IE is not good. It's a memory hog, and it's used to force people to buy Antivirus/Firewall crap. MS really fueled that industry with their hole-filled products.

I removed IE and a few other things from windows a year ago with nLite. The result was a windows with no ports open - part of the "Mac philosophy", as I call it - and since then my computer has never been infected with spyware or viruses.

I have not had antivirus or firewall installed for about a year, and so far nothing has gotten me. I use firefox for browsing, and thunderbird for email, though I'm sure if I replaced Firefox with Opera, it'd be the same scenario. It seems pretty mac-like to me. Although I have reinstalled windows a few times to make changes, I always install antivirus/antispyware programs before doing so and run scans, to really make sure that nothing did ever get in.

A year with no spyware or viruses, and no protection. What more could I want(I run as an admin too!)? IE is POS, and anyone using it is asking to fork out money on repairs and protection programs. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I haven't had a BSOD or a program crash since I nLited most MS stuff out. A year with no crashes, no blue screens...I think there might be something to Mac Philosophy after all.

From time to time I crave Kerio's exe blocking...if it didn't use so much memory just for that, I'd probably put it in just for that final layer of security. Oh well.

Get off your high horse Kramy.
Review the latest version of Opera. Not spew your bullsh!t about how you don't run any AV or antispyware or how you could write better code than the thousands of programmers at MS. Go tell your grandmother!
I came here to read legitimate user views of Opera, not your OT cr@p!

Off topic? Below there's dozens of people bashing Opera. I suppose you'd rather have negative comments that are on-topic with the article, rather than an off-topic one that bashes the browser that causes tons of headaches, and compliments Opera and Firefox on their security?

Standard reading order on betanews is bottom to top. I responded to a few "OPERA SUCKS USE IE" comments below with my opinion and experience of not having IE.

A) It's not bulls***.
B) I don't make programs.

If you want to have a civilized discussion about windows modding to protect your OS from security breaches, I would be happy to engage you. In the meantime, I suggest you navigate to the Opera Reviews portion of this site. I'm sure you'll notice lots of negative comments there as well.

May the browser flamewars happily spew smoke upon you.

Blah, Blah, Blah!

"B) I don't make programs."

Exactly. Stop bashing MS then. Instead of complaining, how about writing your own OS and Browser.... OH, I forgot you don't know how. NO ONE is forcing you to use MS or Windows programmes.
Go and switch to Linux, and find out how user- unfriendly that OS is (unless you're a geek with too much time on your hands).

Also, your below comment about reducing memory usage by "digging" IE6 out of the OS is rediculous. If you are running a system that can't spare 20 MB of RAM then you should stick to Windows 95.
Wait till you try Vista B2. It uses over 500 MB of memory with just the OS installed. Hopefully that will be reduced with the final version? But the minimum physical requirement is 512, with 1 GB or more memory recommended.
Once again, if you don't like it, then use Linux or Apple.

I never said I didn't like windows. Windows has done a lot of good, and brought easy computing to millions of people.

...and IE has brought spyware and viruses to millions of people. So I dislike IE.

I have a feeling modding projects will pop up not long after Vista's release. It will be a race to see who can get the memory requirements under 100mb first.

Amazing.
I must have the only special computer out there. I have had windows loaded on this particular machine for a couple years. I still have IE installed. I have tried Opera and Firefox. I have a antivirus and spyware tools and firewall... and for two years I haven't had one attack or spyware attempt at my computer. I guess I just don't go to porn sites or something.
Amazing

I thought you reviewed the latest version of software in the fileforums? Numbnut.

Sarcasm appreciated. Glad it's working for you.

So not one piece of spyware, ever? Not one attack? Would you be willing to remove all your antivirus, firewall, and anti-spyware then and use your computer for a few more years, to verify that there's not one attack?

Somehow I really doubt most people with windows boxes are confident running without all that stuff. Even programs like spywareblaster, which doesn't need to be running, will help keep you secure.

