Note: This is merely a product review being provided by the author for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing that is stated in this article is meant, nor shall be used to imply, construe or otherwise hint of a product endorsement. The content of this article is merely the personal opinion of the author, and should not under any circumstances whatsoever be used to imply, construe, or otherwise hint of an endorsement by Search-This, its authors or readers.

Overview

They say that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In the case of the World Wide Web, the blind people are the ones stuck using a single Web browser, usually without even being aware that alternative browsers exist (or against their will, if they are aware that other browsers exist). This is not a slam against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (which is installed by default on almost every computer running Windows); not at all. What I am saying is that sometimes you are stuck using a particular Web browser to browse the Web and get your work done online, and the particular site you are viewing “is best viewed in a browser other than the one you are using” because the person (or team) responsible for that particular Web site is either stuck in 1998, too lazy to code properly (or worse, doesn’t even know how to), or isn’t even aware that your browser exists in the first place (if the latter was the case, I am sure it would have been added to that site’s “browser sniffing” script once they became aware of it).

Now don’t get me wrong, most people are happy to use their computer’s default browser “just because it’s there” and “because it’s good enough for me” (my own brother included). As a Web developer, I respect the user’s choice, rather than forcing him or her to “Get Browser X” or “Download Browser Y” either out of greed (advertising revenue sharing) or ignorance that the browser doesn’t even exist. To kick off this article series, I’ll be covering one of these “oft-ignored” browsers: Opera. I’ll warn you now, this is a long article, and will be broken into two (possibly three) parts; I learned a lot more about Opera and what it can do “out of the box” than what even I thought was possible when I started researching the inner workings of this browser a month ago. (For the sake of Search-This’s readers, I solemnly swear to do my best to ensure that future articles are nowhere near as long.)

I’m not making this up. It really is a Web browser.

Time after time, when helping other Web designers and developers, I see the same “advice” used all the time. “You’re coding for Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer is displaying it wrong. Code for FireFox; then hack for IE.” Not only is this harmful to the health of your Web site (which I’ll cover in a future article), but it also leads people to believe that there are only two browsers on the market (Internet Explorer and FireFox). I’m sure that Microsoft, Google and the Mozilla Foundation appreciate the free advertising, but I like to keep all the options on the table. Opera is one of those options.

A (not so) brief history of the Opera Web browser

The brain-child of Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and Geir Ivarsøy, Opera got its start in 1994 as a research project at Telenor, Norway’s largest telecommunications company. A year later, the project was spun off as an independent development company called Opera Software ASA. 1997 saw the release of the first public version of Opera Software’s desktop browser, Opera 2.1. Despite being a leader in such technologies as MDI (Multiple Document Interface), which allowed the user to run more than one browser window while using just one instance of the program, managed logins, mouse gestures (introduced in Opera 8.0), integrated search, blocking in-line content, saved sessions, the browser’s own trash can, and tabbed browsing (which was based on MDI), the browser was horrible. Its rendering engine lagged behind the other desktop browser vendors for years, and thus was quickly regarded as an “also-ran” browser (for example, Opera 3.6 was roughly equal to Netscape Navigator 3.x, and really didn’t improve that much until Opera 7 came out in 2003), despite being older than either Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer (both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer were originally forks of the NCSA’s Mosaic Web browser). But given that this was the height of the “browser wars” between Microsoft Corporation and Netscape Communications, I can tell you that nobody really noticed, nor did they probably care.

Nor did people care that Opera Software’s vision of an emerging “Internet device market” materialized in the form of a project to port their browser to multiple platforms (such as Windows PC, Apple Macintosh and Unix/Linux boxes). This decision would ultimately lead Opera to become the market leader in the mobile and hand-held device industry, with their browser being the dominant software on various Internet-capable devices, such as PDAs (personal digital assistants), Web-enabled cell phones, even Sony’s PSP (PlayStation Portable) and Nintendo’s Wii gaming console. Not bad for a company that looks towards the future, a future in which they are not only the leaders of the non-standard device market, but also a promising alternative to the traditional device market (your computer) as well.

