Opera 10 is out of beta and in official release, so if you want to try it out, go for it.
Note before continuing: PCMech Premium members can see me review this browser in a 20-minute video.
1. "Windows Native" skin
Accessible by: Tools/Appearance or Shift+F12
The default look of Opera is "Opera Standard". It definitely looks better than Opera 9 did, but "Windows Native" is better. It makes the browser look much cleaner and icons are easier see because they’re color coded (in "Standard" they’re not).
This combined with the fact the tabs are above the address bar by default (Note: It can be moved easily, I’ll cover that in a moment) makes this one of the easiest browser interfaces there is.
It used to be that all browsers had different colored navigation buttons on purpose to make it easier to use. Opera is the only one left that does it right.
2. Fastest address bar search there is
Example:
Firefox’s "Awesome Bar" stutters and/or chokes when trying to search your recent history from the address bar. Opera never, repeat, never does any of that crap. Just start typing and blam, there’s your results. Instantly.
3. Sessions
The Sessions feature is when you can load up specific sets of tabs on demand at any time that you want.
Example 1 – You want to load up Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask all at once.
So you do:
Then while these tabs are open you click File, Sessions, Save This Session:
Title it and click OK:
Now whenever you want to open those four sites all at once, you click File, Sessions, [title of session you saved]…
…and ta-da, the session is opened (as a new Opera window) with all four sites loaded exactly as you saved them.
You can have as many saved sessions as you want.
For those saying, "But IE 8 has that too!" No it doesn’t. It has the ability to load multiple tabs on startup, but with Opera’s Sessions feature you can actually save sets and call them up at whim whereas in IE 8 that must be done manually.
4. Just as fast as Chrome in a way better package
If you’re all about speed but Chrome is just way too watered down for your liking (a common complaint by many), Opera 10 is the best of both worlds.
Some benchmarks out there may say Opera 10 is not as fast as Chrome. I disagree because I’m talking real-world use here. And in my experience, Opera is faster than Chrome for day-to-day stuff. It loads my online banking web site faster. It resolves sites faster. It caches better. The interface allows me to find stuff quicker. It’s extensible with widgets. It has the best mouse gestures of any browser that exists.
I could go on and on about this, but you get the idea. Speed means nothing to me without features that make that speed worth it. Opera gives you the speed and the features.
5. Best smooth-scrolling there is
Most people can’t stand smooth scrolling and instantly turn it off. Opera is the only browser I use with it turned on because it’s the only one that does it right. It’s not too "stiff" or "loose". Opera has that nice happy medium when it comes to smooth scrolling, so much so you would probably leave it on as well.
In addition: The default setting for the mouse wheel concerning how much it scrolls up and down is also just right.
6. Ability to move anything just about anywhere
This has been a feature of Opera for a while, but it’s still worth mentioning.
Example:
Of all browsers I’ve ever used, Opera is the one you can customize the most. Want the tabs on the bottom? Do it. Want the address bar on the top, right, left or bottom? No problem.
Other browsers only dream of native customization like this.
7. Help documentation that’s actually (gasp!) helpful!
One thing I knock other browsers for is the seriously crappy documentation they have.
The F1 key, as most people know, is the key you press when you want help in an application in Windows.
When you do this in IE 8…
…the first thing the help section does is tell you what’s new in the browser. I don’t want to know what’s new. I want a table of contents because maybe, just maybe, I’m looking for documentation on a feature but don’t know what to call it (so I can’t search for it being I don’t know the title).
It no wonder that nobody ever uses the help section in IE – even in 8.
When you do this in Firefox…
…you are brought to support.mozilla.com where you are shown, quite loudly, to SEARCH FOR WHATEVER IT IS YOU WANT TO GET HELP WITHIN A BIG YELLOW BAR.
Once again, no table of contents. You get "featured tutorials" and "handy references" instead. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I want an itemized list. It’s not here. You’ll waste time going thru other "handy" sections just trying to find out how to do simple things.
