The Fat Lady sings for IE. Review on Opera

The name might be a little funny and not the traditional and weird name picked from the IT books and sci-fi movies. but what does the name matter once your start using the browser. all we want is something to surf the net with and at reach that particular page we are looking for on the same day. well opera will give it to you in seconds. before I start off with the review it is better if I notify all of you that I am not a computer whizz!! so this would be more from the views of and average person(sorry guys no technical details...that stuff sends my head into a dizzying spin).

for the past couple of years IE was the only browser known to me and I wish I hadnt even known the damn thing. for those years I had been battling errors regarding illegal operations,not enough memory to runwhen I had plenty left and plus not to mention the all time microsoft error winner browser hanging.gosh are they known for that. for all those years I have been playing hangman patiently with the browser until one fine day I just blew my top and almost sent a fist into the CPU cabinet. but there was a saviour. pinching one of my cousins complimentary CD from the Digit magazine I began to explore the software portion and found exactly what I was looking for. there in bold letters was the word opera and next to it in highlighted letters was the word install

in want of a replacement for IE, without knowing anything about the history of the browser I installed my first version which was Opera 6.0.with fingers crossed I clicked on the shortcut on the desktop and to my surprise I was zipping on the net at breakneck speeds and I my frustration was overcome with a huge sense of relief(not that relief!! yeee gods).1 hour later opera had become an addiction. the speed and the efficiency of the browser had me drooling all over it. the fat lady now slowly sang for IE and I wasnt even reluctant to give it up.

Layout-

the layout of the browser isnt complicated at all and simple enough for a beginner to use .the top end of the browser has the some of the usual options as Ie but there are also a few extras that feature seperate bars for searches on amazon,Ebay and and everybody's favourite Google.there is also and option to magnify the page your viewing upto a 1000% of the normal size. the free version of opera comes with an advertisement bar on the top right hand coner. but unlike the days of the caltigre's free connections this does not hinder the speed of the connection and thus you still find yourself zipping through your pages with relative ease.

the bottom of the browser like windows has its own seperate task bar. thus you can minimize your browser pages to that task bar rather than cramming up your windows one. the foreground and back ground skins can also be changed to suit your preferance. when you are accessing a page a tiny bar appears at the bottom which tell you the speed at which it is processing, the total memory of the page and the percentage of the page that has loaded and not to forget the status of the appearing page.i guess this will do for all you perfectionists out there.

Features-

nothing too different from Ie but it does have one feature that I love the most.The Pop Up Killer(die die die!!! heheh!!!) for those nasty annoying pop ups that you just want to blow with a shotgun. the browser also comes with and email client that have failed to figure out for quite sometime. there is also another feature that comes in handy. at the beginning, before the browser loads(that is when you access it from your computer) and option box pops up. it gives you the option to return to the page you were surfing sometime back, start a new blank page or go directly to your home page. it comes in handy when you cancel your browser by mistake and want to get back to last page you were on, especially when you dont remember the address.

the rest of the features I havent really taken a look at actually as I was manage to screw up something or the other with my bubbling curiousity.

User Friendly?

now comes the question lurking in the minds of all you out there.is it user friendly? definitely! is the answer. there isnt anything complicated about the brower. It is an Ie browser with no problems, no errors, no hanging problems and very fast. I guess the extra search bars to different search engines allow multiple searches and the best part is that its all done fast.

now is that internet service provider of yours giving you a slow and pathetic connection? yes like that damn VSNL dialup that I use!! well then this browser is hardly affected by that. Ie only works efficiently when the your service provider gives you a connection with the peak speed. on mine the maximum is 49,333bps.but I rarely get that .my connections will vary from 21,000bps to 42,667bps.not too good I know and good enough to get you those page cannot be displayed errors with Ie. but with opera its sails through. I dont know how and dont ask me why!! but im happy with it and im enjoying it.another plus point about opera is that the browser can even be used with the keyboard.

Any Downside it?-

sure everything has a downside to it these days, nothing comes perfectly fine. I have so far only experienced two problems compared to the numerous with Ie.the first one is trying to figure out that email client. but it isn’t relevent. the second one can be a pain at times.Opera at times does run in to a few problems with the Java part of it.so all you people who love playing those games online will have to do it on Ie. since I rarely do it doesnt affect me at all.

What Do I Think?-

the browser is lovely to surf the net with, the speed and efficiency of the browser makes it an addiction to any internet addict.the problems are minimal and so that vein wont throb at the back of my eyeball.its user friendly with extra features makes it a want to try it out.