Fast-forward to 2001. That year, Opera Software signed an agreement with Symbian Ltd. to incorporate the browser on smart phones. Later that year, Opera 5 (which is the first version I was exposed to) reached a record 5 million downloads (it reached ten million desktop browser downloads two years later). You might not think that’s incredible, but it is for the simple fact that at the time, Opera was not free. It was commercial software, with a $40 price tag. That’s right folks; if you wanted to use this browser, you had to pay for it. It was also the first browser to have tabbed browsing (yep, that’s correct; Opera had it first, not Mozilla FireFox).

So, if the browser sucked so much, why wasn’t it relegated to the scrap heap with the other also-rans and has-beens? Because Opera wasn’t satisfied with just making money on the mobile market, that’s why. Think about it. You’re a mobile browser vendor, and you want to be the leader of that market. Yet when most people hear the word browser, they think of Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer (nowadays it’s Internet Explorer and FireFox). So how do you change that? Give your red-headed stepchild a makeover, that’s how.

And that’s exactly what they did. They re-wrote the browser from the ground up, starting with a new rendering engine, which they nicknamed “Presto”. The new rendering engine finally supported the W3C DOM Level 2 (though not completely), CSS 1 and 2, ECMAScript (an international client-side scripting standard very similar to JavaScript), and improved HTML 4.01 support, plus complete support for Wireless Markup Language versions 1.3 and 2.0. Add to that XML, HTTP 1.1, JavaScript 1.3, 128-bit encryption, SSL 2 and 3, and you had one heck of a punch. Opera 7 also introduced a new email client, M2, which included an integrated spam filter, new features like QuickFind and QuickReply, and automatically sorted and categorized emails by contact. It also supported POP3, IMAP, ESMTP and threaded displays, plus news servers with password authentication.

Opera 7 also had “The Wand” – and I do not mean the magician’s wand either (thought it might as well be). Not only did it let you “remember” passwords, but you could also log in to your favorite Web site with one single click of the wand, or by pressing CTRL (Cmd on a Mac) + Enter (Return on a Mac). Pretty neat, huh?

With a Web browser that had finally caught up with the standards, plus innovative features that everyone and their uncle would soon rip off wholesale, Opera finally had a winner. But there was still a catch. The price was not right. Sorry Bob Barker, but Opera still wasn’t free. Unless you wanted to put up with ads that were built into the browser chrome, you had to shell out $40 for the “premium” version of the browser (which, in addition to removing the ads also gave you direct access to Opera’s help desk).

All that changed on 20 September 2005 with the release of Opera 8.5. On that day, Opera Software released the first truly free version of their flagship desktop browser. No longer did you have to pay for it, or put up with the annoying advertisements. Just download and go. Opera 9.0 beta was also released around that time; one person I know took one look at it and said “This is a BETA? Seems just as stable (so far) as 8.5 was. You can tell they are appeasing Firefox converts with the addition of opera:config which is functionally identical to about:config… while the addition of support for XSLT, Web Forms 2.0 and Canvas2D puts it back ahead of the curve on innovation.” Enough of the history lesson, though. You want to see what Opera 9 has under the hood, don’t you?

A Peek Under the Hood

Unlike the above excerpt from “Family Guy” you don’t have to pay anything to use Opera anymore. It’s free. Not “free as in freedom” (like with FireFox) but “free as in beer.” So, what does Opera have under the hood? Good question. I’m going to start with the basics.

