Why Opera ?

[Mr. x]

Hello,

I would like to hear some opinion about Opera - What kind people use this
Browser
(I ment - people who generally have Windows OS, have IE, and people who
generally have Lynox OS have Netscape -
What about Opera - How did it penetrate to the market ?)

and also what pros and cons does Opera have that other browswer doesn't ?

Thanks

 

[Matthias Gutfeldt]

I would like to hear some opinion about Opera

It's a wonderful browser, everybody and his dog uses it, and they
penetrated the market by providing a superior product at a very
competitive price.

Or something along those lines - check the Opera newsgroups.


Matthias

 

[William Tasso]

Hello,
Watcha

I would like to hear some opinion about Opera

ok - it's cool

What kind people use this Browser

people like me - are there any?

(I ment - people who generally have Windows OS, have IE, and people
who generally have Lynox OS have Netscape -
Win2k/Ie6/Moz/Opera/Lynx/wget/wfetch

What about Opera - How did it penetrate to the market ?)

free version available for download.

and also what pros and cons does Opera have that other browswer
doesn't ?

It's an independent mainstream browser that uses its own code-base to render
pages. As such it's an essential tool for any web site builder.

Thanks

Welcome.

 

[Sreve R.]

Matthias Gutfeldt wrote in message ...

It's a wonderful browser,

Agreed :~)

everybody and his dog uses it,

<Cough> No they don't ... (shouted Pantomime style)

The *actual* number of people using it as a percentage of *all* users is so
insignificant, that many web-designers don't even bother to consider it when
creating designs.

That may not be good, but we live in a *real* world where minorities are
often ignored in the production of many products

check the Opera newsgroups.

Mostly eccentrics :~)

Steve.

 

[Richard]

Hello,

I would like to hear some opinion about Opera - What kind people use this
Browser
(I ment - people who generally have Windows OS, have IE, and people who
generally have Lynox OS have Netscape -
What about Opera - How did it penetrate to the market ?)

and also what pros and cons does Opera have that other browswer doesn't ?

Thanks

I don't use it. Never have.
What can opera do that others can not?
Like the bloatware dreamweaver, opera is over rated and to me, has no
special features I need.

I use IE with the "crazy browser" popup killer plugin and surf in peace.
Both of which are free.

 

[Toby A Inkster]

(I ment - people who generally have Windows OS, have IE, and people who
generally have Lynox OS have Netscape -

If by "Lynox OS" you meant "Linux", then you might be interested that few
(if any) recent distributions of Linux include Netscape. Most include a
range of browsers such as Mozilla, Galeon, Epiphany, Konqueror, Firebird,
Links, Lynx and Dillo. Commercial browsers such as Netscape and Opera tend
to be downloaded and installed by the user later, although SuSE Linux
includes Opera.

Opera is available on many different operating systems -- Windows, Mac,
Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, BeOS, OS/2 and various smartphone platforms.

and also what pros and cons does Opera have that other browswer doesn't ?

* Opera has a highly standards-compliant rendering engine with more
support for CSS2 and CSS 2.1 than any other browser.

* Opera seems faster than any other browser with comparable features (IE,
Mozilla, etc), has a smaller memory footprint and is much smaller to
download. (About 3.5MB for Opera vs about 50MB for MSIE)

* Opera has a raft of powerful UI features for web users:

- the ability to quickly and easily toggle image loading,
plugins, cookies, javascript, CSS, etc

- customisable toolbars, menus, keyboard shortcuts, etc

- Google and other popular search engines built right into
the toolbars

- MDI/tabbed browsing (the first browser to offer this feature)

* Opera is generally more secure than other browsers (there have been the
occasional hiccoughs, but not many and they are fixed very quickly)

 

[Mr. x]

The *actual* number of people using it as a percentage of *all* users is
so

insignificant, that many web-designers don't even bother to consider it when
creating designs.

So why should I bother ?

Thanks

 

[Dylan Parry]

So why should I bother ?

Thanks

Because the experts that frequent this group believe it is necessary to do
so, whereas "Sreve. R" has been posting here since this morning and has
already demonstrated his 1996 approach to web design.

 

[rf]

So why should I bother ?

Pretend you own a shoe shop. Would you single out every one hundreth person
trying to enter the shop and turn them away?

If even 1% of the people out there use opera and your site does not work in
opera then, by not making it work in opera, you are turning away every 100th
potential customer.

Even 1% of web users is millions of people.

Cheers
Richard.

 

[Nick Theodorakis]

Pretend you own a shoe shop. Would you single out every one hundreth person
trying to enter the shop and turn them away?