Beyond that memorys are fast and cheap today, any good game today need at least 512mb and 1gb is always recommended. There is no reason to say "My windows uses 300mb of RAM" It's a pointless discussion! Of course, unless you use WinXP on a P2@300Mhz with 128mb of ram memory with is just...stupid!! Back on the topic, Opera is a nice browser. It has nice build-in features that are available as extensions on firefox, like mouse gestures. By that I mean that firefox is way more customizable than Opera!

I'm kinda sorta grabbing onto one item here and ignoring the rest of the conversation:

Spywareblaster is a MUST. I install it on every computer I clean and tell people how to update it and protect themselves. I believe it has been an invaluable tool in preventing spyware infections.

Yes, I do the same for every computer I fix up. I put Spybot S&D(for the immunize) and Spyware Blaster on, for those IE/FF blocklists. You can bet most people that don't have them already won't bother running or updating them, but at least you can help them prevent getting infected for a little while longer.

Damn this was supposed to be about opera , but as i can see people cannot believe that there can be many good things , why why why is that we can have only one good browser.
IE7 is good FF is good and so is Opera.

Is it impossible to admit that all three are good ?
Even if one don't like something than he/she should view it from a positive side, If opera is not good enough then take it this way that at least we have competition and competition is always good for then end user.

Look at the bright side guys.

Firefox Rock On!!!!!!

Until Opera does something with its rendering engine, I won't use it that often. I hate the way it renders webpages.

FIREFOX SUCK S***T
I bought opera at lev 6

9 is the best over

The last version I used before I dumped Opera was the version 6 after I started experiencing regularly crashes in the browser. I think Firefox is still the way to go.

Though IE7 has come up with newer features (ideas ripped mainly from Firefox & Opera) .. but I'm sure soon you'll find bugs and security vulnerabilities flooding in.

FIREFOX IS THE BEST CHOICE ... WELL OPERA DOESNT GO VERY MUCH BEHIND .. ATLEAST IT IS ABOVE IE. WISHING THE OPERA TEAM THE BEST OF LUCK.

While i do think that FF is a great browser, your statement seems to imply that FF doesn't have many security vulnerabilities.

And FF takes up insane amount of RAM. Not just on Windows, btw.

For me, Maxthon is still the best.

And Opera doenst?

Last I checked Opera (on Windows) uses an insane amount of RAM.

If you want a browser which doesnt use a lot of RAM, then you should stick with plain old IE.

I mean, the memory use in Opera doesnt hinder its performance, it in fact improves it. But not everyone has RAM to spare.

There is something wrong with your PC.
I have checked almost all builds mem usage and have compared with most of the builds of IE6/7 and FF and have found Opera is the least mem hungry of the pack.

Either there is something wrong with ur system or you have not even checked at all.

But not everyone has RAM to spare.

To everyone who says this:
http://www.newegg.com/Pr...sp?Item=N82E16820141225

1GB of DDR2 RAM for $63.
Nobody has any excuse for not having enough RAM.

That applies only for Opera 6 or maybe 7. Opera 9 takes way more RAM than IE6.

why are you comparing opera with ie6/7 when ie is well integrated in the windows so it is hard to tell its actual mem usage.

and also that opera 9 is generation ahead of ie 6 so if you are really gonna compare then compare it with ie7

then will you gift one to mee , pleeeez
or tell me on which tree are you growing ram.

If you can afford a computer, you can afford an ample amount of RAM.

There's no two ways about it.

no many cannot afford "ample amount of ram"
many people have vehicles but cannot afford fuel these days, so aren't many complaining about high fuel price and are they not switching over to fuel efficient vehicles.
Same way many cannot afford "ample amount of ram"

Not really. One can have a computer given to them. I happen to be part of a non-profit computer recycling foundation. Even where I work at a non-profit that helps people with disabilities, I have worked on computers that our consumers were given by someone else. And soon, I will be giving a couple of our computers to a couple of our consumers.

FYI, this page requires 53 mb in Opera, 29.5 mb in Firefox, and 35 mb in IE.

I never use IE. I administer several hundred computers, and my virus/spyware chores dropped to near zero after getting my clients off of IE. Also IE is almost unreadable at high screen resolutions, even with the largest font sizes.

