Opera 8 browser is free now, no ads or registration.

[GKar]

Just paid for it too!

http://my.opera.com/community/

[CBC]

This is great news. Guess they've been able to license it out for embedded/phone OSs to make the $$ to allow it to be ad-free from now on.
zoom zoom zoom

[waheed]

Whats Opera like compared to Firefox?

[handyguy]

Fast.

But they were offering it for free a couple months ago as part of their annv. celebration.

[GKar]

Whats Opera like compared to Firefox?

It's an all in one browser (email etc...). It's a smaller download than Firefox/Thunderbird (4MB vs 11MB). It's more secure than Firefox or I/E and they keep up with the lastest flaws with quick patches. ( http://secunia.com/ ). Speed is comparable or quicker than Firefox. I like the clean look and customizing abilities.

[whitejremiah]

opera (at least last i tried it) was NOT for me, for sure...mind you this was about 2 years ago......but it quite honestly didnt appeal to me at that point.....it seemed way too complex for a browser (at least it did to me) maybe i will give it a whirl again at some point in the future...but my whole issue, is that no browser should EVER have to be paid for, OR have EXTRA popups/ads (arent there enough of those things around already????!!!???) this is partly why i use firefox instead...........but i wont bash anyone using opera cuz ANYTHING is better than internet explorer

[ROF]

Too many unfixed security holes in the current Opera. It fails even under the most basic of security measures. Plus it's slow as the day as long.

[GKar]

Too many unfixed security holes in the current Opera. It fails even under the most basic of security measures. Plus it's slow as the day as long.

Please pass on these security holes to Secunia.com, they haven't seemed to notice them yet. Your knowelege and wisdom will surely be appreciated by their techs.

[ROF]

now that it's free I'm sure those who have coveted such info will be passing it along, myself included.

[rfielder]

Whats Opera like compared to Firefox?

I have owned and been using Opera since V6 (or maybe V5?). Firefox is playing catchup in many ways.

On the other hand, there are web sites which don't recognize Opera, so I have to use Firefox on occasion, and sometimes resort to IE for some sites.

Opera gets about 80% of my browsing usage, and I like it best of the three. A lot of the stuff that is being added to Firefox as plug-ins has been built into Opera for a long, long time - timed reloads, for example.

[lordsmurf]

I never liked Opera.

For one thing, it never loads pages properly as compared to a mozilla or IE browser. It sort of just put stuff wherever it wanted.

[rfielder]

For one thing, it never loads pages properly as compared to a mozilla or IE browser. It sort of just put stuff wherever it wanted.

Actually, it put stuff where the stuff was supposed to go.

IE always had oddities, that people wrote to. Mozilla had a few as well, and emulated a lot of IE's flaws for the sake of compatibility.

Opera was written to the HTML spec. Often, if a page does not display correctly in Opera, you will find errors in the code.

Opera is not perfect. But, it is a good product, well worth the money for registration - and even more so now!

[GKar]

I never liked Opera.

For one thing, it never loads pages properly as compared to a mozilla or IE browser. It sort of just put stuff wherever it wanted.

I agree, but they have come a long way and they made a lot of improvements inspite of website builders mostly aiming at I/E and Mozilla support due to their market share. I have been using Firefox/Thunderbird mostly but lately have begun to appreciate Opera 8.xx and their attention to detail and security, besides I always like to stick up for the underdog . Tough little company.

[CBC]

All 3 browers have their quirks. But now that Opera turns into freeware, it gives people another choice of internet tools to try & to use. There will always be "browser wars" over which one is "best". But whatever your view is of Opera, dropping the price of admission to zero can't be anything but a good thing! I like both FF & O, & use both on a daily basis.