May 13, 2004
opera 7.5
It's been a while since I spent any time in Opera so today I downloaded the latest release, version 7.5. It's pretty much the same as I remember -- small download, fast rendering, and awful UI. I know I'm partisan so feel free to chock up my complaining to just the lunatic ramblings of a Mozilla party hack -- but man, this UI is just horrible. What I consider most horrible about it is that the very UI which should help me adjust the app's primary interface to make it better (things like the "view" menu and the preferences window) are completely unusable to someone who isn't familiar with them.
For example, when I first launched Opera, it had this funky vertical toolbar on the left side and I, naturaly, wanted to get rid of it, so I go to the view menu figuring I'd be able to easily turn it off. There's a sub-menu labeled "toolbars" and after unchecking and rechecking every item on that submenu, the vertical toolbar is still there. I guess it's not really a toolbar. Then I see above the toolbar menuitem is an item called "panels" which I guess is the name they've given this vertical toolbar. Great! I'll just uncheck the Panel item and that'll turn it off. Not so fast! It's not a menuitem, it's a sub-menu. Well, maybe the sub-menu will have a simple checkbox for showing or hiding the panel. Ha! Did I forget that this is Opera? The submenu has checkboxes representing each and every one of the buttons on this vertical panel toolbar thing but no apparent item to disable it completely. After unchecking all of them, I'm still stuck with an empty, somewhat collapsed, toolbar. I go back to the panels menu and therer are a couple of other sub-menus that look like they control panel placement so I decide that if I can't get rid of the thing then maybe I can at least put it at the top or the bottom of the window where it can blend in with all that other wasted space. Expanding the panel placement sub-menu, I finally stumble across the "Off" menu item. View -> Panels -> Panel Placement -> Off!?
WTF?!
I'm not even going to get into my fun with the horizontal toolbars except to ask who thought it was a great idea to have two navigation toolbars?
I'm no internet newbie. I'd even go so far as to call myself an "advanced" user but this is clearly just overboard. My reaction to the Opera UI can be summed up like this: Opera makes SeaMonkey look lean.
I'm sure there are some Opera fans reading this and I want to like Opera, or at least some of it's features, so maybe you can enlighten me. What's to like about this application's interface. Where does it really excell at helping me accomplish my web tasks better, faster, more convenient? Also, is there an easy way to hack that banner ad out of the chrome -- something like a userChrome.css file?
Also, are there other browsers with more elegant interfaces that use the Opera rendering engine. It's actually quite zippy and displays pretty much all the sites I visit regularly without problems. If there was a Firefox equivalent for Opera, a cleaned up interface with sane defaults, and something significantly less than Opera's 10 toplevel menus with 300+ menuitems, I think I'd use it -- maybe even as much as I use my other secondary browsers, Safari and IE.
Oh, and kudos to the Opera marketing folks for putting together that great startpage deal with Lycos that gives me three pop-ups every time I start. Good work.
Posted by asa at May 13, 2004 12:35 AMpanels:
View -> Panels -> Panel placement -> Off
You can disable the ads by paying for the browser ;)
Posted by: Brian Matzon on May 13, 2004 12:45 AMI partly agree, but luckily, Opera's interface is quite customizable. You probably want Munin (a cleaner, more Firefox-like setup).
There are some nice skins too, including a port of Qute.
Hope that helps. :-)
Posted by: RafG on May 13, 2004 01:15 AMYou can also disable the ads by using Firefox ;)
Posted by: Kayman on May 13, 2004 01:59 AMHey, I took the liberty of linking to your blog at mozillazine
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=76364
Expect the regular opera spammers to hit your blog soon :)
You must turn on the popup blocker, you must select the Google ad-bar, etc.
You don't even want Opera to be good, it appears, so you can write a negative review that is based more on your laziness, and grudging download of Opera more than anything else it appears!!! :(
Your customization options with toolbars, mouse gestures, appearance, etc. is far more reaching than you can find with Firefox/Mozilla.....believe me....I know what I'm talking about, being a savvy veteran of all browsers on the market!!!
Take a deep breath...ask questions in the Opera Forums, if you must...learn it, and enjoy it....it is great!!!