I use both FF and Opera. I like Opera best for its ability to render pages at a resolution of 1600x1200 better than FF or IE. (their fonts are too small for my old eyes) Opera does crash more often, and I use FF for those pages which do not like Opera. I love FF, especially extensions, which Opera would do well to copy.

In conclusion, I do like Opera. I used it through several versions, and through beta testing of v.9 (which crashed more often than v.8) I might very well use FF more if it had a zoom feature as good as Opera's.

IE 6 removed from windows(extremely hard to do) lowers system memory usage by about 20mb. Add 20mb onto what the browser uses, and you have the final memory usage. Removing IE6 and a few other things from windows can lower at-boot memory usage to around 37mb.

IE7 is even worse a hog, but it isn't possible for me to check by exactly how much since I have Windows 2000.

Will you listen to reason?

$63 for what is more than enough for almost any PC user. That's excluding PC enthusiasts and gamers of course, but PC enthusiasts and gamers already know they need more RAM, and so they have it.

$63 is not a lot of money. Skip going out to McDonald's with the family three times this week, and I guarantee you'll have saved enough money.

Some people are just too cheap, and then they wonder why nothing works.

I knew someone would bring that up.

Ok, you found an example of someone who might not be able to afford RAM.

Quite obviously, I wasn't talking about people that have computers given to them. I was referring to the general public, rather than a small margin.

You'll notice I said "If you can afford a computer..."

See?

Nobody is ever going to get an accurate representation of what RAM a browser uses. For instance, when just booting Firefox, it uses 20-something, but after awhile tabbing and browsing (cue Firefox's caching/snapback feature) it will increase. Same with Opera in which i've seen it's ram shoot 60+ megs and IE7s which ram went above 100 megs, which is a little over the top for a browser that is built into the OS. Then again, i've seen IE7's ram usage bottom out at 8 megs.

If you're worried about RAM usage, there's nothing wrong with IE6 with added security (Maxthon, Avant) or K-Meleon which uses Firefox's rendering engine.

As for Opera 9.0. I have to agree with CNET in which I think the added features are a hit or miss. Because A: I don't use Torrents and B: The thumbnail tabs are by default too small to use and the content/adblocker has already been done in Firefox. Top that off with an unstable rendering engine and a quirky interface and you have a recipe for low market share.

@wincement, either You are a moron or an ignorant fool, no two way about it

Do You realize that computers are used elswhere in the world not only in West, do You also realize that ppl work for 1 dolar an hour, and You are assuming that everyone has 63$ do drop on 1gb memory stick?

Go sleep this info over.

ddas! you have to go check Opera 9, cause even with its sparse rendering faults, it ages beyond Opera 6! hell! how can you compare?!

Still fail to open live.com (my homepage) properly. Firefox is still the one to use.

Firefox crashes every 20 minutes. Opera acts strangely (to say the least) on some sites. IE7 won't install on my Ubuntu. Is there no free solution to my browsing needs?? What has the world come to??

Safari... till... i... die...

best browser i've every worked with. All i want that it doesnt have is the "properties" button to check file sizes on pages and character encodings and such. other than that, friggen awesome browser.

You, sir, are a moron.

Yeah... Too bad you have to use Mac to use it.

=P jk

But seriously, I don't use it myself, but I've heard from some friends that it renders some pages incorrectly - kinda my same complaint against Opera.

True, it most likely is the fault of the website (the way it was coded), but it's still a problem that the user has to deal with.

The world is normal. Do check the object between the keyboard and the chair (if you have one, of course).

On windows i have opera as default but on ubuntu i cannot decide as both Opera and FF are very fast.
On ubuntu Firefox is very very fast and very stable on my system.
You can try other gecko based browser.

Thanks for the info. I don't know why my firefox crashes when i have more than 7 tabs or so. But i'm actually starting to get used to Opera and i realized that 99% of the pages are fine. It's an awesome browser. I think I'm an official convert.

Yes, my uncle has one, and several times site forms have been completely disabled due to crappy code. I had to put Camino on there and use it to get the sites to work.

One example is OnRebate.com. Last I checked it was impossible to input a date in Safari.

Thank you, but IE7 is THE one!
Go Vista!

umm... I still prefer my Maxthon, thank you very much. IE7 is much better than IE6, but still a bit plain for me.