First off, Opera is a browser. A computer program available as a free download from Opera’s Web site (yes, it’s free, and no you don’t have to uninstall anything to use it). Simply download the file, run it, and let it do its thing. It’ll install itself for you, saving you the hassle of having to hold its hand through the entire installation process. It’s also relatively small, with the international English version coming in at 6.14 MB. While not as small as FireFox (4.5 MB last I checked), Opera does have a lot of features built right into the browser that are lacking from the open source Gecko-based browsers currently available (such as FireFox). Opera is also available for Macintosh and Unix/Linux machines as well. The standard English installer is only 4.7 MB with the classic English installer weighing in at 3.9 MB (for the record, I downloaded the International English version).

Rather than offering third-party extensions, Opera chooses to integrate the most useful features directly into the browser as a quality assurance measure. With third party plug-ins, only the developer is responsible (and let’s face it, the “developer” may be some 10 year old kid with a few weeks of programming experience – they’re not called “script kiddies” for nothing). I don’t know about you, but I prefer to see a vendor hold itself accountable in case it screwed something up. Opera can be extended with “widgets”, but I’ll talk about them once I have covered the basics.

Basic Training

No, this isn’t the Army or Marine Corps. You don’t have to worry about an ornery drill instructor waking you up at 0430 by screaming in your face calling you a filthy greenhorn maggot (or worse). I’m a nice guy, or so my therapist would say (if I had one). Let’s get started, shall we? The first thing to look at is tabbed browsing. Yes, FireFox has this, and even Internet Explorer 7 has it as well. But remember, Opera had it first. Tabbed browsing was introduced with Opera 5, which was based on the browser’s earlier MDI (Multiple Document Interface) technology. Using it is surprisingly easy. Just click on the “New Tab” button at the top of the browser (directly below the program menu) and voila, you’re done. Type the location of a Web page or site into the address bar and you’re off. Couldn’t be easier, or could it? Turns out there are other ways to open a new tab as well. You can press Ctrl T (hold the CTRL button down and press “T” – Mac users need to press CMD instead), right click over a link and choose “Open in New Tab” or “Open in Background Tab” and even press “Ctrl” “Shift” and “Enter” while the mouse is over a link (though this didn’t work on my copy of Opera). To close a tab, just press Ctrl W.

Importing bookmarks and favorites into Opera is also easy. All you have to do is go to File > Import and Export, then choose which bookmarks you wish to import into Opera. You can choose from older versions of Opera, Internet Explorer, Netscape, FireFox, and even Konqueror. I don’t have a Mac, so I can’t tell you if the Macintosh version of Opera will let you import bookmarks from Safari, Camino and iCab/OmniWeb, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it could.

Another great feature that Opera has is the trash can. If you ever close a tab (either intentionally or by mistake) you can get it back by clicking on the trash can, which is located near the upper right hand corner of the browser, or by pressing Ctrl+Z (which is the typical “Undo” command found in many computer programs). Click the little icon and choose the tab you want to bring back. That’s all there is to it. Just make sure you don’t close the browser; if you do, you’ll lose the tabs that are stored there.

If you ever close the entire browser, don’t worry. You won’t lose anything (other than what is in the trash can). All you have to do is re-start Opera, and it will ask you if you want to continue where you left off, start with a clean slate, or start with Opera’s home page. I’ve had this happen to me on occasion, and I always choose to pick up where I left off when it happens (in fact, while writing this article, I had two copies of Opera open when the browser crashed on me unexpectedly; not only did the browser ask me where I wanted to continue, but also re-opened both copies and reloaded all the tabs in them as well). You can also save your “session” with Opera for later. I’ve never used it, but it’s fairly easy to do. Just click File > Sessions > Save This Session. Then give your session a name and save it. You can have Opera start with your session each and every single time. I don’t do this, but like I said, I don’t use sessions anyway.

