So after more than a year of hanging on with v12.1x, and getting tired of all the crashes on Windows 8, I tried a few other browsers. Avant, Lunascape, finally Maxthon.
Avant immediately got uninstalled, I can't remember why. Lunascape I really tried but it was very slow and crashed more than Opera.
And then I tried Maxthon, and I actually am almost completely satisfied with it. I would say it has 95% of the core features that made Opera such an awesome browser for the last decade (mouse gestures, shortcuts for direct searching from address bar, private browsing, feed reader, There are features it doesn't have that I will miss from Opera v12, namely: 1) can't put tabs on bottom (used all the time) 2) can't save multiple tabs as a session (used frequently) 3) can't do per-site configuration (used rarely) 4) can't specify how to open certain file types, or configure plugins to do it
Overall, it is also much less configurable, but I think it more than makes up for this with a couple features that Opera wasn't very good at:
syncs almost everything across machines with a Maxthon sync account (bookmarks, passwords, plugins, settings, tabs, speed dial) 2) has a cloud push feature which allows you to "send" a tab from your computer to your phone or vice versa to continue reading later 3) built-in and accessible user agent custom string (Opera's was hidden in opera:config) 4) so far renders every web page flawlesslyI know this forum has been filled with people like myself, who prefer Presto Opera to the New Opera, how many have tried Maxthon, and how many think it can replace Opera for them as a main browser? Any tips or tricks to get it to behave more like Opera?