This is a browser I would love to like but, alas, I can't stand the piece of shat. It breaks far too many pages to be taken seriously as an IE alternative. Too bad because it otherwise has so much going for it. Firefox and Avant are my top choices.

I really like Opera as my secondary browser over Firefox. It has neither the security issues nor the extensions which break with every release — Opera just builds them in the browser! I'd love it more if I could customize navigational keyboard shortcuts, but I love 9.0 "clean speed."

Your fanboyism proves you have a little p****.

juhuuuu finaly!! i couldn#t wait for the final :D i used nearly every single beta build!! i love this thing!

Have they added NTLM yet? No. Bah, won't use it then.

UPDATE: Just looked at the changelog...

"Initial support for NTLM authentication."

WOOT!

I use Opera, Firefox and IE as each has it's own advantages/disadvantages with Opera as my default. On those rare occasions Opera doesn't render a page, I just single-click the IE or Firefox button on the Opera toolbar to open the page in the associated browser. Doesn't get much better (or easier) than that. I find Opera faster and more customizable than the other two, though I do like quite a few extensions for Firefox. Internet Explorer? it's there but I use it primarily for web development purposes (and windows updates).

My personal preference is Opera - great support and a terrific product.

Hmmm.......

Wonder if it's better than Firefox yet?

You will find, from the constant discussions, debates, flamings, beating of others' pets, wars, and nuclear holocausts, that that is a highly subjective question.

....

...

Ya THINK?!??!??

*grins*

LOL.

Don't take my comments too seriously my friend. ;)

Yeah, I got it. I was continuing the joke =P

i haven't gotten past beta9, but i think Opera as a base is better than FF as a base, but the ability to add extentions to FF, makes for a better experience overall.

of course it's better than Firefox. It does not have the vunrabilities that Firefox has, it's much faster than FireFox. It's cooler than Firefox.

Pretty much the onlt thing missing in Opera 9, which Firefox and IE7 has, is the Phishing Filter, which warns about dodgy links. If they added that, then it has everything the other has, and more.

And what extensions are you referring to?

Most of the "essential" firefox plugins are alreayd build into Opera!!

...apparently it doesn't have a spell-checker.

;)

Seriously. Better? In your opinion, perhaps. Opera 9 still gives me no end of problems on many of the websites I visit. Yeah, that means they're non-standard. It's funny how IE6/7 and Firefox can render them just fine, though...

Oh, and Firefox's customizability via extensions are quite nice as well.

yeah....

adblock...filterset.G updater...Greasemonkey...to name a few, there are *so* many of them...Hell, they even built a browser with others built in. They call it Flock.

And don't give the UserJS line. It's interface is horrible and it's a PITA to work with (which might explain the complete *lack* of UserJS "extensions").

I'm not trying to troll, flame, or be a 'Fanboy'. If you can *honestly* show that Opera is as flexible as Firefox, I'll listen.

As for being built into Opera...well, that's one of the very reasons I *don't* use it. :)

Well OPERA HAVE A SPELL CHECKER
all you have to do is to install gnu Aspell
DUH !

Doesn't mean squat if ya don't use it.

BTW: That part of my comment, that you latched on to was a joke. Indicated for those unable to grasp it as such by the ;) underneath and the following line beginning with 'Seriously'. Thus implying anything prior to it was not.

Reading comprehension is your *friend*.

Doh ! (to myself)
It doesn't make me small to admit it.
When it comes to criticism of opera it easily makes me excited.

Opera 9 has adblocker built in, which is actually better than the FF extension, you don't need a add-on for this..

Opera 9 has it's own Greasemonkey, called UserJS, you don't need a add-on for this..

Firefox starts to get very bloated very quickly, when you have to have add extensions to do everything. Opera has them all, and does not bloat in the process.

