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Last evening I spent several hours cruising the Net with a preview copy of Opera's new browser for the Mac, which was released to the public today. Ohhhhhh yes... this is going to be one honey of a browser.

I had tried a very early alpha build of Opera for the Mac almost a year ago, and was very impressed by its speed, but at that time there was little stability.

Happily, the speed is still there, but now there's stability too. I had Opera running off and on for about six hours, and experienced no crashes, freezes, or other untoward behavior. I usually get about half an hour out of Netscape 6/Mozilla of before it locks up.

Opera claims to be the fastest browser on earth, and it is certainly the fastest full featured browser I've ever used. On text-oriented pages, it approaches the speed of the little text based browser, WannaBe. Pages with a lot of pictures and frames are another story however. Like Netscape 4.7, Opera insists on loading the pictures before you see any text, as opposed to iCab, which brings up the text and then loads the pix, giving you something to do while you're waiting.

However, there is a handy button in Opera that you can hit, that stops the pictures loading, and the text snaps into view immediately. Since the text is usually what I'm after, I found myself using that button a lot.

Opera has what is to my sense of aesthetics a very attractive and functional interface. As with iCab, there is no mucking about with pop-put sidebars and another gewgaws and gimmicks that I never use anyway. Just a nice, plain browser with great performance.

There are quite a few options for configuring the browser window in the Preferences, and I found that moving the URL field and progress bar to the bottom of the window to my liking.

Comparisons with iCab are inevitable, since both these browsers are European challengers to the Internet Explorer and Netscape dynasty us. They are both commendably small and parsimonious of RAM, and for software bloat hating me, there is already no contest. The Europeans win. I have been using iCab as my number one browser of choice for over a year now, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, but I know that I will now be using Opera quite a bit too, and watching its Mac development with intense interest.

Opera that this point is a work in progress, and this "Technology Preview "release is not even dubbed a beta. However, don't let that scare you off. As I noted, while there are still rough edges, this build of Opera is commendably stable and a pleasure to use.

Here are some issues and points I noticed:

€ My Scrollability auto scroll Control Panel is not supported

€ Occasional flakiness with the scroll bar arrows (known issue and being worked on)

€ Bookmarks support not yet fully implemented, but plenty good enough to work

€ That very convenient button to toggle image loading on and off

€ No "save as text" support yet

€ Won't scroll select past the bottom of text visible in window.

€ Text oriented web pages load with lightning speed. Pages with lots of graphics and frames load slower than with iCab.

€ Handy Google search engine field alongside URL field.

€ Page rendering is very attractive

€ Some page generated text is way too small to read, even on my 800 x 600 screen (this is probably fixable by tweaking the Preferences -- I haven't had time to experiment yet).

€ Like Netscape, Opera loads pictures before showing text.

€ Doesn't support dragging and dropping text into the Applelinks news posting CGI engine.

Very nice implementation of downloads and saves with this window.

Opera for Mac Features:
€ Opera is fast
€ Opera takes care of itself, making little use of shared libraries, which results in increased efficiency and a faster response.
€ Opera is secure
€ Opera features 128bit SSL encryption, version 2 and 3. The first browser on the market to support TLS 1.0. This means that you can do secure online ordering of goods and services, online banking without any additional security proxy software or modules, ensuring complete security for your online transactions.
€ Opera complies with standards
€ Using Opera, you know that your pages are best viewed on any browser. Opera recommends using Opera as your standard reference browser to make sure that your pages are open to all, and not just to those with a specific browser,

Opera supports the following technologies:
€ 128bit encryption
€ TLS 1.0
€ SSL 2
€ SSL 3
€ CSS1
€ CSS2
€ XML
€ HTML 4.01
€ HTTP 1.1
€ ECMAScript
€ JavaScript 1.3

With experimental support for:
€ DOM
€ DHTML
€ WAP/ WML

€ Opera is extremely small
Installation takes about a minute. Opera for Mac is a tiny 2.2 MB download, so updating to the latest version is always fast and easy.

€ Opera is ideal for disabled users
Using Opera as a disabled user means being able to access the Net quickly and efficiently. Only Opera makes it possible to navigate entirely with the keyboard, to the great pleasure of our thousands of visually or physically disabled users worldwide.

€ Opera is simple to use with:
- Context sensitive menus
- An online support web
- Dedicated news server supplying quick answers by users to users Session Management
- Start Opera with a number of windows
- Start with the same setup as when you last exited Each window can be with or without graphics Download management
- Multiple downloads are possible at the same time Opera features a special download window with your download items listed. In addition, Opera supports:
resume download -- if the server stops, you won't have to start again. dedicated Download window with FTP and HTTP file status
- Cookie management
- Opera continues it's commitment to user security and choice with Opera's advanced Cookie management capability. advanced cookie filtering; accept or deny third party cookies
- Web display management
- Choose your own presentation styles: font type, color and other parameters for headers (H1 H6), normal and preformatted text, form buttons and form fields, newsgroup headers, group header and message text and more with your own user CSS. Fly the web the way YOU want! Opera is flexible
- Choose whether to show menus, buttons, scroll bars, progress information etc. If you don't need it, why show it? If you don't like the UI gadgetry, you can turn it off. If you don't like cookies or referrer logging, frames or multimedia, or if it's just Javascript, one click turns them off. If you'd like to customize the look and feel of your toolbar, no problem at all. Opera is customization friendly, so you can see the Internet the way YOU want and not the way the designer envisaged.
- toggle images online and per individual window toggle cookies or referrer logging
- toggle frames
- toggle multimedia
- toggle Javascript
- toggle document and user settings
- Choose font type, color and other presentation parameters for headers (H1, H6), normal and preformatted text, and forms advanced link presentation: Choose color, bold, underline, strike through, etc.
- Link to your favourite email client if you so wish save global and local home pages
view the web the way you want with user CSS add your login user names and passwords to the Keychain and retrieve them later easily modify button sets, from using a smaller set, text only or even make and use your own plus so much more.
- Sophisticated hotlist import from other browsers
- Retrieve all elements of a hotlist (bookmarks) with one click add all active documents to a hotlist (bookmarks) with just one click Support for multiple graphics formats

€ Opera includes support for multiple graphic formats. Support for wbmp, png without alpha transparency channels, gif, jpeg, bmp, xbm, animated gif, and transparent gif formats. Graphics can of course be turned off.

Opera for Macintosh status is currently a public Technology Preview. The next version will be a public Beta 1 version. Opera for Macintosh has been tested on MacOS 7.5.3 through MacOS 9.1. After the Power PC (PPC) version, a 68K version will follow, then an OS X version.

Opera for Macintosh: Known Issues
The following are known issues in Opera for Mac TP1:

ISSUE: In some instances, Opera does not quit when all windows are closed. FIX: Just open another window and Opera quits without problems.

ISSUE: SSL pages are blank.
FIX: This is a general problem with SSL in Opera for Mac and will be solved in the beta versions.

ISSUE: Preferences dialog box displays just a text line. FIX: Delete any old preference files in the Opera Preference Folder (System Folder: Preferences)

ISSUE Opera is slow and unstable.
FIX: Delete the cache folder in the Opera Preference Folder (System Folder: Preferences).

ISSUE: Right frame on frame pages might miss scrollbar or up arrow. FIX: To be fixed

The Opera Technology Preview 1 will work until March 30, 2001. Updated versions will be available for download before then.

For more information, or to download Opera, visit:
http://www.opera.com/mac/

Charles W. Moore

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