[Small vent] Impressed with Opera

shelluser

shelluser

Hi gang,

I just wanted to share how impressed I've become with Opera 29. Up until now I've been using SeaMonkey for approx. 3 - 4 years (maybe longer) which suited me just fine. Mozilla engine (thus access to common plugins) and most of all not an interface which changes on the whim of a developer. For years the same (boring?) interface which I was accustomed to. And I liked that. What I didn't like ('liked less') was the overhead. SeaMonkey isn't merely a browser, it's also a MUA, IRC client, HTML editor and even has an address book editor. That can be overhead...

For this reason I also used Internet Explorer 9 (later 10) and the combination suited me just fine. But there was always something missing. Explorer could act weird on certain sites and SeaMonkey could be quite the resource hog at times (not saying it's a memory hog, but it does require more than a mere browser).

Chrome is a no no for me for reasons I'm not getting into (seems off topic to me and it's mainly based on an opinion; IMO its too intrusive). So I checked out Opera, don't even remember why, but when I did I was hooked & sinkered And yes, I know Opera is based on Chromium but even so.. That doesn't make it as 'bad' (personal opinion) as Chrome for me.

And I have to say, I am impressed with Opera 29. It started as a trial run (a friend of mine advised it), then quickly rose up the ladder as my replacement for Internet Explorer 10 and when I had used it even longer I got convinced: Opera is now my default browser on Windows 7. I really enjoy the sane defaults. For example: the behaviour when you're accessing an encrypted ("secured") page which also loads in unencrypted contents (https:// vs. http://). MSIE simply doesn't care. It does show you a small (easily missed) indicator but in the end... it doesn't care. My previous personal favourite SeaMonkey does make it a little more obvious but in the end it doesn't care either.

So I hope you can understand how impressed I got when I read about blocked contents by default. Opera doesn't take short cuts: its blocks all the insecure (and IMO amateurism) contents by default. Click the link, see the help screen.

That was impressive to me.

There are still some things I need to get used to (speed dial for example) but I'm really warming up to it. And the fact that the MSIE import went so smooth also impressed me. I read another post on the forum about Outlook.com. So I tried to log on, only to notice that I didn't have to because Opera had copied the backlog from MSIE. Impressive!

SO yeah, thanks a lot for all the hard work that went into this. No offence intended: if you had told me this 1 - 2 years ago I'd probably have declared you crazy But now.. Opera all the way for me.

I can't wait to check out how it performs on FreeBSD later this week.

SO yah.. You got a new fan

lem729

lem729

Nice to hear that @shelluser. I agree that Opera 29 has a lot of nice things, including the Speed Dial, though I was upset with the look of the Experimental Start page, which was made the default. If you go to Opera://flags, and then search for Experimental Start page, disable the Experimental Version, which Opera has made the default and you can see the alternative look (the one that was used for a long time). I didn't like all of the white bordering in the Experimental Version, which overwhelmed the themes/wallpaper, and made the dial look less attractive to me. The previous look had dark bordering. Also, I use mainly thumbnails as they look better to me than the icons. With Opera 29, you can chose which you want -- thumbnails, or icons (depending on the site, there can be a number to choose from). Generally, I think the thumbnails look better with the themes/wallpaper -- aren't overwhelmed by it, as they may be by the icons. Since, I've used thumbnails in my Speed Dial for a longtime it (the update) just kept what I have, when I updated to Version 29. I'm happy with things, as long as we can keep the reversion look for the Start Page. In other regards, Opera 29 is a minimalist browser, quite fast, that permits use of Chrome extensions (can be quite a help). It's a fun browser to use, and has a range of nice features, some unique to Opera.

A Former User

Oh good lord, please desist with this praise immediately! 'Real' Opera users should be outraged that their world had been turned upside down and left empty by a team of uncaring (insert your own expletives)...oh, sorry, I can't do sarcasm for too long. Btw, Opera is my default browser too!

badopera100

badopera100

Opera 29 is no good. Opera 20 was great, Opera 12 was awesome.

I can't even get an old version installed, without the installer auto-launching, and then auto-updating.

If I can't use the version I want, I'll go back to FireFox and IE. The fact the users get zero notification that an update is available is what bothers me. Let us choose if we want the new version or not.

canadagoose4ever

canadagoose4ever

Cozza... Real Opera users (i.e. like you) are proven whiners... cry babies if you will. Grow up! Opera Presto is dead and buried. Deal with it. This forum should exist for REAL Opera users who want to grow with the new Opera. If you can't deal with reality why not go away. Try Vivaldi... a wonderful step back into the previous decade.

canadagoose4ever

canadagoose4ever

badopera100... by all means - go play with FF and IE. No one here needs to hear your sob song. If you don't like Opera, use another browser and allow those who love Opera to express themselves freely without you crying on their parade.

shelluser

shelluser

badopera100... by all means - go play with FF and IE. No one here needs to hear your sob song. If you don't like Opera, use another browser and allow those who love Opera to express themselves freely without you crying on their parade.

No offense but to some degree the same can be said about you and me To be honest: as enthusiastic as I am (seriously) I also think it's important to keep these critical comments in mind as well. Because this is in truth the one bottle neck most software projects face: they want something "new" and then they often ignore their entire history. I'm not saying that is what happened here because I honestly don't know. But I do think it is important not to wave these critical comments away with "just go to the competition" because, with all due respect, how would we react if Opera 35 (fictional example) would turn out to be something completely different from what we have now?

You may not like negative criticism but sometimes it can be more valuable than you might realize.

I'll be the first to admit that one of the reasons I really dig Opera 29 is because I only knew MSIE 10 & SeaMonkey. So I stepped in with a fully clear & unbiased approach. But not all people like change. And I can relate to that. It was one of the reasons I didn't like FireFox: change happened nearly every 3 month.

A Former User

badopera100... by all means - go play with FF and IE. No one here needs to hear your sob song. If you don't like Opera, use another browser and allow those who love Opera to express themselves freely without you crying on their parade.

Its not that simple, so many on this site are so sensitive to any criticism of opera and their new venture. Go read up about coca-cola when they introduced new coke and how that turned out. And more recently microsoft with windows 8. Opera is a free product and they had very little market-share to begin with so people getting upset while they experiment didn't hurt too much.

Ideally what should happen is you keep all of your best features and add new ones

A Former User

Cozza... Real Opera users (i.e. like you) are proven whiners... cry babies if you will. Grow up! Opera Presto is dead and buried. Deal with it. This forum should exist for REAL Opera users who want to grow with the new Opera. If you can't deal with reality why not go away. Try Vivaldi... a wonderful step back into the previous decade.

Sorry @canadagoose4ever I wasn't being serious. More of a little dig at the Opera 12 mourners. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough that I was being sarcastic. I use Opera 29 and think it's a great browser.