Note to Mozilla: We as users don’t want a "knowledgebase". We want plain English documentation. And yes, there’s a difference and a big one at that.
When you do this in Opera…
Well, glory be, look at that.. a list of contents on the right showing every single feature in the browser in a nice clean categorized way. This is proper.
Do you realize how rare this is these days that a team actually took the time to document this the right way the first time?
It’s gotten so bad these days that we as browser users expect the documentation to suck. But Opera’s docs don’t suck. Not by a long shot.
Final notes
At present Opera isn’t enough to pull me away from Firefox mainly due to the way it handles bookmarks and the fact I don’t get the plugins FF has.
However I will say this browser is staying installed on my system. It gave me a solid reason to ditch Chrome and go with Opera instead. I was happy to uninstall Chrome after using Opera 10.
This browser is also going to kick serious ass on my netbook due to the native Opera Turbo feature.
A big thumbs up to Opera 10. It finally looks modern, acts modern and has the big-player features people are looking for.
And by the way, yes it’s available for Mac and Linux too.
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Opera might be a fine product, just like Crhome it doesn’t work well with LinkedIn. That is why I’m still using IE (next to FF) as a 2nd browser for my 2nd account on LinkedIn. I hate IE but as long als Opera and Chrome don’t step it up notch and fix how LinkedIn is presented I need to use IE…
I have to disagree on #4. I think they have made huge strides in making Opera quicker, but in my own “real world” use, it doesn’t cut it yet. While it is tons better now with version 10, I find it still struggles with some Google applications, like Google Reader and Gmail.
I have tried Opera Turbo a bit lately and found it to be work as advertised on slower connections, which is nice.
For me, the kicker is it doesn’t yet work that well on a lot of the sites I use regularly. I’m not sure if it’s standards support or what… They’ve made huge strides with version 10 though.
Opera is my 2nd favorite browser but i use linux so i dont have much of a choice firefox or opera but when i used windows it still was my favorite thing with it is speed its the only browser that uses web kit that i like also never used google chrome
I ran the sunspider JavaScript tests across the top 5 browsers and Opera 10 is nearly twice as quick as IE, but 4 times slower than Firefox and Safari and Chrome both romp home.
That said, ‘real-world’ quickness makes some sense to me… Firefox eats away at my memory, Safari crashes now and again and bugs out on Facebook chat and Chrome has too many cheap features to make me want to use it at present (e.g. ‘developer’ console)
Which leads me on to another feature not mentioned: Opera Dragonfly. Dragonfly is about the best set of developer tools out there, certainly beats Safari’s Inspector and Firefox’s Firebug IMHO.
I wrote about Opera Dragonfly and published the Sunspider test results here:
http://www.damiandawber.co.uk/2009/09/is-the-opera-browser-under-rated/
Oh! That’s good.
I tried Opera 10, and unlike the author, found it much slower than both Firefox and especially Chrome. Chrome is the fastest by far, and Opera 10 was the slowest. This is on a Quad Core machine with 8GB of RAM. As for the comment that LinkedIn doesn’t work on Chrome…it works just fine on mine. In all, I do love the look of Opera, but it is too slow for me. Also, I uninstalled it and still have certain programs (i.e. Firefox and CCleaner) having references to it. That bothers me that even after uninstall and removal of remaining directories that it left obvious references of itself on the machine. I haven’t been able to determine if there is a Registry entry somewhere causing this.
For what it’s worth, the sessions feature was in Opera long before v10 came out. I used to use the browser but quit when they complained to the EU about IE bundling and standards support. I can’t support a company that complains like that and in my humble opinion was a last ditch attempt to do what Firefox has already done, gain market share.
I’m sure many people disagree with me, but that’s ok.
Regarding point #4,Opera 10.51 really is lightning quick, it has a JavaScript engine that is more than FIVE TIMES faster than the one used by Opera 10.10, and can complete the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark faster than the now current (4.1) version of Google Chrome.