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I hadn't been using Opera much lately, so last night I decided to check out the current Technology Preview 3 release.

As with Opera's Technology Preview 1, the speed of this browser, especially on text oriented Web pages, is impressive. Without doing actual speed comparisons with other browsers, my seat of the pants evaluation is that Opera must be the fastest browser available for the Mac. Technology Preview 3 seems quite stable, although even Preview 1, the last version I tried, was not exactly crash-prone. However, Opera crashed my PowerBook hard enough when I used it to post a news story to Applelinks, that I couldn't recover with MacsBug and had to restart. Still needs some work.

I like Opera's efficient and informative interface; it provides you with more page loading information that other browsers do. You can also customize its configuration extensively. I found that moving the URL field and progress bar to the bottom of the window to my liking. As with iCab, there is no mucking about with pop-out sidebars and another gewgaws and gimmicks that I never use anyway. Just a nice, plain browser with great performance.

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 find myself using that button a lot.

One deficiency that still needs to be addressed before I would consider using Opera as my workaday browser, is its inability to save Web page content as plain text documents. It will only save them as HTML files.

Opera is small compared with Internet Explorer or Netscape, and it feels light, quick, and nimble, in contrast to the lumbering ponderousness of Netscape in particular. Comparisons with iCab are inevitable, since both these browsers are European challengers to the Internet Explorer and Netscape dynasties. They are both commendably small and parsimonious of RAM, and as for software bloat, there is already no contest. The Europeans win. It makes you wonder what Netscape could be like if it lost some of its excess baggage, like the Composer HTML authoring module, which nobody uses, and the build in Messenger e-mail module, which about two people use.

Points of note:
• My Scrollability auto scroll Control Panel is still not supported reliably, although it works sometimes.
• Bookmarks support not yet fully implemented, but plenty good enough to work
• That very convenient button to toggle image loading on and off
• 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
• 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

• 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.

Major changes in this version (TP3):
• Added Java
• Added JavaScript error-dialog.
• Made Links visited work
• Removed confusing Window homepage.
• Fixed popup width problem.
• Local CSS preference is now saved between sessions
• Search-field: "VersionTracker" is changed to search for "Software".
• "Default.adr" is now renamed, the new name is "Bookmarks"
• Cookie domain error dialogs no longer crashes Opera.
• XML Buttonset is improved. -Try it out. :)
• Fixed AppleEvents "CloseWindow" and "Activate"
• Images should now be cleaned up better.
• The obsolete Transfer Window popup-button is removed.
• An old cosmetic bug in the Transfer Window has been fixed.
• You can option-click another window to hide current window.
• Added support for external download managers (Download Deputy).
• Plugins handles clipping better.
• Option - tab now cycles windows.
• ContextualMenu library is no longer required. (Which means Opera
will again run on System 7.5)
• Buttons in the Transfer Window disables and enables correctly.
• Proxy icon in bookmark window.
• Cancel (in save dialog) now works as expected when closing modified
bookmark windows.
• Fixed bug when scrolling scrolled text areas.
• The textarea form element looks better when scrolling.
• Increased maximum scroll step when drag-scrolling.
• Bookmark window now supports auto scrolling when dragging items.
• Fixed security icon.
• Command-L now opens up the Address-input box as expected.
• Escape can be used for stop loading document. (See preferences)
• Added support for Backspace going back in history.
• Fixed "enter not working" in Technology-Preview dialogbox.

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

System requirements:

• 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.

Note that following technologies are not realized/ported in this version:
• Unicode
• Cache preferences
• File upload support
• Full screen view
• Some preferences don't work
• Support for browsing local files
• Drag and drop of pictures

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

Charles W. Moore

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