A Night At The Opera
Note: I've moved my blog to my own web site - the new address is:
www.nonaverage.net/insomanywords/
Comments can only be left at the new location.
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Anyone using the Internet has had to learn about using a browser, which is a software application that allows the user to view web pages on the Internet. In fact, whether you know it or not, you are viewing this blog through a browser. As the Internet became popular in the 90s, the browser used by most people was Netscape Navigator. After a few years Microsoft took the lead by giving away their Internet Explorer browser, but more recently the Mozilla Firefox browser has been gaining in market share. As a computer tech I have been recommending, for security reasons as well as for functionality, that people use a browser other than Internet Explorer. Firefox is a good alternative and a good browser, but my personal preference is a browser called Opera. I have been using Opera for several years; when I started using it, Opera’s free version had a banner ad in the top right corner, and users could pay for a version that had no ads (which is what I did). Now, Opera is a free browser with no ads but lots of functionality. For example, Opera was the first browser to offer a tab view. Tabs are simply windows to view web pages, but you can open multiple tabs simultaneously meaning that you can have several web sites open and tab between them, which is extremely convenient (I’m probably not describing tabs very well, but if you have never used tabs you should try it. For most people, once they start using tabs for viewing web sites, they don’t want to give up that feature). Firefox also offers tabbed viewing, but Internet Explorer only offers tabs in their latest version, IE7. This is a nice feature, but only one of the reasons I prefer Opera for my main browser. Tests have shown that Opera loads web pages faster than IE, and the ability to configure Opera exceeds either IE or Firefox (although my understanding is that Firefox version 3 will have many of the same features that Opera has had). The one down side to using Opera is not really an Opera flaw - many web sites are still coded to look their best in Internet Explorer. This is a throwback to the days when IE was the browser used by the vast majority of folks, and although that is no longer the case, there are still a few web sites that look or function a bit differently in Opera than in IE. But this issue is getting better all the time, and for me the benefit I get from using Opera outweighs this issue, which I rarely experience. You don’t have to be a computer expert to try Opera - just go the the Opera site, download and install the Opera browser, and give it a try. If you don’t like it, it uninstalls cleanly - but I think you will like it.
www.nonaverage.net/insomanywords/
Comments can only be left at the new location.
*********************************************************
Anyone using the Internet has had to learn about using a browser, which is a software application that allows the user to view web pages on the Internet. In fact, whether you know it or not, you are viewing this blog through a browser. As the Internet became popular in the 90s, the browser used by most people was Netscape Navigator. After a few years Microsoft took the lead by giving away their Internet Explorer browser, but more recently the Mozilla Firefox browser has been gaining in market share. As a computer tech I have been recommending, for security reasons as well as for functionality, that people use a browser other than Internet Explorer. Firefox is a good alternative and a good browser, but my personal preference is a browser called Opera. I have been using Opera for several years; when I started using it, Opera’s free version had a banner ad in the top right corner, and users could pay for a version that had no ads (which is what I did). Now, Opera is a free browser with no ads but lots of functionality. For example, Opera was the first browser to offer a tab view. Tabs are simply windows to view web pages, but you can open multiple tabs simultaneously meaning that you can have several web sites open and tab between them, which is extremely convenient (I’m probably not describing tabs very well, but if you have never used tabs you should try it. For most people, once they start using tabs for viewing web sites, they don’t want to give up that feature). Firefox also offers tabbed viewing, but Internet Explorer only offers tabs in their latest version, IE7. This is a nice feature, but only one of the reasons I prefer Opera for my main browser. Tests have shown that Opera loads web pages faster than IE, and the ability to configure Opera exceeds either IE or Firefox (although my understanding is that Firefox version 3 will have many of the same features that Opera has had). The one down side to using Opera is not really an Opera flaw - many web sites are still coded to look their best in Internet Explorer. This is a throwback to the days when IE was the browser used by the vast majority of folks, and although that is no longer the case, there are still a few web sites that look or function a bit differently in Opera than in IE. But this issue is getting better all the time, and for me the benefit I get from using Opera outweighs this issue, which I rarely experience. You don’t have to be a computer expert to try Opera - just go the the Opera site, download and install the Opera browser, and give it a try. If you don’t like it, it uninstalls cleanly - but I think you will like it.
posted by Ruben at
8:17 AM
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