to outgoing mail. But be careful with this feature when using a service like Yahoo. I found that email sent included the signature as well as the usual Yahoo tag line promoting use of the site. What was disconcerting is the name you assign the POP server in Opera is the name that appears in the email's "FROM" field. Right now there's no way to access your OperaMail from the Opera desktop. The POP email interface too is quite basic and not very intuitive. If you have Outlook Express installed, use it instead.

Chat uses the ICQ back end (icq.mirablis.com) for instant messaging. The software registered me as a fresh user. But you can also use your existing ICQ identity. But when I tried to connect to my review self using my default self (on ICQ), the latter couldn't find me as "they were not online." Finally, 5 abortive attempts (I am persistent) later, my efforts caused Opera to cause a system lockup. If you must ICQ, use the regular client.

Newsgroup support too is quite basic. There is no hierarchical structure so beloved of OE. And the Opera news client is not very user friendly. Again, stick with OE.

But with Opera 5 its the browser that's the real star. It really zips and in comparison, IE, NetCaptor and MSN Browser seem really sluggish. But what gets a high five from me is Opera's ability to store the complete page in its cache; even when you exit and open another day. That way when you're zipping within a site, you can always go back to where you came from another day.

However, the browser doesn't fully support auto prefix/suffix of http://www. and .com like IE, or add .net and .org like NetCaptor. Opera searches for the URL. And often get stuck. I found it displaying "http://zdnet" which naturally was neither here nor there!

I also had several site screw-ups. ZD Net Updates (http://updates.zdnet.com) resolutely refused to display properly. Some links were un-accessible; visible but had other stuff layered over them. A page reload didn't fix the problem. The ZD Net hope page took forever (over 10 minutes) to render. My favorite news site NBCi could load because of illegal cookies. Odd, I don't have that problem with IE or NetCaptor. I was able to login to the MSN site using PassPort, but was unable to check my Hotmail. Perhaps it on account of MSN Browser.

Later when I tried to view some sites in IE that had display problems in Opera, I was unable to find the URLs. Opera is a self-contained environment and doesn't share its cache or history with other browsers. You also need to be careful when use Opera's site drop-down box; it may display an older version of the page.

Opera 5 has excellent privacy features. It reported that a site was trying to store a password using a script (MSN) and should this be approved. It also blocked a site that was trying to send a cookie that didn't really match the site. However, these can be irritating.

So what's my verdict? Download a copy before they change their mind about 'freedom'. But use the browser for browsing. Only use the chat, email and news features if you are too lazy to use something else. The Shockwave and Flash implementations are still buggy. And can considerably slow down page loads. However, if you like self-abuse, you can visit the Opera Plug-in page (http://www.opera.com/plug_in.html).

G Menon
[email protected]

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