Your loss, though, I guess......Opera simply rocks!!! :)
Posted by: treego on May 13, 2004 02:13 AMtreego, he looks at the Opera browser as it is delivered to his computer. Opera immediately looks bloated on first install whereas Firefox looks lean. And ofcourse Fx enables the popupblocker and Opera does not.
Maybe Opera should give an option after install to start as: IE or Fx Lookalike or Opera's default.
Posted by: Ferdinand on May 13, 2004 02:23 AMuntil Opera has adblocking as powerfull as Firefox (http://adblock.mozdev.org) it will not be my primary browser.
I have not yet downloaded the latest build, but have been using one of the previews. It's ui is a bit moe clunky thay FF, but i think it is a bit faster, tho ff is rarely noticably slow at repainting the ui now :D
As long as it gets more people away from legacy browsers *cough* IE *cough* I will be happier as a web designer.
That is not the default look, though, so it's hardly fair. You have enabled two toolbars manually, and that is why the ads are not just a narrow strip as they would be normally.
Anyone can write a biased and misleading "review" like this. It is misleading and completely lacks objectivity. Not only that, but you set out to make Opera look as bad as possible, just to make a point.
One can do that to Firefox too. Imagine this review:
Firefox first impressions:
- WTF? The download is almost twice the size of Opera!
- WTF?! It doesn't even have an e-mail client! This is 2004 you know.
- WTF is that useless spinning thing in the top right corner? Why doesn't it give you any useful info?
- And who made that ugly and childish default theme?
- Hey! Where is my proper tabbed browsing? How do I open tabs with this thing?
- Hey! My keyboard shortcuts don't work! It doesn't seem to have many useful keyboard shortcuts at all.
- It doesn't have mouse gestures?! WHAT?!
- WTF? Why don't JS popups open inside the program like they should?
- Where is the zoom?
- Where is the hotclick menu and the quick prefs?
- Huh? It doesn't have notes?
- What's with the terrible way transfers are handled? Why not just use a simple panel like Opera?
- WHAT! I can't even open a "manage links" page?
- WTF, I have to RESTART to install themes and extensions? What kind of crap is this?
Oh, I get it! I have to download "extensions" for all these things!
Extensions that don't even work together and add clutter? Wasn't clutter what we wanted to avoid in the first place? So now my options are basically:
a) Keep the defaults and get a browser without most of the useful features I need, or
b) Spend hours searching for and downloading extensions that clutter up the UI and cause slowdown and crashes
You seriously expect me spend hours digging through hundreds of buggy extensions to find what I need, when I can just use Opera, which I can customize to my liking in a couple of minutes?
Thanks but no thanks.
End of possible review of Firefox.
Posted by: sas on May 13, 2004 02:54 AMOh yeah, and what's with the incredible lag when you try to go back with Firefox? Opera goes back instantly when you gesture back. (Hmm, can't use mouse gestures in Firefox by default. Must spend hours trying to find a gesture extension which actually works!)
Posted by: sas on May 13, 2004 02:59 AM"- WTF?! It doesn't even have an e-mail client! This is 2004 you know."
That's about the lamest comment I've heard for a long time. Does Internet Explorer have an e-mail client? No, it's a browser. Does Firefox have an e-mail client? No, it's a browser! Is a mail client available? Of course. Outlook Express and Thunderbird, respectively.
Posted by: David Tenser on May 13, 2004 03:17 AMTo the Opera fans, remember that Firefox was created for those who found the Seamonkey interface too cluttered and bloated.
Opera goes completely in the opposite direction to Firefox. It caters for different needs, firefox should make any user familiar with IE feel at home, they can then be gradually introduced to the features that Firefox has over IE and then the more advanced users can play with extensions.
Opera seems like the equivalent of a browser with 500 extensions already installed, so looks overly complex for just about everyone. But power users may find Opera good.
It doesn't really matter if you agree or disagree with this. The point is we've gotgood alternatives to IE and whether you prefer Opera, Firefox, Safari, Seamonkey or Konq then you're still getting a better experience than IE.
So yes I agree with Asa as will most people who switched to Firefox because Seamonkey was too feature ridden, people who thought Seamonkey wasn't advanced enough will love Opera.
