Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Browsers
Opera web browser turns 15
by Brad Linder Apr 28th 2009 at 2:00PM
Back in 1994, Firefox wasn't even a twinkle in the eyes of the team working on the popular Netscape browser. And Microsoft didn't release Internet Explorer 1 until 1995.
Over the last 15 years, Opera has continually added features that were later adopted by other browsers, including tabs, mouse gestures, speed dial bookmarks, and full page zoom.
To celebrate the anniversary, Opera has put together a portal with a comic strip, 15 reasons to try Opera, and a list of innovations that showed up first in the Opera browser.
You might also want to check out Opera.com today for a quick refresher on what the web looked like 15 years ago.
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I don't know if this is a labor of love or merely the brainchild of four very gifted games designers, but Level Up is a really weird mash-up of gaming elements that you have probably never seen in a Flash game before.
Let's start with the premise itself: Groundhog Day meets Memento. The game experience revolves around 'days': you explore the world and the clock slowly ticks towards the evening. You bounce around picking up gems and talking to the denizens of 'Level Upland'. Eventually you feel tired and head back to ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
der_tuxman said 2:17PM on 4-28-2009
Ehm, fail; Opera was NOT the first tabbed browser (it was InternetWorks, also back in 1994), the same applies to Full Page Zoom (dunno which one had it earlier, though).
And Opera sucks. Compared to Firefox. :)
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a said 2:23PM on 4-28-2009
i'll switch to opera if it supports bookmark toolbar with icons. right i'll stick with chrome.
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Hylic said 2:39PM on 4-28-2009
Tools>Appearance>Toolbars> and check off Personal Bar
To add a bookmark there just drag it or right click>properties and check off show in personal bar.
Kenn.keeper said 2:43PM on 4-28-2009
I have been using Opera for over 7 years now and find it still to be one of the best browsers to use. It's all a matter of choice on what browser you choose and yes Firefox is my #2 choice. I also base my choice on speed and mem usage (check your Task Manager)....Users of FF have a habit of wanting to add all kinds of bells and whistles offered in the add-ons section, which ultimatly slows down the browser, me, I just want a browser that works good.....
Kenn.....
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ZeRo said 2:57PM on 4-28-2009
but i love my bell and whistles.
der_tuxman said 2:44PM on 4-28-2009
Kenn: You don't /have/ to install add-ons. :)
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Kenn.keeper said 2:52PM on 4-28-2009
Please read posts carefully, I was not refering to you had to add anything to FF. Most, not all users of FF have a habit of wanting to add all kinds of bells and whistles offered in the add-ons section,
TheAngryGamer said 3:02PM on 4-28-2009
I'm with Kenn. I love Opera, and have for years. I've never, ever had a problem with it, and it has always seemed cutting edge to me, as well as extremely fast. My favorite thing about it has been the small memory footprint that's been relatively consistent over the years.
All of that said, FF 3.1B3 (haven't been home yet to d/l 3.5 B4) is by far my browser of choice *right now*. Its speed is unreal, and startup time blows me away every single time I fire it up. Matched with the latest Ubuntu beta, and I'm loving my machine more and more by the day.
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cmsb55 said 7:27AM on 4-29-2009
I tried Opera once and really liked it except for the fact that Gmail didn't ever seem to work correctly with it as it wasn't officially supported. Opera seemed to have problems rendering other sites as well. In the end, I simply couldn't live without my add-ons.
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Ari B said 1:28PM on 4-29-2009
Here here, 15 great years of progress. I love opera, and yes its probably just because I started using it before firefox that I love it so much but once I found Ctrl+B (paste and go) I was hooked for life, keep up the great work!
p.s. the one site that stinks is airtran.com you can go through the whole purchase process but for some reason the final "buy" button doesn't work . . . I blame Airtran :-D
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