Free Opera and No Ads!

Finally, Opera has released my favorite Web browser as a free app! They even removed the banner ads now that they've got backing from the big guys (like Google and eBay). I've been using (and paying for) Opera since about version 5. Something to keep in mind is that it's so simple to use that you never realize the power you're sitting on until you go through one of the tutorials or check out the keyboard shortcuts or the mouse gestures. I still tend to use a combination of keyboard and mouse, but as most of my friends know I never learned to love my mouse, so I tend to like the keyboarding shortcuts more. However, there are times when I'm just browsing, reading news, looking at pictures, etc., and it's nice to just sit back and without touching the keyboard or even moving the mouse more than an inch on your mousepad you can open new windows, close the ones you're done with, go back in history, move forward, even go to a 'Next' link without having to move the mouse all the way to the bottom of the page.

One of my favorite things has been the F12 key:

With a quick click you can turn off sound, GIF animation, Java, disable javascript or your plugins, enable or disable your cookies, popups, or change the identity of your browser when you come across those rebel sites that only allow IE users. The funny thing is that this has always been a great browser, one of the first to offer true tab browsing and the first one I know of to have a built-in ability to block pop-ups.

Firefox is also an excellent browser and I've been using it equally, especially at work, because it was free and because of it's simplicity and compatibility with plug-ins I use in the office (by the way, they just released 1.07 about three days ago and if you're a loyal user you should upgrade soon). I won't abandon Firefox, but Opera is still my favorite, particularly now that it's FREE...

From W2Knews™:

Free Opera. Great Move, And No Ads.

This week, Opera Software announced the release of version 8.5 of its web browser, available on Microsoft's Windows, Apple's Mac OSX, Linux, FreeBSD, and Sun Solaris. The latest version is downloadable at no cost and without banner ads. Their revenues are generated via third parties such as Google and eBay and have grown more than the money they make from ads, so they now believe they can gain wider adoption by making their browser freely available for users. In fact, they want to beat Firefox which is the No. 2 player with 8.3% (Redmond's share being 86.3%). Here is the download:
http://www.w2knews.com/050926ED-Opera