FeedsOpera 7.50 Out
May/12/2004 10:06 PM
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.
3 Comments
First off, congrats on the boy cam! Secondly, I want to know if opera is better than firefox? Also, I wish more of these 3rd party browsers (not ie) would make it an option to be tabbed or non tabbed. Firefox is a good browser, don't get me wrong, and the plugin to make it nontabbed works, it's just not as stable as I might like. There are some flaws, expessially in some types of forms that work in IE. Also, there arn't that many extra features that IE doesn't have. One thing i've noticed, also, is that the bookmarks 1. don't keep their favicons once you bookmark them. and 2. when you try to add a bookmark it goes to the last bookmark folder that you used, instead of giving u the entire list, making you have to click a button and scroll to get the folder u want.
hm.... well.... I guess that's all I have to say, i'm sure there are many other decent browsers, but if they have a tabbed interface without an option for no tabs, then they arn't getting my business.
Comment by: Neil on May 13, 2004 11:46 AM
Yea, Opera doesn't have a tabless option. But it is packed full of features. Amazingly, it has a full email client, IRC, RSS newsreader, newsgroups, plus webbrowser and it's only a 3.5MB download. I bet one of IE's service pack's is that big. I guess more people find Firefox to be a better browser, but it's just not as fast as Opera. True, when using multi-GHz machines, there isn't much of a difference in the speed to render the pages. But, Opera has a RAM cache, so when you click the back button, it doesn't have to reload the page off of the hard drive, it's already in RAM. So it's instant. That's the big thing for me. Plus, Opera isn't crash free. It doesn't crash as much as IE, but it's not perfect either. And I ususally will have ten or more webpages open, so when IE crashes, they are all gone. Opera will save the tabs you have open, and they all come back when you reload the app. That is great. Firefox probably has a similar feature, but I don't really use it that much.
Comment by: Cameron Bulock on May 13, 2004 07:13 PM
Oh, and Opera now uses the favicons for their origanal purpose, showing up on the bookmarks list. It also displays the favicons as the icon for the tabs that are open in the browser.
And Opera does give you the options of where you want to store your bookmarks.
As for Firefox being featureless, I think that is on purpose. They want you to be able to have a small browser, then add on the features you want through plug-ins. They do have quite a few nice plug-ins.
But, Opera is jammed pack full of features, and is still small.
Comment by: Cameron Bulock on July 11, 2004 10:12 PM