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Opera is like that cute Lexus coupe, svelte and cool, exciting to drive and full of little touches that spell luxury and good design.
  technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

T e c h n o f i l e
Internet Explorer falling behind two other Windows browsers, Mozilla and Opera


August 17, 2003


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, The Post-Standard

   Internet Explorer is turning into a has-been. It could be time to switch to a more modern Web browser if you're a Windows user who's never tried (or even known about) an alternative browser.
   Internet Explorer hasn't kept up-to-date with its competition, and Microsoft says it's going to downgrade Internet Explorer from a standalone browser to an integrated part of MSN, the Microsoft Network online service.
   This sounds crazy to me, but Bill Gates is rich and I'm not, so I have to assume that he's got good reasons for orphaning the standalone version of Internet Explorer -- especially if Microsoft sees gold in them thar hills of MSN. The idea, as far as I can tell, is for Microsoft to exert greater control over the online activities of MSN users by directing them through a customized version of Internet Explorer.
   This sounds too much like Big Brother to me. I like Internet Explorer, although I can't recommend version 6, the current incarnation -- it's ripe with security problems, and that's just one of my complaints -- but I consider version 5.5 reliable and invitingly easy to use.
   But both version 5.5 and 6.0 of Internet Explorer are inexcusably old fashioned in a couple of important ways.
   Both Mozilla and Opera, IE's two modern competitors, can block popup windows automatically; Microsoft has yet to provide its users with such an essential function. Mozilla and Opera also offer tabbed windows as an option. Microsoft appears to be asleep in this area of design, too.
   Popup blockers can be added as extra, user-installed programs on any Windows PC, but they should not have to be. Mozilla and Opera treat unwanted popup windows at the source, where they can be controlled or eliminated quickly, without risking software conflicts.
   Mozilla, the free Web browser developed by hundreds of programmers working cooperatively for years, is so well designed that it's become the standard of reference for many Web sites. Mozilla is the browser equivalent of a Mercedes-Benz sedan, easy to drive, reliable as the sun and utterly boring to anyone under the age of 25.
   But Opera is like that cute Lexus coupe, svelte and cool, exciting to drive and full of little touches that spell luxury and good design. Opera is my choice among Windows browsers, but I enjoy using both.
   Opera is readily skinnable, too. Although I'm tempted to be a smart aleck and tell you that if you need to ask what "skinnable" means, you're probably over 30 and hopelessly lost in the sea of computerspeak, I'll resist and explain that a skinnable program is one that can change its looks totally with a quick makeover using a "skin." In the Windows version of Opera, you click an icon to change the skin. It's that easy. The Mac version is disappointing in this area, requiring some manual futzing to get the new skin to work.
   Both Mozilla and Opera handle tabbed windows well. In a tabbed-view browser, clicking a link that would normally open a new window tells the browser to create a new tab behind the current window. That tab displays its contents only when you click the tab to bring it to the foreground.
   All tabs are part of the main browser window. Once you get used to the way this works, you might find that regular browsers such as Internet Explorer seem implausibly clunky and old fashioned. Try it and see what you think.
   Mozilla is available from www.mozilla.org. Read the notices on the site, because a new version of Mozilla called Firebird will be available soon, and Firebird's optional companion e-mail software is already being praised for its design and safety. (I haven't tried it.) Mozilla is free in the Open Source manner, in which software is treated as a community resource.
   Opera is available from www.opera.com. It's not free (it costs $39) but you can use an ad-laden version of Opera without paying if you prefer. (But buy it if you can afford it. You'll be supporting the only major browser for Windows that tries to pay its own way.)
   Both Mozilla and Opera are available in non-Windows versions, too. I use Opera (along with two other browsers, OmniWeb and Safari) on my OS X Macintosh and have used both Mozilla and Opera on one of my Linux PCs. Differences between the Windows version of either browser and the Mac and Linux versions are minor.
   To Opera's credit, it still offers a version for the Be operating system (the most advanced of all operating systems in the mid-1990s) and for QNX, another advanced PC operating system. It also specializes in making all its browsers workable strictly from the keyboard. If you've been hoping to find a browser that can be used by someone with limited coordination or mobility, go to Opera's Web site and you'll probably find what you need.