Opera browser set for a standing ovation

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 12 November 2006 20:53

Your IT - Entertainment

For many, a night at the Opera has turned into a 24x7 experience on all their devices – on the computer, on their mobile phone and soon even on their games console, with future devices mooted such as web surfing from a screen on your fridge to a browser you talk to in your car. Is there anything the Opera browser can’t do?

World peace might be one thing, along with a larger share of PC users choosing to use the Opera browser as their default might be another, but all jokes aside, Opera www.opera.com is one of the few real alternatives to a world of Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox for PC, Mac and Linux users, Safari for Macs and a host of PC based other alternatives such as Maxthon, Avant or even the Crazy browser.

Its latest version 9 is a real alternative to the newest browsers from Firefox and Microsoft, and offers unique features all its own, including mouse based gestures to navigate between pages and perform other functions, while an improved range of keyboard shortcuts helps you save more time.

And yes, it has tabbed browsing, it’s had it for ages, and these days, Opera is finally completely free. And free of those ads which ‘supported’ the free version in the past. 

Now Opera is available as version 8.6 for Windows Mobile 2003 and 5.0 for Pocket PC, Microsoft’s true ‘mini-PC’ OS for handheld devices. Unfortunately there is no new version as yet for Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone devices, which are phone first and PDA-style device second. 

At US $24, it does cost money, but it’s far better than the built-in Internet Explorer 5.0 for Mobile that is shipped with most Windows Mobile devices, with proper support for tabbed browsing and a host of other advanced features, such as:

Advanced small screen rendering, zoom feature, download capability, navigation and history, easy bookmark saving and retrieval, and landscape and portrait mode, a full screen/fit to screen mode, a pop-up handle, a pad-lock icon to advise you you’re on a secure site, web address auto complete,a single column display and more.

That’s *much* more advanced that Microsoft’s Pocket PC browser.

So are there any issues that affect this version of Opera's browser, and where else is it in use? Read on to the next page for more...