Choice is good, and if you're reading this blog you've probably got the skill to try all the browsers you want until you see a perfect fit.
Unlike what MS thinks - one size does not fit all.
Posted by: David Hallowell on May 13, 2004 03:23 AM"Not only that, but you set out to make Opera look as bad as possible, just to make a point."
Yes, of course. That would be why he mentions that it has "small download, fast rendering, and awful UI." Those first two points really make Opera look as bad as possible. Also the comment about how Opera is "actually quite zippy and displays pretty much all the sites I visit regularly without problems." Because of course, being fast and displaying sites properly are signs of a browser that is as bad as can be.
Also, sas, your 'review' of Firebird, contains false information; as far as I can tell (I may be wrong), Asa's contains none. It primarily just contains just one opinion: that the UI sucks. While you may disagree with this opinion, it is still a valid point: there are probably thousands out there that do agree with him and I am sure that most UI experts would have the same opinion as well.
Though I must commend the Opera developers because they are making big leaps in terms of UI design. The new 7.5 previews' interface is orders of magnitude better than that of the 7.2 browsers and I hope they continue to improve it.
Posted by: Will on May 13, 2004 04:27 AMI have to say that I've heard some of the most absurd things in this journal.
The worst being, you realize you are using a shareware software, and still you want to remove the ad banner by some "hack". That is not only unethical, but also illegal.The fact that they allow you to choose google Ads in their adbar is a really good option I'd say, you can be sure to not have stupid looking intrusive ads.
Secondly, you talk about the UI being absurd. Well I agree with you that the DEFAULT UI with which Opera sends/markets is UI, is pretty repulsive. However, I am pretty sure you did not even experiment around with the UI to see how customizable it actually is. To remove that panel bar on the right, all you need to do is: Right click the panel bar -> Panel Placement -> Off. Not that tough a task really.
While I agree to an extent that it does contain lots of top/sub level menus, but I believe that is the key to how customizable the browser is. You can make it look like literally anything. Anyhow, If you really find that doing all this is tough, you can go have a look around Opera's site, they have a section with list of custom UI's modified by many people and if you happen to like any of them just click a link and Opera will ask you to apply the UI, as simple as that. The same goes for custom built buttons/icons/panels. It can end up looking a LOT cleaner than Firefox.
What everyone should keep in mind is that Opera's UI is almost infinitely customizable, trust me much more than you can customize Firefox. And it's not that hard to do either.
Before anyone plans on screaming "BLOAT!!",...if you don't want the mail/chat features of Opera, DO NOT USE THEM. While all this comes in a file of less than 3.5MB, still you have an option in preferences to disable them, and you won't be bothered by them ever again. So please refrain from complaining about that.
If you want to seense the customizability of Opera, visit this page: http://nontroppo.org/wiki/Opera7/
Me off.
Posted by: Toxicfume on May 13, 2004 05:31 AMDavid Tense: Exactly! Get with the times dude. E-mail+browser=true. This is 2004, not 1999. Firefox and IE are soooo outdated.[/troll] :) See? I can write like he does in his "review" too. And did it occur to you that maybe Opera is *more* than just a browser?
Will: He made the UI look as bad as possible just to mislead people. Opera does *not* look like that screenshot by default.
Bottom line: Anyone can make something look bad, with enough misleading, inflammatory, and opinionated comments.
Posted by: Nerxo on May 13, 2004 06:12 AMInteresting comments here.
I use Firefox on Windows, I use Safari on my Mac (and sometimes Firefox here too). Before that I used IE, because Seamonkey was bloated, and before Seamonkey was bloated I used Seamonkey (because then it had the cool white/striped theme). Since I started with the internet I used a mail client separate from my web browser.
I don't like Opera, not because it's pay-ware, but more because it's defaults don't match my way of thinking. Sure, you can turn things off. How many users spend their first 1/2 hour with Opera turning stuff off? I also agree that View->Panels->Panel Placement->Off is not logical.
However, much like (insert whichever flameware you like here), it's not going to end it.
