Opera Web Browser

[Gregg Bolinger]

I've used Opera in the past but since it went free (no ads) recently I decided to check it out again. I am rather impressed. It has some really nice features and is very quick. Seems as quick if not quicker than Firefox.

Just thought I'd see if anyone else was using it and if they liked it or not.

[Bear Bibeault]

Last I checked they didn't support W3C standards all that well, and didn't support XMLHttpRequest, so no Ajax.

But all that may have changed... anyone got the up-to-date skinny?

[Gregg Bolinger]

From there website:

Opera prides itself in supporting all major Web standards currently in use, including CSS 2.1, XHTML 1.1, HTML 4.01, WML 2.0, ECMAScript, DOM 2 and SVG 1.1 tiny.

Although who knows to what extent. I'd assume XMLHttpRequest works since gmail works just fine.

[Eric Pascarello]

XMLHttpRequest support started in 8.0 and better support in the current version.

Eric

[Lewin Chan]

It's faster than firefox IMO, but I still use firefox most of the time because of AdBlock and the WebDeveloper plugins.

Due to AdBlock, the speed benefit of opera is (non-scientific, and purely subjective opinion) is pretty much negated.

I have to be able to edit-css inline.

Also, I find that I have to manage your user-agent settings quite carefully. Some sites don't play nice at all with opera (my ISP portal/webmail interface will not work with opera at all), and can even make it seem slower because they don't send gzipped data if the client is opera.

[Bear Bibeault]

I just tried a variety of sites that I know make heavy use of CSS and Opera still falls pretty flat on positioning and support of opacity. But XMLHttpRequest is indeed there. So progress is being made.