Although the official Opera site hasn’t been updated yet, Opera 8 Final has been released and is currently being uploaded to high-volume FTP sites.
The Windows and Linux versions are up at the official FTP site, along with the first public beta for Mac, though the FTP server is probably getting flooded right now.
Who needs it, though?
I’ll end up sticking with Firefox, but I’m trying out Opera 8 in day to day use in the meantime.
There are some things I really wish Firefox could take from Opera, like the use of cached pages in memory with the back button instead of reloading the page.
Still, it’s free for the download and only weighs in at under 4MB.
I’ve never been able to get the tabs in Firefox to behave exactly like Opera. Frankly I can’t understand why it doesn’t work like Opera by default when you choose to use tabs, and even when you mess with the tabbed browsing extensions and the ‘all in one window’ plugins it still can’t quite do it. Weird.
Opera is my preferred browser on any platform I use. I never could get
used to Firefox or any of that ilk. None of the plugins gave the same feel.
You can MiniT to let you pull the tabs around.
I use Opera as my primary browser. I keep IE in reserve for the odd page that requires it. (Like emptying my junk mail in Hotmail.)
I’m not in a group that thinks Opera is better than any other browser. I’ve just prefer using it over the competition. Maybe when the competition adds something that Opera doesn’t have, I’ll switch…
K
Who cares? Competition is always healthy, it gives Firefox a reason to stay on top of the browser game. Remember what happened after Netscape got crushed by Microsoft? How many years have we had Internet Explorer without any updates again?
Competition = good (for the consumers) :wink:
I used to be a die-hard Opera fan, but Firefox eventually won me over… what’s new in O8?
Here’s the changelog. Personally what I notice is a somewhat improved appearance editor and the oh so invaluable trashcan where you can retrieve closed tabs and blocked pop-ups. I can’t count the number of times I’ve cursed in the past when I closed a tab accidentally so for me it’s a great new feature.
It’s more of a great thing, my urge to try Firefox has pretty much died.
Interesting that you mention that, as the existence of a Firefox plugin that does exactly that is pretty much what got me to switch to Firefox.
It may have been in the last version and I never noticed it, but the smart ‘fit to window width’ button is really nice.
Interesting that you mention that, as the existence of a Firefox plugin that does exactly that is pretty much what got me to switch to Firefox.[/quote]
What’s the name of that extension, extarbags?
I think there are about six extensions for Firefox that let you do all the things that Opera users might miss. Side bookmarks pop open, status bar info expanded, download manager rearranged a bit, etc.
I can’t believe nobody mentioned this yet:
http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2005/04/21/
and
Woooow! :shock:
Edit: Ahhh, you guys did mention it in http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=18460 I just wasn’t looking at that forum. Ah well, here’s a link to anyone else who might not have seen that thread ;).