Posted by: Patrick on May 13, 2004 07:03 AMKeyboard shortcuts. That's pretty much the one thing that keeps me coming back to Opera everytime. Let's say I want to move to the previous tab and move back in the history a couple of pages. In Opera that's 1, z, z, z. In Firefox it's either Ctrl+Shift+Tab (a.k.a bending my hand in a horrific fashion across the left side of my keyboard) or Ctrl+PageUp, which either means I have to take my right hand off the mouse and hit or move my left hand all the way across the keyboard. For 'back' it's much the same case. This may not sound like much, but once you factor in Firefox's slight delay and the fact that you can't seem to change tabs using the keyboard while a page is loading this has a major effect on how fast I can browse.
I tried to change the keyboard options, but there's nothing in Preferences or Advanced Preferences. "Aha! Firefox has a million and one extensions!", I thought to myself, "Surely one handles the basic task of changing keyboard shortcuts?" Before about a month ago, there would be nothing that does this. But now there is keyconfig! All my problems are solved? Well, no, as I know from trying to change keyboard shortcuts 'manually' by changing an xml file in toolkit.jar (toolkit.jar\content\global\widgets\tabbox.xml to change the bindings for next/previous tabs, although this from almost a year ago so maybe it's been changed), keyboard shortcuts seem to be all over the place in Firefox, and keyconfig only handles a small subset of those available. Compare this to Opera, which has an intuitive, profile-based keyboard setup right there in the preferences dialogue. Practically everything is customisable, right down to the keys for navigating drop-down boxes. The same goes for mouse gestures.
And that's why I use Opera.
Posted by: jobby on May 13, 2004 07:19 AMIf I can fit in a comment about the original article...
> What's to like about this application's interface.
> Where does it really excell at helping me accomplish my
> web tasks better, faster, more convenient?
For you personally, it seems like not much. But if you were the kind of person that wants to learn the interface and spend a lot of time messing around with it, then it's probably faster, better and more convenient than downloading Firefox and Thunderbird and trying to make 34 extensions with various incompatibilities work together and then doing some hacking around with the userChrome file trying to make things work as they weren't designed to do.
> Also, is there an easy way to hack that banner ad out of the chrome
> -- something like a userChrome.css file?
This comment seems rather out of line. Of course there isn't an easy way of hacking it out - it'd be rather stupid if there was. The easy way to get rid of the ads is to pay for the software.
Actually I believe there are hacked ad-free versions available from warez sites (at least that was true for previous versions), but that's no more legal than any other software piracy. Opera is not free software. If you don't want to pay or watch the ads, then you shouldn't be using it.
Posted by: michaell on May 13, 2004 07:21 AMOK, this is hilarious. I love the opera trolls, you must give credit to a group of people who can take one person’s comments and twist them into some kind of personal insult against them. So Asa doesn't like the UI (and options therein) of Opera, big deal. It's not like he's making fun of your mom. Jeeze, you people need to lay off the medication (or maybe take some) and step back (please wipe the froth from your mouths too). Did you really expect him to come out with a glowing review of this browser? I mean seriously.
I've messed with opera and I certainly didn't like it for various reasons. But, I can't really make a perfect judgment because I never really gave it much of a chance. I've been a Mozilla user since the very beginning and I followed the natural evolution of the suite until Phoenix came along and I fell in love.
Now lets address a jab in one of the above posts:
The request for a hack to remove the ads: Who the hell needs to pay for a browser? This is 2004 you know? How many payware browsers are there out there? Why waste my perfectly useful capital on a browser? And don't complain that the payment is for "development" purposes, if they want donations then ask for them and a good user will oblige, don't cripple the software to receive monetary funding.
Now if you want to flame me feel free to answer to the email above and lets try and keep Asa's notblog* comments for real responses.
Posted by: flatrabbit on May 13, 2004 07:38 AMI'm a firm firefox user (I'm young see and no wrinkles yet) however l do love opera in many ways.
That side bar can be removed by right clicking on it >> panel placement >> off.
However after prolonged use of Firefox it does feel like bloat. And it feels a bit overwhelming/confusing. Whether it is is another matter. Also it does look messy and cluttered to me.
However some customisation and it looks more normal and clean. So long as people take a few moments to bother doing this that is.
Feature wise it does some things a lot better than firefox, the way tabs work means that someone that has never used them before has no difficulty in using them from the moment they pick up the browser. It teaches them to use tabs by forcing them as the main way to browse.
