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I_Love_Opera
| I Love Opera!
Why is a singer-songwriter and fan of Elvis, Bruce Springsteen,
Bob Dylan and roots rock and roll being so effusive about Opera?
Well I'm not talking about opera music here, nor the Phantom of
the Opera. I am talking about Opera - the third most popular
browser on the internet.
What is a Browser?
This is a software product which allows one to surf the world
wide web and also receive and send email and use other software
applications such as instant messaging. Microsoft's Internet
Explorer is the most commonly used browser and Netscape is
second. AOL has it's own browser which is actually a version of
Netscape which they now own.
Most cyber surfers are quite unaware that they have an option
beyond these two. Microsoft and AOL are able to monopolize the
internet in this fashion. But there are choices. In this article
I am going to review a few points of the available browsers.
Internet Explorer - If there is any way that I can get away from
IE then I am open to it. It is enough that Microsoft monopolizes
the internet with their Windows Operating System, it is a bit
much that I have to also use their browser. This having been
said, there are certain very positive features that make
Internet Explorer quite efficient. Thumbs Up - 1. If you are
needing to fill out a lot of forms or enter your password many
times as in checking email,etc. then IE is extremely user
friendly. It will actually recall your user id and other
information that you have entered into specific data entry slots
before so you can avoid having to re submit the info again and
again. It also is the only browser that I have found that works
with a software product called Gator which will recall your user
id, password and personal info, including credit card info and
pops up with the correct info every time that you visit that
same site where you submitted that info before. 2. You can drag
links to the browser tool bar and others are adaptable to be
included there for instance, Yahoo Instant Messenger and Yahoo
Companion( with access to all the cool Yahoo channels ), MSN
Messenger and other software products integrate directly into
your browser screen and are accessible. What is also good is
that you can remove them and also choose which of the various
bars you want to see on your screen and which you don't. Thumbs
Down - 1. It can be quite slow to load and even more so if you
add more features into your tool bars. 2. It can crash often. 3.
It is often targetted by hackers.
Netscape -
THUMBS DOWN!
There used to be many Netscape fanatics. In fact, it predates
Internet Explorer and many people were quite loyal to it. Within
the last couple of years though it was co-opted and corrupted by
AOL who now own Netscape. AOL has done such a thorough job of
messing it up that it is receiving very negative reviews in
every case that I have seen. A friend who used to love Netscape
wrote a blistering review of it and it was all true. She stated
that it looked like "Internet Explorer in a clown outfit". It
crashes, it takes a long time to load if you can get it to load
at all, it is slow, etc. Avoid Netscape 6.0
Thumbs Up
Netscape 4.73, the previous version is a much better product and
you may like certain features that are not in IE such as the
integrated html editor, the integrated email features and more.
Neoplanet - Thumb sort of in the middle.
This is actually IE in disguise again. The difference between
this and IE is that you can choose how it appears, you can
choose to add or subtract certain tabs not available in IE and
you can integrate an email account into it. On the other hand,
you cannot drag software products onto its tool bar as you can
with IE. So, it is prettier than IE and in some ways more
functional, and in some ways less functional. This is just a
matter of preferance.
Now we get to the exciting part -
Enigma - Thumbs UP - This is a very lightweight browser that
will download in a couple of minutes. It will provide you a no
frills and far more rapid access to the internet than IE will.
It has integrated email with your email server be it Outlook
Express, Hotmail (both Microsoft products) or Eudora or any
other email client and has the basic features, bookmarked
favorite sites, etc as in IE. Thumbs Down - Not as sophisticated
or multi functional as IE, BUT it gets you out of the yolk of
having to use Microsoft and it is the fastest of all the
browsers I have tested by far. The name - it is far from an
Enigma, I would say that Netscape 6.0 is much more of an enigma.
Opera - Big Thumb Way Up! This is the third most popular browser
behind IE and Netscape. There is even an "Opera for Dummies"
book. A sure sign that you have made it in this modern
sophisticated time period of history is if they write a "for
dummies" book about your product. Then you made the big time! :)
This is strictly a browser that is excellent for research and
for pure fun - it is full of many preset links to web sites
under just about any topic. For instance, if you go to
"lifestyles" under the bookmarks tab it will take you to 35
different sites on subject as diverse as cooking, gardening to
sites for parents and for senior citizens, etc. Then you can go
to its sub headings, for instance "travel" which has about 35
sites on weather in different regions, access to hotel and
airfare arrangements,etc. Or you can go to the "computers"
subheading and find links to sites with names like "how the
internet came to be", "how to fight spam", "cool site of the
day", "search engine tutorials" etc and then subheadings to
several key categories such as the technology of HTML (the code
used to design web sites) and anti virus software. I could go
on. Additionally, there are all sorts of features on how you can
customize what you are viewing to your own preferences, none of
these options are available in other browsers. Email is
integrated nicely and you can import favorites from IE or from
Netscape.
I would like to point out that the difference between a
wonderfully user friendly and helpful browser like Opera and the
arrogance of AOL is that with Opera you are given access to tons
of web sites right from your browser window that provide you
with excellent information for whatever subject you may be
interested in. AOL on the other hand co-opts the internet into
its own "channels" which are less informative, less helpful and
which are presented in such a way as to make you less likely to
become more interested in the subject. Not to mention that it is
arrogance beyond belief to try to sell customers that AOL is the
internet when it is a very diluted, very inferior alteration of
what is available if you use a product like Opera. AOL may have
limited use for someone who is just a dabbler at the internet
and wants everything presented to them in bite size portions. It
is like Internet lite or maybe a TV dinner version of the
internet. Aside from the fact that AOL is inferior in quality
and features as regards its email and connectivity and many
other things that you would use the internet for.
Thumb down - Does not have the ability to integrate other
software products and remember passwords, etc as does IE. Tends
to be a bit slow so far in my usage. There are two versions -
one is free but has a big ad banner in the tool bar and the
other is $39.
These are the key players in the WWW Browser game. What I do is
I use IE when I am doing something where I will need to fill out
a lot of forms, I use Opera for doing research and I use Enigma
when I need to fly through many pages rapidly. This is the best
combination I have been able to develop. Maybe someday someone
will come up with a single browser that serves all purposes.
Hopefully it will not be Microsoft.
About the author:
Gary Konigsberg www.failsafemarketing.com The Best Marketing
Site on the Web! You Will Get Results!
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