Here are my test results for speed and I am not an employee of Opera:

Time from pressing Quick Launch Icon to complete load of program (Homepage:Blank Page):

3rd Place: Opera - 1,001; 1,002; 1,003
2nd Place: I.E. - 1,001; 1,002
1st Place: FireFox - 1,001

By the way, as long as you are not using a pirated copy of Windows you have "PAID" for I.E.

"By the way, as long as you are not using a pirated copy of Windows you have "PAID" for I.E."

Not according to the U.S. government, but yeah that's true.

Not to knock Opera or anything like that, but why would anyone actually purchase a web browser when there are so many free ones? I know this can't be that stupid a question but come on folks? Or even use this ad based one when you have IE, Netscape, Mozilla and many others? Really why would you want a web browser that has ads in it???? Aren't there enough ads already at almost every site you visit?

Why buy Windows when you can use Linux for free? Why buy a car when you can walk for free? Why buy a coffee when you can drink water for free? Why buy a house when you can live in the streets for free?

I think you see my point that cost isn't the only factor in deciding whether or not to use something. That and Opera is free if you can live with a textad.

I agree with Pegusis2. The dozens of people who buy Opera can't live without it. The rest of us just don't get it. The question I would ask is, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free without ads?" :)

I'd agree with you if you were actually getting something more... but you are not. I love my coffee and a plain glass of water just doesn't cut it. With Opera you arn't getting any more than you would have if you downloaded and installed Mozilla or any other web browser. And the "Free" version with Ads???? oh come on now. Only reason I downloaded it is so I can compare each browser to web sites I develop. I am not knocking the brower it's a wonderful web browser, but if you went into a restaurant and had to pay for a glass of water when you could have got it for free from you buddy...

You see you compared a free glass of water to a cup of coffee that one would have to pay for, but you would not be comparing apples to apples then, yes I'd pay for a cup of Tims Coffee but with Opera you just arn't getting the extra flavour or anything of more value compared to any other web browser that would make it worth the cash.

YES YOU ARE.

Opera 8 is much faster and more feature complete than Firefox.

And I don't want your bull about extensions, because all they do is slow-down the startup time, consume more memory and sometimes even cause problems (crashes..), plus you'll need a lot of extensions to get the functionality you get in Opera out of the box.

Opera is a smaller download too, and you get a built-in IRC client and an excellent mail/news reader. (which IMO is much better than the simplistic Thunderbird).

People claiming firefox to revolutionize the way you surf are just silly monkeys.

Opera is light-years ahead of firefox in speed and functionality, with a minor setback, you _need_ to pay for it to remove the ads.

Now, will the real browser please stand up?

Be that as it may, but talking about revolutions...

Firefox has done something that no other browser has managed for quite a while; namely pushed IE use down below the 90% mark. Which is ENORMOUS, especially when you take things like laziness (IE is supplied out of the box), conservatism, and the tendency for people to be unwilling to try anything new into the picture.

I think that counts as something. I also think monkeys are far more clever than most consumers.

Opera 8 sucks big time.
They make a lot of noice about following standards, but they dont give a flying f##k about them themselves.
Opera 8 does'nt even recognize common server response types, like 204, which basically makes it useless for intranet apps.
- This is just plain crap, and I can't wait to see it scrapped, and considering the above, that wont take long.

"I think that counts as something. I also think monkeys are far more clever than most consumers."

lol!! so true

"They make a lot of noice about following standards, but they dont give a flying f##k about them themselves.
Opera 8 does'nt even recognize common server response types, like 204, which basically makes it useless for intranet apps."

OH GEEZ! Just because there's ONE BUG in Opera, and it isn't even a violation of the standard (it doesn't say MUST, it says SHOULD) doesn't mean that Opera doesn't care about standards.

IDIOT!

How dare you speak such blasphemy. I like the fact that firefox doesn't have many feature out of the box. That way I get to pick and choose what features I want and don't get stuck with a lot of bull I don't. Firefox interface is much cleaner than Opera. and this mess about the extensions causing firefox to slow down and crash, never had any of that. I will agree that firefox takes up quite bit of memory i'm not complaining as long as my system has the memory to handle it. Not to mntion while you're sitting there crying about firefox taking up a lot of memory looks around idiot, as times goes on more and more programs are getting more resource intensive, it's a fact of life. So in conclusion if you're tha worried about it get some more memory and quit belly aching about it.

This particular bug is a more stupid bug than usual, since it's related to response types.
That's the server and a browser that does'nt talk 'server language' is a really wierd browser, considering.