This is great as it's the one real killer feature all non IE browsers have that really sells.
I also liked the spell checker so much that I went to great lengths to install one on firefox, which at the end of the day is still my preferred browser.
Opera is a close second though.
There's a lot more to say but I'm too lazy :D
PS Don't jump on Asa his comments I feel are indicative of how many people that are unfamiliar with opera will see it. Take those comments on board and if you find them of no value say so politely.
So asa is allowed to post misleading comments with a screenshot he pretends is the default setup, but anyone who criticizes it is a troll?
Typical Mozillaist attitude. That's why I never go to the MozillaZine forums anymore. The attitude sucks.
Posted by: flatulencerabbit on May 13, 2004 08:00 AMHa Ha, thanks for the daily laugh troll. I see you can make insulting names in the user input fields, I'm impressed. But didn't I ask politely to email me and not use this comments page as a personal flame posting? At least do so and don't sully Asa's page with your immaturity.
Posted by: flatrabbit on May 13, 2004 08:10 AMhalf of these comments are as immature as the article itself.
i'm a opera user but i would like to switch to ff because the last version of opera had some irritating bugs in it. but i tried to find a decent mouse-gesture extension but no one that worked for me (and no one that was easy to set up). and i also want the links to open in a new tab by default but i tried to find a setting for it without luck.
so i'm sticking with opera until ff comes through with mouse gestures and decent settings.
Posted by: andreas on May 13, 2004 08:25 AMQuote:
"That is not the default look, though, so it's hardly fair. You have enabled two toolbars manually, and that is why the ads are not just a narrow strip as they would be normally."
Umm... I hate to say this, but I just downloaded Opera 7.5, uninstalled my previous version and deleted my old profile and you know what? That screenshot *is* the default UI - There are actually two navigation bars and all that useless cruft enabled by default. It looks to me like you haven't actually tried this release version - please check your facts before making blanket statements and false accusations.
Posted by: Neil Jenkins on May 13, 2004 09:16 AMActually, you should check your own facts Neil Jenkins. Have a look here:
http://www.opera.com/docs/screenshots/750/
That's the default look of Opera(just minus the Ad banner) out of the box. So you must've not done your uninstallation properly or messed up somewhere. Please re-check your owns facts before claiming someone else is wrong.
Posted by: Toxicfume on May 13, 2004 10:17 AM> Also, is there an easy way to hack that banner ad out of the chrome --
> something like a userChrome.css file?
It's called "$39". If you want to use Opera for free, you gotta view the ads.
Posted by: Alderete on May 13, 2004 10:22 AMNo, I installed Opera 7.5 for Linux, removed the .opera Folder and chose the graphical ads (i don't like to send every address i surf to to google) and the UI looks exactly the same as on asa's weblog.
Posted by: Thomas on May 13, 2004 10:28 AMIf you choose to display the ad-banner (as opposed the google ads) when starting Opera, his picture is (sadly) exactly how Opera looks after installing it. It will look a bit better if you choose the google ads, but the personal bar (the one with "opera", "opera community", etc.) will still be on by default. Imho it would have been better if it looked like in the screenshot that Toxicfume gave the URL to, but for that to happen you must manually switch off one toolbar first.
The default UI is cluttered :(
But it can also look like this:
http://www.greywyvern.com/img/misc/opera-adot.png
I decided to try out the new opera as well-- and i agree-- same horrid UI, and that damn vertical toolbar took forever to figure out how to turn it off. opera is a pretty decent size company, don't they have focus groups for this sort of thing?
Posted by: Patrick on May 13, 2004 11:10 AMI'm a loyal firefox fans, but somehow i feel that this review is too biased. Firefox and Opera are very much different; however one thing they both share in common is that they cater for power users. If one can spend hours fiddling with firefox extensions and userChrome.css, it shouldn't be difficult to explore the possibilities of Opera either. For instance, to hide the Panel bar, simply click on the left-most edge of the Panel. I bet that is almost the easiest way one can think of.
And really, Asa, you shouldn't find a 'hack' to turn off the banner of a Shareware...
Anyway, I do agree that the menu is too cluttered and needs some major cleanup. Who would need a default of so many bookmarks?
