I’ve been having a lot of trouble with Firefox lately. Some combination of Javascript, Windows Vista, and the latest Firefox 3 release candidate were conspiring to crash my browser literally every time that I closed the Gmail tab. Every time. Even after starting a new profile with no extensions. It became most vexing
To my delight, I discovered that Opera 9.5 had just been released. Opera is a free web browser, more commonly used in nonstandard devices like mobile phones and Wiis, but they’ve just released a new version of their browser for the desktop.
One of the neatest features to me is the integration of email into the browser. I can hook into my GMail’s IMAP server and then read and respond to my email from a sidebar, without ever having to open up the Gmail site. It’s wonderfully fast.
The interface is clean and slick in this new version. The new keyboard shortcuts are different from Firefox—for example, Ctrl-K, which in Firefox moves the cursor to the search box, instead downloads emails in Opera—but Opera allows a lot of customization in the keyboard shortcut panel, and I’ve been able to change the shortcuts that matter to me.
One of the few frustrations I have with Opera is that it has one bizarre behavior: When copying a selection from the internet, it strips out all of the formatting (pictures, links, bold, italics, etc.), and there’s no option to copy with formatting.
Other than that one issue, I love it. It’s a fast, beautiful browser that’s secure and rock-solid. And it has a nifty and fast built-in email client. You should really check it out.