Opera – the intelligent browser for intelligent people?

After Opera 8 was released, I searched for anything that mentioned Opera 8 and set up a feed for it on Blogdigger and MSN Search. I was curious of what people were writing about it, of course. Still am.

Now, much of it were news reports about its release, writing about its features. Later, after Tetzchner made his bold statement, there was a lot of writing about this, too. The latter sparked some laughter and curiosity – if the company had such a sense of humour, the browser might well be worth trying, too. And now that Opera was downloaded 1,05 million times, there’s a lot of buzz about someone swimming. Most of it in good spirit, even though there are some pouty “Congratulations, you’ve sent the CEO into his death. Hope you’re happy.” Well, yes – I am. It’s great that Opera 8 is a popular browser, and was downloaded more often than Firefox in the same time period. (As far as I know, Firefox 1.0 needed 5 days to reach the one million mark.)

But not all voices are positive. What does the critical ones say?

That Opera is a commercial product you have to pay for seems to be too hard for some (or many) to accept. And to accept having an ad in your browser interface seems to be more or less impossible – who would want that when you can get a browser for free without ads? (Quite a few, I hear; many who use Opera, of course, even of those who has paid for it – and then some who use Firefox and a google adwords plugin…)

Fair enough though, tastes vary. Some hate the thought of ads, others don’t mind. Those I’ve asked, who use Opera, doesn’t really notice the adwords in Opera. And some just prefer open source to commercial counterparts.

The second reason against Opera frequently mentioned: Bloat. Normally I would think of big, inefficient code when presented for this word, but in this case it seems to be a synonym for ‘feature rich’. And indeed, if you’re after “just a browser”, then Opera offer you more than what you want. Still – is this a bad thing? It may be feature rich, but it’s still a small download – smaller than the bare bones Firefox – and the features are hidden until you activate them. Should you at a later point want an RSS/Atom reader, you already have it. Mail client? You have it. Same with a newsreader for Usenet/News. And IRC chat. But if you prefer to download other programs for those features, nothing prevents you – and you’ll still have the smallest browser.

So, why these strongly worded opinions about Opera being bloated? Have these people actually tried Opera 8 themselves before making their opinions known?

But, there’s so many features, the interface is cluttered and confusing. It was said. Well – Opera have listened to you guys, the interface is simplified. Whether that is a good thing or not can be discussed, of course, but how confusing was it before this release, really? I can’t claim to have a lot of knowledge about this, but the people I know of that have tried Opera have had no problems starting using it, even if configuring it differently from the standard view can be daunting. The question is, how many want to do that, and for what reason? It’s different from what they’re used to from IE – but is that bad, or will it make people curious of what Opera has to offer?

A girl wondered about an alternative to IE. I recommended both Opera and Firefox, as they’re both good browsers. I probably also said I was happy with Opera. I do know I said that if she really tried Opera, and wouldn’t give up at the first thing that was different from what she was used to, she would never go back to IE. (Actually, I think I guaranteed that.) Now, installing browsers wasn’t something she used to do; she wondered how she should do it, and if it was difficult? I just told her to download the browser she would try, doubleclick the file when it was downloaded, and answer yes when the browser popped up the question if it should be the standard browser on the system. (Yes, because I guaranteed her she wouldn’t go back to IE, remember ;-)) Next time I had from her on that topic, she was a very happy Opera user.

Now, in the title I as if Opera is the intelligent browser for the intelligent user. I have no doubt this girl is intelligent, but I will make the claim that the Opera interface is no more confusing than that anyone who really try the browser, not giving up by the sight of the first button that looks different from what they’re used to, will learn to appreciate it. I also believe people are intelligent enough not to expect different programs are identical, and thus willing to learn to use different programs.

That said, it’s also nice to have some help going through what you can do with your new program – in this case Opera 8. Is there then anything better than 30 Days to becoming an Opera8 Lover?

Author: Svein Kåre

I have too many interests for my own good, in that I don't manage to make time for them all. A bit artistic, which can be seen to a degree. View all posts by Svein Kåre