Posted by: Cheng Khoon on May 13, 2004 11:18 AMWhat!? You say Opera is more customizable than Firefox. Blasphemy! Can you make the entire Opera window blink, just by creating two one-line files. I didn't think so.
Posted by: Will on May 13, 2004 01:37 PMTo get rid of the Opera banner image:
Rename or delete /usr/share/opera/images/operabanner.png (Linux), similar path on Windows?
To get rid of the ads:
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=1331&offset=45&rows=60
Block these domains in your hosts file or Junkbuster/Privoxy blockfile.
ins1.opera.com
ins2.opera.com
rgs1.opera.com
rgs2.opera.com
rps1.opera.com
rps2.opera.com
www.cms1.net
www.cms2.net
www.rgs1.net
www.rgs2.net
www.bns1.net
www.bns2.net
Y'know, the *default* download of Opera is the Java version, so unless you choose the other radio button on the download page, yuo're looking at a 15.9 MB download. Ouch.
Posted by: Greg K Nicholson on May 13, 2004 04:49 PMI'm a loyal Firefox user, but I'm ashamed to be one after some of the stupid, biased comments from other FF users on this page.
I agree that FF isn't as customizable as Opera - sure, you can make the entire UI blink by editing a CSS file, but you can't, for example, change the position of the tab bar, or do this sort of stuff to it. Truthfully now, which is more useful?
And Greg, if you add Java to the FF download, it's an 18MB download...
And why do people immediately want to remove that side bar from Opera 7.5? I had a look at it, and the point is that Opera is heading toward a complete, integrated, internet program with mail, chat, notes, etc. and you're not supposed to remove that bar.
But I like my FF because I'm a cheapskate and because I don't mind fiddling with extensions.
Posted by: Ryan on May 13, 2004 11:28 PMTo get rid of the panel selector, what a pity you didn't try more or less what would open/close the Mozilla sidebar: just click on the left border of the browser! :-)
Posted by: Richard on May 14, 2004 04:23 AMI really hated the default UI of Opera 7.23 on Linux - it took me 30 minutes (and I'm no novice/slouch) to configure it to get rid of the abysmal screen clutter. Just tried 7.50 on Linux and it seems to be a little easier (not much) to get rid of the, yep, almost as abysmal default screen clutter. Maybe when they hit Opera 9, I won't have to spend ages fixing the default settings (I like maximum screen estate, whereas Opera seems to ship with minimum screen estate available).
Once you have tweaked the UI, Opera is a reasonable browser, but I see nothing in it that I need that isn't in Mozilla 1.6 already, so the fact it's closed source and adware unless I pay for it means I'm sticking with Mozilla.
Posted by: rkl on May 14, 2004 09:57 AMAny additional comments should continue on Asa's opera update post
Posted by: Kevin Brosnan on May 14, 2004 10:52 AMOpera owns, switched to opera7.5 for 1 week ago...
everything works better than in firefox, used firefox for 4 months...
No one is going to read this, but, I prefer the Opera browser because it renders much faster than any browser I have ever used. In my opinion, the mouse gestures are much cleaner and are much much easier to activate. When you perform a mouse gesture right-out-of-the-box, Opera notifies you that you've performed a mouse gesture and asks if you would like to turn it on. End of story! Firefox has its own merits. The install is much smaller, and I can carry it around on my USB drive. I feel, however, that Firefox is much slower overall (I've installed it on my hard drive as well) and slightly more buggy (forgivable as it is still in beta). There is a slight delay when changing tabs, going back/forward, transitioning to a new page, etc. Opera does this much faster, but at a "huge" price. Depending on the amount of memory you have installed (I have plenty), Opera can be a real memory hog. But then again, it also lets you set limits on the amount of memory it uses. I also prefer Opera's tab behavior. I like the way you can close all of your tabs and have a blank "desktop" open. I also miss some of the hotkeys in Opera when using Firefox: Keys "1" and "2" (next to the tilde) are previous and next tabs respectively, in Opera. Give it a try, you may be surprised.
P.S. The easiest/fastest way to turn off the sidebar is to right-click it and select Panel Placement -> Off.
Posted by: nash on June 1, 2004 05:01 PM