Thread: Opera v 9.5 Software

The latest browser engine from Opera boasts of faster loading speeds, superior support for Web standards and quick handling of third-party plug-ins.

Style and Features

Being a big fan of the color steel-gray, the interface skin is sleek and stylish. The new 'Quick Find' feature in Opera is a step above Firefox's Smart Location Bar (read the review of Firefox 3 later in this section). It not only remembers the titles and locations of websites visited, but also the content of those pages. 'Opera Link' ensures that you are able to access your favorite websites anywhere and keeps them synced. 'Speed Dial' is another new feature; it displays nine of your favorite Web pages as thumbnails such that, they can be accessed easily. If there is an empty thumbnail, simply click on it and Opera will make a suggestion based on your browsing history. The built-in download manager, email client and RSS reader are just the icing on the cake. The download manager includes a resume support feature and can even handle torrents. Read, reply, tag, forward and store emails and news feeds on your POP and IMAP email accounts. Create, manage and store notes, which could be 'Iittle snippets of data that you collect for your research whenever you surf the net.

A couple of features that will make surfing a whole lot easier are mouse gestures and voice controlled browsing. So, repetitive actions like 'Forward', 'Back' and 'New tab' have shortcuts using mouse gestures and voice commands.



To enable voice command, Opera will need an additional file, sized at 10.5 MB, to be installed. We tested the pop-up blocker using the default settings 'Block undesired pop-ups' and it performed on a level at par with Firefox 3. We decided not to test it under the option 'Block all pop-ups' since that defeats the purpose of the browser only blocking the annoying advertisement pop-ups. Searching is also easier with Opera 9.5. For instance, if you type in 'g chip' in the location bar, Opera automatically searches for the phrase 'chip' using the Google search engine. Similarly there are search shortcuts for Ask, Amazon, eBay and so on. The browser also comes with added protection and security features. It protects against malware online and fraudulent websites, and the 'Wand manager' Widgets
What are widgets? Well, they are small Web applications that exist to make your surfing experience more fun-filled and useful. Akin to Firefox's add-ons, there is a variety of plug-ins that you can download and use from the official website (widgets. opera.com). Its physical memory usage

is only 28,600 KB or about 27.5 MB. Interestingly, the search engine featured
on the speed dial page is 'Ask.com', a shift away from Google. Of course, you can change it if you wish, but it's great to see a default search engine that doesn't cater to the monopolist giant. Using it was an adventure, as we kept discovering new features every minute, as is evident from the list of tips that follows.

SmartTips

o Switch through tabs inside the Opera browser using the keyboard shortcut [Ctrll + [Tab].

o Drag and Drop links on the tab toolbar by holding down the [Shift] key.

o Whenever you hover your mouse over a tab, a thumbnail of the webpage appears. FOR: Great Web browser with email, form and password manager, RSS reader, widgets