For those of you also using Firefox, it has an extension called Fast Dial that is functionally nearly identical to Speed Dial, though it's configuration is a bit more right-click-oriented and a bit less drag & drop. But it can be configured quite accurately, and looks and feels very much like Speed Dial. I love it. It has the additional advantage of showing as a normal folder in the Bookmarks Menu.

As per many of your comments, I prefer thumbnails too and Fast Dial can be set up that way by simply blanking out the link to icon in Properties for each item.

I keep checking back here once in a while to see how Opera is evolving, as there's a lot I like here. When last I checked, bookmarks and syncing weren't mature. I'm looking again now.

And YES, I'll respond to most posts that reference The Clash (if I see them)!

You're talking about Windows XP?

If so, this is clearly not the best forum for such advice.

But, assuming you're talking about whether you can keep an older computer running Windows XP, I'd suggest you pack it in and do one of the following:

1. Buy a newer computer running Windows 7. That will see you through till 2020. It's amazing what you can find even used on Ebay. I have snagged two HP ultralight notebooks recently in great shape for $125 each, with 250GB hard drives, 3GB RAM, running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, which included Microsoft Office 2010 Starter (free functional Word and Excel).

2. Update your Windows software to Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit). But you'll also want to add RAM to get to at least 2GB. If youre computer needs too much new hardware, you're better off buying a newer one.

3. Back up your files and restage your computer with a Linux distribution. If you're new to Linux, I would strongly advise SolydX. Another reasonable candidate would be Linux Mint Xfce edition. These are fairly easy for computer-savvy folks to load even if they are new to Linux. Nonetheless, this will be too complicated for people not comfortable with computer tech. If you or a friend got these loaded, your older computer will run these much more efficiently than it did XP, and if you have at least 1GB of RAM, you won't need to add memory. Some software will be familiar or similar to what you've been running in Windows.

There are lots of good articles on the internet re: this topic (what should replace XP), prompted by Microsoft's dropping support for XP. The basic answer though is NO, you're not safe running XP any longer unless your computer is simply not connected to anything.

For those sometimes using Chrome, there is now a Chrome extension (A+ Font Rendering Enhancer for Chrome) based off the Opera Font Rendering by thunder13 extension, so that runs in Chrome w/o being blocked now. There's another one called "Deblur" which may also help.

I'm drifting back to the Opera blog and forums from time to time to see how new Opera is evolving, but in the meantime settling back into Firefox as my main browser. I guess I should let the Opera updates start flowing into one machine too so I can check progress firsthand off and on (I had frozen at v20).

There are a number of features of new Opera which I consider best in class:

• speed (better even than Chrome, I think, as it has less baggage; of course, some of the Chrome baggage is rather nice)

• font rendering (with extension "Opera Font Rendering by thunder13"); I had this running in Chrome too but Chrome now blocks extensions from outside their store

• Opera's Speed Dial is very slick (Firefox extension Fast Dial is a good substitute though)

I'm waiting for better bookmark support and sync before considering Opera for my main browser (or recommendation to friends and family).

I'm glad to see Opera now expanding latest versions to Linux. Maintaining the same browser experience across 6+ machines (through sync; some Win7, some Linux) is important to me.

I was using Opera Next (v21) in parallel with Opera Stable (v20) for a while and was excited by what I thought was snappier response with screen loads at least (though less "smooth" if that makes sense); it was as I expected if v21 were taking more advantage of hardware acceleration (which Aura was supposed to do). So I let Stable update to v21, but afterwards (initial release) I was seeing a few hiccups (don't recall what they were), so I reloaded v20 and have stayed there for now.

But I do expect v21+ to be faster. I thought I was seeing that in Opera Next. So I'm looking forward to that.

Anyone still comparing 21.0.1432.67 with 20.0.1387.91? Were there regressions with Aura (v21)? Are they fixed now?

Interesting. I hadn't thought about search within Speed Dial. Not sure that is something I need yet. I have things in very well-defined folders ("Email/Comm", "Portal/News", "Banking/Finance", "Computer", etc. and may yet add subfolders (to split Banking from Investments, etc.). Ideally I'd keep the number of thumbnails within each folder or subfolder down to 10 or less.

But I could see the "Computer" folder growing, but Speed Dial probably isn't the construct I want for large numbers of bookmarks. After all, it's supposed to be "Speed Dial", no? LOL

@lem729 I forgot to answer your search question. I just took a look and Fast Dial lets you insert a bunch of search windows across the top of the page(with choices of all search engines you have active in Firefox; I added DuckDuckGo to check; it worked). I haven't used this feature as I just use the combined address/search window for search.

I'm the more pragmatic sort. I'd like if Fast Dial automatically grabbed thumbnails from contained URLs and displayed a random selection of 4 of them on the surface of the folder like Opera's, but the default is a manila folder image; you can add a jpeg icon to each folder apparently though I haven't done that.

I'm not sure about background and artwork generally in Fast Dial. It seems to offer lots of customization (though it may not automate that). I tend to like plain backgrounds so for me background isn't too relevant.

Functionally, I think Fast Dial is very slick, probably more sophisticated than Opera's Speed Dial (but that comes with more menu-driven, vs automated, customization).