That’s Opera. It has some advanced features, but just doesn’t seem to gain market share. Possibly the Windows version has too many features, overwhelming the user with what appears to be a steep learning curve?. (I would hesitate to recommend “Opera Web Browser for Dummies” until I’ve read it myself) Up until version 5 Opera was trial-ware; it had an ad-supported free version and a paid full version. Although I know it is a superior browser, and have it installed on some of my machines, I seldom use it. Where I do use it is on Mobile devices where the only other browser is Pocket Internet Explorer. Opera runs on a myriad of mobile platforms, ranging from handhelds to smartphones and even cellphones. Here Opera really excels.

Opera Mobile, which is targeted at smartphones and PDAs is not free. On some smartphones the price of the smartphone includes the Opera Browser, but on most PDAs it costs extra.There is also a version of Opera called Opera Mini. This will run on any device which has a the Java Platform, Micro Edition installed.

Occasionally I run Opera, but then I go back to Firefox version 3. I also occasionally run  Google’s Chrome browser, it looks promising.

Posted on September 24th, 2008 by mervyn