Opera’s in tune

Opera isn’t really to my musical tastes, at least not very often. Though, when it comes to web browsing, Opera’s my first stop.

Opera is definitely not unheard of, it’s the most popular mobile browser, and with good reason. But when it comes to computer web browsing, Opera yields one of the smallest market shares of major web browsers with a mere 2.15% (Dec 2010). For me this makes no sense. I have used IE, Firefox, Chrome, Lunascape and of course Opera. Out of all of these, it has became clear to me that Opera leads innovation in web browsing. For all that don’t use Opera, here’s five reasons why you might want to give it a go.

1. Opera turbo

I believe this is Opera’s best and most useful feature. Turbo decreases the quality of images and web graphics on websites to improve page-loading speeds in times of slow internet speeds. Until I was at university I had no use for this. But now, in times of high traffic, Turbo can help me browse the internet with fewer speed bumps. It can easily be turned on and off, so when your internet is back up-to-speed you can view images and web graphics in the quality they were produced.

2. Opera text-to-speech

All you have to do is highlight text and right-click speak. It’s by far the best text-to-speech engine that I’ve used to date; it hasn’t pronounced one word incorrectly to date. Furthermore, you can change gender, pitch and confidence level to make the voice you hear in tune with your ears.

3. Convenience

Though I underuse mouse gestures, they have the potential of being a great convenience to web browsing. All that needs to be done is a right click and then a drag in whatever direction corresponds to your desired function i.e. left = back. See below for all gestures.

Another great convenience feature in Opera that I make great use of is Speed Dial. When a new tab is opened, I have all of my pre-chosen favourite webistes boxed out. See below.

One can choose how many boxes are visible on this screen. Each box is numbered, and if these numbers are remembered, they can be used to redirect to these pages with great speed from whatever your current tab is. For example, if I was on twitter.com and wished to redirect to facebook.com, I could merely use the keyboard shortcut ctrl 2, and facebook.com would load, as facebook.com is number 2 in my Speed Dial menu.

4. Opera Unite

Opera Unite brings in the community aspect of Opera. In Unite you can share files with friends as well as having online space to store files, a free solution to online back-up.

5. Support the under dog

It’s always been my ethos to support the underdog. Not just any underdog, but one who’s voice is yet to be truly heard, yet under the covers is actually leading the way forward. I believe Opera’s voice is yet to be truly heard, but when it is, I can say “Hell, I’ve been using it for ages, you should have listened to me when I told you about why Opera’s better than other leading browsers!”

So why not give Opera a go? I promise you, you will not be let down by what the browser has to offer. O is the way to go! http://www.opera.com/browser/