I was introduced to Opera by a friend and intrigued by its compatibility. It works with almost every operating system out there, is small, and is easy to use. I use it on Windows, the registered version and love it. I like the window-in-window mode, I like the mouse motions, I love the speed, and I love the pop-up killer. I find it easier to use that Internet Explorer, more intuitive, and it’s just not Microsoft. At first I was skeptical, but now I’m a believer. I love this browser.

First I must address the download—a meager eleven megabytes, at maximum. That’s with Java support, without is only three. That’s all fine and dandy, but after the download is done, who cares? You should care because it loads quickly and doesn’t eat up much RAM, because there isn’t a whole lot there. Even in window-in-window mode, it takes up less than Internet Explorer, which will make everything just work a whole lot faster.

Besides the download and the size, my next favorite part of Opera is the mouse motions. If you activate them, you can move your mouse while holding down the right mouse button and Opera will perform navigational functions. If you move it left-wards, it will go back, up and down will refresh the page, straight down will open a new page, and there are much more. Whenever I’m using Internet Explorer, I always find it difficult to move the mouse up to those boring buttons and navigate using them. Mouse motions are both practical and fun. Along with that comes easy pop-up killing. This is not very advanced, however. It has three settings: let pop-ups, make pop-ups pop-unders, or just flat-out kill them. Using this affects anything using the JavaScript pop-up command, however, so you won’t be able to open any pop-ups, unless of course you right-click on them and say “Open in New Window.”

Opera has been billed by its creators as “fastest browser on earth.” I cannot verify that, but I can say it is pretty fast, probably faster than Internet Explorer. Since I’m on broadband it’s extremely fast, anyway, faster than Windows, my operating system. However, that doesn’t mean much without compatibility. I have to say I was impressed with the compatibility. I’ve noticed little things (no DHTML, so no dropping menus, so weird buttons, etc.), but nothing to keep me from using it. One of the things that I love is that it can disguise itself as another browser (Internet Explorer 5, Mozilla 3.0 to 5.0 in three increments), so that even though it’s compatible, Microsoft won’t let other browsers use Hotmail, but it thinks it’s Internet Explorer, so it will let you in.

There are only a few downsides to Opera. The first, obvious one, is the price. It’s not free, it’s $30, but you can use it for free with a small ad. I don’t like this, so I got the registered version. I found the ad incredibly annoying, so I’d try it and then dish out the dough. The other downside is the compatibility, which I’ve already discussed. It isn’t a huge problem, but it sure isn’t as compatible with Internet Explorer-designed sites.

Oh, by the way, I don’t know what’s up with Epinions, for it says that it costs thousands of dollars. Must be some sort of glitch.

Recommended: Yes