I’ve been reluctant to begin using Opera 9, partly because it’s still in beta and partly because i have so much invested in Opera 8.54.
Invested? Yeh, all my passwords and usernames (neatly encrypted so that no one I’ve yet discovered knows of a way to recover them if lost–hence a hardcopy backup of alla that data–*heh*) stored in the Wand.dat file. All my email. All my RSS & Atom feeds. You get the picture.
But still, it’s not a MessySoft beta. All reports have it as very,very stable. And I’ve used the Opera 9 beta on a coupla different Linux distros. Besides, importing alla that data, well, there just has to be a way.
So… I’ve made the switch. Installed it into a new folder (already had an older beta that I’ve not used a lot). Imported all my data. Actually, not that hard, and it probably would have done it with no effort on my part if I’d installed it over my old Opera.
Some niggling lil quirks. Like keyboard shortcuts. *sigh* The Opera programmers gave in to the Firefox app’s keyboard shortcuts on a few behaviors. I was not pleased to find ctrl+d for “Paste and Go” missing. And ctrl+n opened a new browser window instead of opening a new tab, as I’d become used to for the past five or six years.
Sooo…
Tools>Preferences>
Advanced>Shortcuts
Opened the Keyboard shortcuts, added ctrl+d and told Opera what I wanted it to do. Edited ctrl+n to do what I want. Saved it and I’m now a happy camper.
Mail is still slick, just a lil slicker. Page loading is still snappy. My fav Opera skin’s been updated, and it’s much nicer than it was before. All-in-all, a pretty neat experience so far.
And only one very slightly buggy behavior (Opera 9 seems to be rally picky about some java compliance problems. Applets that are not-so-compliant are likely to only partly work… *heh* If you could hear my bad Billy Crystal immitation, you’d get the Princess bride reference.)
From the Opera website,
Opera 9 Beta 2 includes Widgets, content blocker and BitTorrent…
And more.
Versions are available for Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, OS/2 and QNX.
And Opera 8 is available for your phone, Pocket PC, and a wide array of other devices. In fact, Opera makes its income off all the other devices (phones, etc.) it is used on, and the computer browser is just an offshoot of all that, now.
Minor Update: detailed (and I do mean detailed) User Prefs can be defined pretty easily, if you can access the user prefs page, which is kinda buried… and for good reason. You can royally screw up your install if you do really wonky things. but… OK, bookmark this and use it if you want:
opera:config
Most of the things found there can be accessed directly via Tools>Preferences, but not in the detail that the above link will offer.
Wow, I’ve been using Firefox on my Mac altho I have Opera. You’re making me want to try Opera now, altho I have Safari and Firefox all nicely configured, and the same thing about all the passwords and the auto-forms and all that.
The important thing is that you’re not using Messy$oft code to surf the net.
🙂
Opera… gee, the only really real cross-platform browser out there. What finally convinced me to jump on using the beta of version nine for my standard browsing instead of version 8.54 was using the Opera 9 beta on the Puppy Linux distro I tried out last week. Really nice stuff. And I’ve been playing with the Widgets a bit. Installed a buncha them, but have only kept one, so far (a lil meta=search app). Much easier to install and use (and uninstall) these Widgets than the Firefox plugins, IMO. So many of the Firefox plugins require restarting the browser (yech!) that I just stopped exploring them at all.
I have a very few strong reasons why my home network (varies between 5 and 7 computers at any given time) is a mostly Microsoft OS network. My Wonder Woman MUST use a particular version of Microsoft Office, and must use it on a Windows PC, simply because its the same look n feel as she has at work and is required in her grad classes. I have some music apps that are the best I have found of their type… Windows software. (Yeh, I’ve used Mac versions of other music software in the past, but they did not do what I wanted the way I wanted. With my most essential music app, I can simply sit down and write music w/o thinking about the interface. Therefore: Windows.)
Were it not for things like that (and the fact that I’m a confirmed tightwad and have run the numbers time and again demonstrating that for my application, Wintel comps are way, way less expensive), I’d consider a Mac, myself. Good computers. Decent interface/OS.
Actually, were it not for the essential (or required) Windows apps, I’d convert my whole network over to Linux. A couple of the computers?one my router/firewall (was that fun to build, or what? :-))?on my network are Linux based, and I’m thinking about building another couple from old parts scattered hither and yon in my parts room (which I really call my junk room). Nah, not really thinking about it. Gonna do it as soon as I reconfigure the network for my Wonder Woman’s new notebook (coming in July) to have secure 802.11g connectivity. (I had taken the wireless access point offline when Lovely Daughter moved back out again.)
Alla that said, it’s really nice that I can standardize on a browser across platforms. Everything in an Opera browsing session on one of the Linux boxes is exactly like in one of the Windows boxes. I can even synch my preferences and Wand passwords and bookmarks across platforms.
And I DO _VERY MUCH_ like being able to easily specify keyboard shortcut keys without having to mess with writing macros or messing with ini files or whatever. Seriously cool, especially since I often browse with my wireless keyboard in my lap six feet or more from my comp. (Yeh, I can take a wireless mouse with me, but often I don’t bother. Keyboard navigation can be as fast or faster in many cases.)
Always appreciate hearing from ya, Lisa.
I think I’ll go get it! The last time I formatted this thing I never got around to reloading Opera so I won’t have any passwords etc. to lose.
I love opera!