David Shapshak
Product: Opera 3.10 web browser Requirements: Minimum 386 SX Processor, 4Mb RAM Supplied by: Opera Software
`It fits on a stiffy,” an enthusiastic colleague gleefully told me, presenting me with his latest software discovery. In these days of “bloatware” – as the huge, feature- laden, slow-moving bundled software packages by major developers have become known – that’s something of a miracle.
What he was talking about was a little-known browser, the latest in a group of programs that provide the means to surf the Internet and are therefore the gateways to the money-making potential of e-commerce.
While browser wars are being fought by Netscape Communicator and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, an upstart, Opera, has crept on to the scene. As the big players pack in more and more features, the Norwegian-developed Opera has made a niche for itself and has gained cult status with Web enthusiasts as a lean and mean browsing facility.
My Internet problems were the overtaxing demands of running multiple browsers to view numerous websites or pages simultaneously. Under normal circumstances I found myself running two or three versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer, severely straining my computer despite its adequate memory capability.
Enter my colleague and his stiffy.
Opera 3.5, the latest release, is every bit the browser that any of the big guys have. But its unique feature is the ability to run multiple browser windows. All of these are loaded inside the main program window. This means the program uses not much more RAM to do the same job as several other browsers which have to launch in full. You can monitor all these pages either by swapping, tiling or cascading them within the main window. The auto-tiling feature lets you monitor the progress of all windows simultaneously. Downloads are a snap and the progress of all your download sessions are monitored in a single window.
All this means it occupies a very small portion of your system’s RAM – so your computer spends much less time storing information on your hard drive as you surf the Web. What I was looking for: more windows, less RAM. Perfect.
But size may not count as much as speed, where it has a distinct lead. Despite running two or three open windows, it’s the fastest browser I’ve used. While “bloatware” takes longer and longer to load bulky Web pages, Opera zips them down to your machine.
But can it do all the other things the big browsers do?
Opera 3.5 runs Java applets – such as scrolling stock tickers and news headlines – and can handle Cascading Style Sheets, the protocol that developers use to unify the appearance of multiple Web pages.
The browser may appear slightly different to the norm, but it is clearly labelled and you can customise the toolbar controls as much as you want, or make your own toolbar icon designs. It also handles offline browsing – being able to read previously downloaded pages after the Internet connection is broken – and even has a “turbo mode” no-frills, faster browsing mode. And, notwithstanding its small size, Opera has a newsreader and a send-only e-mail client (to reply to mail-to addresses on websites).
It may also be the only browser with help files in Afrikaans and, although the other browsers are being handed out free, it’s well worth the $35 (about R210) it costs. Currently it only runs on Windows 3.X and up, but plans are afoot for other platforms.
If that isn’t enough, it’s designed to run on any personal computer from an antiquated 386 SX Processor with only 4Megs of RAM, to the newest top-end machine.
It also boasts Transport Layer Security, the successor of the Secure Socket Layer, and integrates the latest 128-bit encryption protocols – so doing your Internet banking, as I have, is safe and secure.
All of this is why CNet, the respected Internet computer publication, gave it last year’s best Internet software award – calling it “a quick and reliable browser, a roadster in a world of Mack trucks”. And PC World called it the “most promising Web newcomer”.
The end of last year saw the triumph of the little guy. Linux, the Open Source operating system that was initially a student project, hit the big time and was identified by a nervous Microsoft employee, in a now notorious e-mail, as the software giant’s biggest threat.
If there are any more paranoid people in the software giant’s Redmond headquarters, they should start worrying about Opera.