Opera 10 beta

[viking777]

I have just started using Opera 10 beta on my Mint installation, and thought I would tell you how good it is. I have always preferred Opera as a browser to Firefox, but until now would be the first to admit that it had some serious problems with plugins - Flash, Java etc. Well it is early days yet, but it looks to me like they have solved them at last. It seems to be capable of handling everything I throw at it without faltering, and of course, as always, it is a lot faster than Firefox, particularly starting up, but also loading pages. On the subjest of speed it has a new feature called Opera turbo which is a compression feature for speeding up browsing on slow connections - something very close to my heart because I get them so often! I haven't seen it working yet because the connection I have tonight is Ok, but the idea is certainly a good one for me.

If you like Opera, then you will really like this. If you haven't ever tried it then it might be a good time to do so as, like Linux Mint, this is an really good product - one to watch out for.

[DrHu]

Used Opera when it started out as the only alternative to Internet Explorer, about the time of the browser wars, and felt it was a good browser even then..

But then it kinda died out as Firefox come to the fore..
--I also decided that I actually preferred having a separate email application, despite the convenience of having it within the browser..and now I generally use Internet based email, gmail, yahoo etc, and don't even need an email application installed..

[ashwinhgtx]

Use the qt4 version of Opera 10 beta. The menus look wonderful on Gloria.

[viking777]

ashwinhgtx

I have the qt4 version now, and I can't see a lot of difference from the qt3. Still, never mind, the whole thing looks pretty good anyway whichever version you choose.

Dr Hu

I take your point about the email application, I don't use it either, although I have tried it and it works pretty well if you need it.

[Carl]

I personally dislike the built in bittorrent support (which I know you can disable) I also miss my favourite add-ons such as ad-block plus and no-script I think if opera integrated an add-on like structure like Firefox I would switch in an instant as load times are much better

[geoffm]

Where can you download it?
The page on http://www.opera.com/download/?ver=10.00b2 only offers the ubuntu gutsy version, is that my best choice?

I've been using Opera ever since version 3. Opera is still the most customizable browser and has lots of features I can't do without: mouse gestures, tabs, speed dial, integrated mail, the panel, the wand...

[viking777]

Where can you download it?
The page on http://www.opera.com/download/?ver=10.00b2 only offers the ubuntu gutsy version, is that my best choice?

I've been using Opera ever since version 3. Opera is still the most customizable browser and has lots of features I can't do without: mouse gestures, tabs, speed dial, integrated mail, the panel, the wand...

That is the one I used and it works fine.

[viking777]

I personally dislike the built in bittorrent support (which I know you can disable) I also miss my favourite add-ons such as ad-block plus and no-script I think if opera integrated an add-on like structure like Firefox I would switch in an instant as load times are much better

Each to his own I suppose.
I can't really comment on the bit torrent client - I have never used it. As for add-ons then my view is that if your browser needs add-ons then it isn't complete, Opera is, it has its own adblocker so you don't need adblock plus. As for no-script I tried that on Firefox and I found it to be such a nuisance that I removed it.
Apart from speed, the major advantage of Opera to me is the way it handles privacy matters like Cookies. The Firefox model where you have to type the address of every 'Exception' to your global rules into the 'Preferences' dialog is a major pain. In Opera you just right click the page in question and select 'Edit Site Preferences' and you can set virtually anything you like. This is a far more elegant solution. That alone make it preferable for me.

Don't get me wrong, I still use FF and it is still a good browser I just think Opera is slightly better designed. Having two browsers is a bit like having a backup of important files, if Opera fails to do anything that I want it to (and it used to quite often, but it doesn't any more which is why I made the initial post) then chances are that FF will do the job for me or vice versa.