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Opera 9
Price: Free

Features
Performance
Ease of use
Value for money
Overall

Reviewed By: Robert Irvine

This review updated: 06/08/2006
Featured in magazine:
Issue 140
Manufacturer Contacts:
Supplier: Opera
Web Address: www.opera.com


So much has been written about the battle between Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer that it's easy to forget other web browsers are available. Opera is one of their closest contenders and, now free of the ads that once bogged it down, its ninth version is the most impressive yet.

Features
Opera 9's extensive set of features makes Firefox and the new IE7 Beta seem basic in comparison. Chief among these are integrated BitTorrent support for downloading large files and a widget manager that enhances your Desktop with mini web applications. Tabbed browsing comes as standard these days, but Opera increases its efficiency by providing thumbnail previews when you hover your mouse over a tab, and letting you save open tabs at the end of a session. Add to this strong security tools, such as pop-up blocking and private data deletion; various customisation options; and built-in email and chat clients, and you have a browser that does everything except make the tea.

Performance
Despite this wealth of features, Opera operates extremely quickly and smoothly, loading web pages instantly and accurately. It also consumes much less memory than IE and Firefox, even when you have multiple tabs open. You can navigate the web effortlessly using mouse gestures, which perform common tasks such as moving back and forth between pages through certain movements of your mouse, while the ability to filter ads and images boosts your surfing speed further.

Ease of use
Although not as immediately intuitive as Firefox, Opera's clean, customisable interface doesn't take long to master.
Its optional toolbars let you opt to display one-click buttons for as few or as many features as you like, while an integrated search box (to which you can add your favourite search engine), direct links to your favourite sites and a top 10 most-visited list all help make browsing easy.

Value for money
Opera was charging for the advert-free version of its browser right up until September last year, so it's a relief that the new incarnation sports neither licensing fee nor unsightly ad banner. The only sense in which Opera 9 lacks value,
when compared to IE and Firefox, is the limited number of available add-ons and extensions, but as it has so many features to begin with users already have plenty to keep them occupied.

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