View All Categories
Home Software Internet Browsers Opera
Edit Product
4.4
40 reviews
88

Opera


Released January, 1996

Product Shot 1 The Pros:Fast rendering. Download manager. "Speed dial" favourite page thumbnails.

The Cons:Not supported by all sites. Lacks Firefox's extension pool. Integrated torrent client not as resource efficient and functional as some dedicated torrent software.

Opera is a web browser and internet suite developed by the Opera Software company. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying websites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, IRC online chatting, downloading files via BitTorrent, and reading web feeds.

Product Shot 2 Opera is offered free of charge for personal computers and mobile phones, but for other devices it must be paid for.

Features of Opera include tabbed browsing, page zooming, mouse gestures, and an integrated download manager. Its security features include built-in phishing and malware protection, strong encryption when browsing secure web sites, and the ability to easily delete private data such as HTTP cookies.

Opera runs on a variety of personal computer operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris. Evaluations of Opera have been largely positive, and it has innovated or pioneered many key features of modern browsers. Despite these factors, Opera has captured only a small fraction of the worldwide personal computer browser market. It does, though, have a stronger market share on mobile devices such as mobile phones, smartphones, and personal digital assistants. Editions of Opera are available for devices using the Symbian and Windows Mobile operating systems, as well as Java ME-enabled devices. Approximately 40 million mobile phones have shipped with Opera pre-installed. Opera is the only commercial web browser available for the Nintendo DS and Wii gaming systems. Some television set-top boxes use Opera. Adobe Systems has licensed Opera technology for use in the Adobe Creative Suite.

History

Opera started out as a research project in Norway's largest telecom company, Telenor, in 1994, and branched out into an independent development company named Opera Software ASA in 1995. Opera Software develops the Opera Web browser, a high-quality, multi-platform product for a wide range of platforms, operating systems and embedded Internet products.

Vision

Opera's vision is to deliver the best Internet experience on any device. Opera's key business objective is to earn global leadership in the market for PC/desktops and embedded products. Opera's main business strategy is to provide a browser that operates across devices, platforms and operating systems, and can deliver a faster, more stable and flexible Internet experience than its competitors.

Fast Facts

Opera Software ASA is an industry leader in the development of Web browsers for the desktop, device and mobile markets. The Opera browser has received international recognition from end-users and the industry press for being faster, smaller and more standards-compliant than other browsers, and it has gathered a cult following on the net.

Address

Waldemar Thranes gate 98
NO-0175 Oslo
Norway

Postal enquiries:

P. O. Box 2648 St Hanshaugen
NO-0131 Oslo
Norway

Telephone:

+47 24 16 40 00

Fax:

+47 24 16 40 01

Founders:

Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner (CEO)
Geir Ivarsoey

Line of business:

Browser-maker for PC/Desktop, Mobile phones, PDAs, Devices

Financed:

Public. The Opera share is traded at the Oslo Stock Exchange with ticker OPERA.

Employees:

Approximately 390 (May, 2007).

Satellite offices:

USA, Sweden, China, Japan, South Korea, India and Poland.

Tag line:

Simply the Best Internet Experience on Any Device

User Reviews (45)

  •  
Add Pros & Cons
88
ProScore
Pros
  • 28

    Fast rendering

  • 24

    Download manager

  • 22

    "Speed dial" favourite page thumbnails

  • 21

    Uses less memory than Firefox or Internet Explorer

  • 20

    Builtin popup blocker

  • 19

    Session management

  • 19

    Integrated mouse gestures support

  • 18

    Passes ACID web standards test

  • 16

    Bookmark syncronization

  • 15

    Built-in e-mail client

  • 14

    Full W3C Standards support

  • 13

    Ad filter

  • 13

    Integrated spell checker (with presence of GNU Aspell)

  • 13

    Integrated IRC client

  • 12

    Tabbed browsing with more than 100 open tabs

  • 10

    Widgets

  • 10

    Automatic update

  • 10

    Less CPU usage than Firefox

  • 9

    Custom interface themes

  • 8

    tabs thumbnails

  • 5

    Dragonfly (integrated developper tools)

  • 5

    Built-in voice recognition

  • 5

    Highly innovative, usually the first to receive new features that become standard in other browsers

  • 5

    Able to mask itself as other browsers for increased compatibility and bypassing of annoying browser checks

  • 4

    Integrated development tools

  • 4

    Highly customizable at both the aesthetic and functional levels

  • 4

    Interface can easily vary between being completely clean and displaying whatever panels or information that is considered relevant

  • 4

    Easy to set up custom searches with practically any site's search bar or other input

  • 3

    Integration with Opera Unite leads to a wide array of other functions

  • 3

    Works well on Linux

  • 3

    True MDI (muliti-document interface) application. Allows resizing/tiling/cascading of windows within one main window.

  • 3

    Opera Link service that allows synchronization of bookmarks, Speed Dial, notes, panels etc. across installations on different machines

  • 2

    Intelligent content blocking is more customizable and helpful than dedicated and restricted adblock addons.

  • 2

    Opera Turbo mode good for viewing high load webpages on sub-par internet connections.