Or would he happy if his webhost was shut down for three plus days
each year?

Nick

 

[Voetleuce en f?nsievry]

* Opera is generally more secure than other browsers (there have been the
occasional hiccoughs, but not many and they are fixed very quickly)

This can be a curse or a blessing. I've just upgraded from Opera 7.20
to 7.22 when I heard that there's been a security hole fixed and I
have to download 7.23 to fix it. On the other hand, I think I prefer
holes being fixed in a matter of days rather than months (thinking of
IE...).

 

[Eric Bohlman]

(e-mail address removed) (Nick Theodorakis) wrote in

Or would he happy if his webhost was shut down for three plus days
each year?

Reminds me of the spam for the DSL provider that advertised "95% uptime
guaranteed." Somehow, that sounds more impressive than "you'll lose
Internet access for no more than two-and-a-half weeks every year."

 

[Toby A Inkster]

So why should I bother ?

Consider your typical IE user: bumbling about on whatever browser came
installed on their system by default.

Consider your typical Opera user: he's made a conscious effort to go out
and download a different browser, has considered it for a while and
decided it's worth paying for something better, has gotten out his credit
card, gone to the Opera website and paid for his browser, demonstrating
that he's comfortable with the idea of using his credit card online.

If there was one of each of these customers at your site, which one would
you prefer to turn away?

 

[Leif K-Brooks]

On the other hand, I think I prefer holes being fixed in a matter of
days rather than months (thinking of IE...).

Only months?

 

[Barry Pearson]

Pretend you own a shoe shop. Would you single out every one hundreth
person trying to enter the shop and turn them away?

[snip]

It depends on how much it would cost you to let them in, and whether that
would be a better return on your investment than something else. (No one is
suggesting simply turning Opera users away arbitrarily. It would be a matter
of not catering for something about Opera).

Having said that, I find that I have few if any problems getting my pages to
look OK with Opera. If they look OK with IE 6, Netscape 7.1, and Firebird 0.7,
they will typically look OK with Opera 7.2. (I only use Opera and others for
testing purposes. I use IE 6 as my standard browser).

I *do* test my pages with Opera's "small screen mode" to see if it manages to
display them within 240-pixels. This helps to see if any tables "linearise"
well. And I suspect that Opera's scaling feature is useful to some people, who
don't just want text bigger but would like images bigger too.

Final point - Opera came configured to represent itself as "IE 6". I changed
it to "Opera" - but those who don't do this appear to be IE 6 users, not Opera
users.

 

[Whitecrest]

Pretend you own a shoe shop. Would you single out every one hundreth person
trying to enter the shop and turn them away?

Oh, the 1/2 full 1/2 empty argument.

 

[rf]

Oh, the 1/2 full 1/2 empty argument.

Optimist: The glass is half full.
Pessimist: The glass is half empty.

IT professional: This glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Cheers
Richard.

 

[Marco Bakker]

Hello,

I would like to hear some opinion about Opera - What kind people use this
Browser
(I ment - people who generally have Windows OS, have IE, and people who
generally have Lynox OS have Netscape -
What about Opera - How did it penetrate to the market ?)

and also what pros and cons does Opera have that other browswer doesn't ?

I have a neighbor with a Pentium 133 laptop with 16 MB RAM and W95.
He asked me to help him bring him up to date so that he can use the web
again. Up untill last week he was still using Netscape 3.0...

Opera 7 is the only browser that runs acceptable on such a low-end
system and it even has a mailer inside which my neighbor uses/requested.
(He was used to the built-in Netscape mailer). It does a very nice job
at (X)HTML and CSS so the web will function again for him.

It might have been possible to install some newer version of IE on that
Windows 95 machine. But since I am a Mac user I was reluctant to help
him install software which is so firmly connected to the OS. I did not
want to mess with an otherwise well functioning machine (yes, it really
does). And besides that I wasn't eager to spend a few hours downloading
IE with a 33k6 modem

I myself use Opera 6 sometimes on Mac OS X to test sites. And I use
Opera 7 on windows for that same matter.

My default browser is Safari. The gecko engine is more complete (at
least for the moment) but I love Safari's speed and GUI. The best of
both worlds can be found in Camino, but that browser uses an older Gecko
than the recent Moz' variants. And it is just not as speedy as Safari.

 

[Whitecrest]

I have a neighbor.....

At what point should a site stop supporting equipment like this?

 

[Terry]

At what point should a site stop supporting equipment like this?

neighbor = equipment ???

T.