Cameron's Thoughts: Opera 7.50 Out

The latest version of the Opera web browser came out today. I had been running the beta version, and it has some nice new features. But, as I have only been running it for less than an hour, I am sad to see that it has already suffered one crash. This is not as big of a deal as Internet Explorer crashing because even if you have twenty web pages open, Opera will continue from where you left off. Some of the new features I have noticed:

• RSS newsfeed reader built-in
• Limited IRC chat client built-in
• Improved mail interface
• Mail client now has learning folders, some folders can learn what messages show go where, such as a spam folder to reduce spam from showing up in the inbox. This can work like the message rules found in Microsoft's e-mail clients, but instead of definite rules, you move certain types of messages to certain folders, and the client learns. There is also a rules feature still present.
• Favicon's actually show up in the bookmarks menu like IE does.
• Spell check ability. Requires a free add-on program to use.
• Menus have been reorganized to be more similar to IE. Not really more useful, probably to make the IE-to-Opera transition easier for new users.
• Added smiles to messages in IRC and e-mail.
• Better way to organize contacts.
• Easier access to Hotlist (which is called something else now, I think it's just called the panel.
• Much easier way to customize toolbars.

Posted on May 12, 2004 at 10:06 PM