  • 2

    Opera mini also available

  • 2

    Cross-platform application available under most common operating systems

  • 2

    Integrated torrent client

Cons
  • 17

    Not supported by all sites

  • 11

    lacks Firefox's extension pool

  • 4

    Integrated torrent client not as resource efficient and functional as some dedicated torrent software

  • 3

    Closed source.

  • 2

    No support for tree-style tabs list

  • 0

    The amount of settings and functions can be a overwhelming for new users.

  • -3

    over-complicated UI

  • -8

    slow performance

Videos
Gallery
  • Opera
  • Opera Logo
  • Opera screenshot
Opera zoom

Comments (8)

What's on your mind? See more ProductWiki Talk
listener
listener: #opera

I started with IE and later FF, but then I found Opera. I have used Safari on mac and tried Chrome and Safari on Windows. I still them all for testing. But Opera just is the better tool. A swiss knife compared to a butterknive.
It contains everything I need and more, without the need for extra plug-ins.

The best things are it's speed and light weight.
I'm at the moment runnning Opera with 8 windows containing 203 tabs!!! and the email client. And it stays fast as ever!
 I use a window for the mail and links I open form there, one for studies, and separate windows for the projects I work on. I've first started working like this with a similar amount of tabs on my old Pentium 4 (2.8GHz 1GB): I was used to Firefox crashing or getting real slow after a few hours until I noticed the enormous amount of data I could have for reference without having to reopen everything every few minutes for bookmarks. 
When I'm not working on a project for some time I save the window. The only problem is restarting the browser, all these windows have to reload :P

Second best are the mouse gestures. I use the back and forward buttons on my mouse to switch between tabs and the gestures (that are faster) to do the navigating.

Opera Turbo, the compression system used on the mobile-phone version of Opera allows me to surf cheap on a payed per amount connection and fast on a mobile connections, without loosing the images (which you can also easily block).

I also like Opera-link, I can work on my phones, work-pc and portable with usb-version with all my links and notes and contacts.

And how about the most secure browser, for your safety and privacy. (BTW. Use a master-password, then it's about impossible to steal your passwords)

 Opera has its own rendering engine (presto) which is one of the best around. It has always been one of the best and most up-to-date engines around. This is a strong point, but also a weakness, not every website-builder knows Opera...
The only problems are in websites that are build by people that don't test there creations. Luckily more and more sites are build following to the w3c-standards.

Opera really is the best webtool I know.

Aug 20, 10
post a reply
decodedthought
decodedthought: #opera

Kindly update the opera logo, this one is obsoleted.
 You can get the new logo from here: www.opera.com/press/resources/
 

Aug 7, 10
post a reply
theUg
theUg: #opera I use opera since late 2000 and version 5.12. It's more efficient than Firefox in memory usage (I have 43 tabs open right now and about 30-35 routinely - that would cripple my system if using Firefox). It's as fast and secure as Firefox or Safari. The main difference between FireFox and Opera is that latter is full fledged Internet suite which includes e-mail/RSS, and chat/IRC clients and many other functions while Firefox is strictly browser with virtually limitless expandability. The amount of default functions included in Opera could be too much for some and too little for others, but it works for me. Besides, if I have to install it on other machine, I'll have all the functionality right away (in a smaller download, I might add), plus instant synchronization using Opera Link (bookmarks, Express Panel, entered URI history, personal panel, notes etc.) instead of searching and downloading various add-ons and programs (like Thunderbird for e-mail). Mar 22, 10
post a reply
keatsta
keatsta: #opera I switched from Firefox when the 10.0 alpha first came out and I never looked back! Fast, reliable, light and with a wealth of features: Opera has everything I want in a browser. The support isn't quite as large as Firefox, but a creative user can replicate everything a rival browser has to offer with clever scripting. Nov 11, 09
post a reply
Jan
Jan: #opera I am using the 9.5x version and its really great! Jul 28, 08
post a reply
dialupinternetuser
dialupinternetuser: #opera I think that I would try out Opera if it wasn't for all of Firefox's amazing add-ons. And Firefox is prettier. The add-ons are the main reason however. I use Chatzilla daily and others make t browsing experience a lot nicer. May 20, 08
post a reply
GT-D
GT-D: #opera yeah, I used opera for a long time. Its a great browser... I ended up switching to firefox for no apparent reason... I think at the time opera was a little more bloated feeling then firefox. Feb 28, 08
post a reply
digitalscrap.net
digitalscrap.net: #opera I remember when opera first came out. I supported it way back then, and am glad to see it still around. I never thought it would be a browser on my handheld video game system (nintendo ds) & its great. Opera browser was my savior when I only had dial up, I never forgot all the time it saved me! Jan 3, 08
post a reply

You may also like...

A little about us
Discover our community

Run an online store?

Use ProductWiki Connect for Merchants to enhance your product page and improve conversions.

Read more

ProductWiki Inc. © 2005-2011.
All rights reserved. ver: 4.1.4

Privacy Policy  |  Terms of Use

Subscribe

Get the free iPhone App!