I can show you exactly how flexible it is. Open this page in Opera:

http://people.opera.com/rijk/opera/dndbuttons.html

and drag some buttons onto your toolbars, Like InIE or InFireFox

Opera9.Adblocker = Firefox.Adblocker--;
Opera9.PopupBlocker = Firefox.PopupBlocker--;
Opera9.UserJS = Firefox.Greasemonkey-(2*Suck);
Opera9.MemoryUsage = Firefox.MemoryUsage/2;
Opera9.RenderSpeed = Firefox.RenderSpeed*4;

Those buttons dragged fine for me. What was your point?

Your obviously an idiot, if you think these buttons dragged/dropped/worked in Firefox..

They are opera only...

And you're obviously illiterate, since you can't read or write.

Mark: "and drag some buttons onto your toolbars, Like InIE or InFireFox"
Kramy: "Those buttons dragged fine for me. What was your point?"
Mark: "Your obviously an idiot..."

Yeah, no s***, the opera buttons with the opera protocol only work in Opera.
DAMN, Opera suxx0rs! It not use ActiveX or Firefox extensions properly! -fanboy

I never said they did anything in other browsers. I said that everything you told us to do(drag them) worked perfectly in Firefox.

Hey Nate. From a long time ago (just a little after the Beta 2) the key F6 no longer activates the widgets (they could activated on the menu or by panel). Also you forget a very interesting feature: you could add a search plugin just by context menu on the search field...

you could add a search plugin just by context menu on the search field...

Which is leaps and bounds ahead of Microsoft's Drop-down, or Firefox's in box drop-down, right?

Feh...

Personal preference, my man.

Interesting, maybe, but is there any indication within the browser itself (aside from going throuth the help system) as to how to change search engines?

Never actually tried to change it in Opera when I was messing around with it.

you could add a search plugin just by context menu on the search field...

Which is leaps and bounds ahead of Microsoft's Drop-down, or Firefox's in box drop-down, right?

Feh...

I didn't say so, but didn't say the opposite either ;) In fact I already know that you could emulate this behavior with the extension SEO in Firefox, I don't know about IE. I had added It also because was featured in the page of new features of opera.com.Also it has been a vast improvement to the system of add search engines in Opera 8.54 (a genuine PITA IMHO).

I refute that, BitTorrent is used to distribute Opera, not just illegal software.

Hoho.

too bad opera is free now or i could have refuted that point :D

Blizzard also uses BitTorrent to distribute patches. There's also Linux distros and AutoPatcher.

Unleashed.

Gotta love it.

Like, I imagine, reading that, that it was pent up somewhere, perhaps a small cage. Bashing against the walls, trying to get out and now...

It's fury and pandemonium has been Unleashed upon the unsespecting world...

Yeah....

...or not.

hehe.

indeed it's vengance can not be contained and will ultimately result in the genocide of puppies across all lands.

...

Why was Opera on a leash in the first place ?

Did it poop in people's yards if it wasn't on
a leash ?

Why can it be "unleashed" now ? Has it become
potty-trained or house-broken or something ?

( And, no, PC_Tool... the PC Rat ~ain't~ an
'Opera Hater'. Like WinXP, Opera is what we
use on all three of our personal computers ! )

...

The Computer Rodent

...

;)

Just an MS hater, got it. :P

I myself *am* an Opera hater. But that's just me. I'm sure it's fine for other folks, but It renders poorly on too many sites I access frequently and seems to *greatly* dislike my usenet service site. (So much so that it locks the brower up completely.)

*shrug*

I'll stick with Firefox or IE7 for now.

Not just you. I hate Opera as well. I've been using Firefox until recently. Since IE7 has been in public beta, I've been migrating back to IE.

Just using it in Vista, for now. It's been fun to mess around with protected-mode browsing. (Fun is another word for headaches, right?)

...that, and Firefox doesn't seem all too stable on vista yet.

I had been using it in XP until yesterday when I got my Vista Beta 2 disks in the mail. I gotta say that I'll likely be upgrading to Vista when it's released. It may just be my imagination but the Vista version seems to be a bit faster than the XP version. Firefox, when It's working correctly seems to be a little quicker as well. Like I said though, it may just be me.

Then You should know that just because of it's poor rendering engine, Opera has been licensed by Macromedia and Adobe for previewing pages coded in their apps.

Don't blame on Opera site designer's decision not to comply with standards or support Opera's Merlin.