- Idiot!

The interface looks soo much better for this version based on the screenshots provided on opera.com's site. I may have to take it for a spin.

I think I still like Maxthon and firefox better. It does seem to be marginally faster than firefox but I can't see where opera is any faster than maxthon. I also hate that anoying add trying to get me to buy opera.

The Opera folks take their time to get it right and this version is really nice. If you haven't tried Opera yet, now is a great opportunity.

- I´ve been using opera since version 4 and every new version amazes me with cool features.. Now with the firefox fever it´s inevitable not to compare them both.. the only thing missing in opera in my opinion is a decent adblock 'extention'.. other than that is´t a lot faster than firefox.. ans the interface is fully, i mean FULLY customizable..

I can't figure it out. I've tried Opera on so many different occasions, and I still can't stand using it. Every time I've used it, it's been slow, bloated with 5 gazillion features I didn't need (which explains why it was slow), and tried to sell me the paid for version.

I guess it's great if you want to pay for it and actually use all the extra features, but I'll just stick with FF and IE.

yep thats about right

Opera? Slow? I simply cannot believe that. Have you really used Opera at all, or are you just tlaking trash? If you want to see some proof of speed, maybe you should check this out:

http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html

Notice how the latest version of Opera beats the equivalent IE and Firefox in every category. That's *every category*. But yeah, Opera is so "slow" isn't it.

That site seems to test everything except simply bringing up various common (and complex) sites and timing how long they take to load completely. IE6 beats Opera in almost every single one of those cases for me. This is not surprising, since almost every site on the Internet is written with IE in mind; almost none with Opera in mind, the least-supported browser around.

One thing I never do: talk trash.
I was speaking from honest personal experience. Like I said, every time I tried it, it just seemed so bloated and slow to me.

I have no problem with other people using it - maybe people that need the extra features, but I've found FF and IE to work much better for me.

Been using for almost a year now and am blown away by the technology and features with this browser. I was bit sceptic of the voice control feature, but its absolutly amazing! With almost no configuration needed it recognizes different accents and voices with ease and responds correctly about 95% of the time. Was also put off by the side bar and rubbish skin until i realised i could remove or change the browser interface to whatever i desired. Truly an amazing browser.

Well, Opera 8 final is simply brilliant. Unfortunately opera.com is down due to high demand, but they have some nice guides and tutorials to the new features that are worth checking out. The nicest thing is the overall integration: Fast-forward can control the wand manager using mouse gestures - something impossible when using different extensions; RSS auto-discovery and feed aggregation links into the Gmail-like mail database to allow virtual feeds to be made using dynamic labels; Web page data can be easily saved into research notes and mailed in a click. You get the picture. When installed, Opera is a simple browser, but as you use features you customise your experience; i.e. only when you ask to create a mail account does Opera ever load the mail interface, until then it is just a browser - that is just so neat! From a standards point-of-view they have DOM3 load'and'save, SVG, VoiceXML, CSS3 speech and more in the improved rendering core, yet the main program is the same size - they benefit from having a tiny core due to being able to run in moblie phones! That benefits us on the desktop in having a fast and lean browser core they build upon. Overall a great piece of software.

Opera 8 is very good. I have been using the beta's for months, and I must say I'm impressed with the stability of the final version. All my reported crashers are fixed. Very good job!

Nothing big.. but as I used to use Opera long ago, thought I'd give it another try.

Well my default webpage, which is an internal web server requests your windows credentials to authenticate to the server.

FireFox and IE work ok doing this.

Opera only says "The server requested a login authentication method that is not supported."

Rather than calling this a bug, I'd be inclined to call it a missing feature. The problem is, I suspect, that the browser simply doesn't support NTLM authentication. This is certainly a missing feature on the Windows platform, although as a rule, modern webservers should always support an alternative form of authentication, such as forms-based authentication.

Here are some bugs for you, a nice running list that should give anyone enough pause to wait for v8.01. It's too bad Opera didn't see fit to issue a release candidate between their long-ago last beta and the final. Instead, the final has to be the release candidate.

http://my.opera.com/foru...age=40&pagenumber=1

If you think any piece of software gets all bugs fixed from one version to the next you are living in a fantasy.

Just because Opera 8.0 is released without all bugs fixed doesn't mean that they've done something wrong. At some point you have to say "**** it, those aren't important enough, and we gotta ship now", and only fix the really serious stuff like security flaws.

The irony is not lost here. I am currently in IE to type this, because my opera 8 would not load this forums, even when its the only page that is suppose to load.