Searching for Web sites and pages is also very easy with Opera. Next to the address bar is the integrated search bar; it will let you search sites like Google, eBay, Amazon.com and others. Click on the search field, type in the words you want to search for, then press Enter. If you want to see multiple search results, right-click and select “Open in Background Tab” to make the link open in a background browser tab (you can also press Ctrl+Shift when clicking). Not only that, but you can also use the fast-forward button to make Opera go to the next search results page. If that wasn’t enough, you can also use the address bar, by typing a letter followed by a space and the search term, item or page you want to look for. For a list of available search field shortcuts, go to Tools > Preferences > Search. You can add new shortcuts by clicking the “Add” button and filling in the details of that site’s search engine. To make things even easier when adding a search engine to the integrated search bar, right-click in the search field and select Create Search. Opera will then add the new search engine to its list, allowing you to search that site directly from your browser.

Not In My Browser (Yuck)

The Truth About Browser Security

A browser is only as secure as the developers who created it and the person who’s using it. This is a proven fact. Every browser vendor says their browser is the most secure. I hate to say it, but unless you’re using Opera, you don’t have the most secure browser. I use Internet Explorer, FireFox and Opera on a regular basis, along with AVG Anti-Virus, Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE, Spybot Search & Destroy, SpywareBlaster and Microsoft’s Windows Firewall on Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2. Each time I update my malware blockers and run my scans, they catch garbage that gets through both IE and FireFox (usually just tracking cookies, but two viruses did manage to slip through FireFox last year). Nothing has gotten past Opera since I started using it in 2003. Nothing. Period. End of story.

So what makes Opera so secure? Well, for starters, Opera determines how it handles files based on the MIME-type of the file it’s been told to use (or download). On top of that, Opera doesn’t support ActiveX or VBScript, instead relying on Sun Microsystems’ Java platform (I recommend that you turn this feature off) and open Internet standards. However, Opera can still be vulnerable to macro viruses embedded in Microsoft Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), so don’t use the browser to view those files. Use the program that was intended to view these types of files instead (this is true regardless of what browser you use). For more information on browser security (and browsing best practices), please visit Opera’s pages on browser security at Opera’s Security Tutorial page.

Opera supports Secure Socket Layer (SSL) versions 2 and 3, as well as TLS 1.0 and 1.1 (transport layer security). TLS, a cryptographic protocol which provides secure communication authentication between a client (in this case, the Web browser) and a server over TCP/IP networks, is an enhancement to the latest version of SSL 3, and a proposed Internet standard created by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) which is intended to replace SSL in the near future. It can also be used to verify the identities of the client and server and exchange encrypted information necessary to create encryption keys that both sides can use. Each part of the message sent between the client and server contains a signature verifying the authenticity of that part of the message; these signatures are very hard to counterfeit without knowing what the encrypted information was sent between the client and server when the connection was established. It’s nice to know that TLS has been supported by Opera since version 3.5, but that’s beside the point. It works, and when combined with other technologies, will help to keep your computer safe from those who wish to compromise your security. The browser also offers 256-bit encryption, which is the highest available level of security in any Web browser.

On top of that, Opera’s security manager and fraud protection measures help protect you from malicious Web sites. When viewing a secure Web site, click on the address bar (it’ll be yellow instead of the default color) and you’ll be able to view additional information about the validity of the security certificate in question. You can also determine if a site may be fraudulent by clicking on the icon directly to the right of the search bar. Opera will check the domain name against a database of known phishing Web sites and also display even more security information about the site you are visiting. If it determines the site may be a fake, it will give you the option to report it. You will also be given a choice of whether to continue on to the possibly fraudulent Web page or to return to the home page. Fraud protection is enabled by default, and can be turned on and off by going to Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Security and then checking/un-checking the box marked “Enable Fraud Protection.”

If that wasn’t enough, Opera’s cookie manager also gives you control over what cookies you want to accept and deny. Opera handles cookies the same way as the other major browsers; in fact, it uses the exact same file format as Internet Explorer and Mozilla FireFox. However, Opera saves its cookies in a file called cookies4.dat which is located in the user’s Opera profile folder (Linux users can find it on .opera and Macintosh users can find it on Opera Preferences). This file cannot be edited by hand; if you want to remove cookies from your hard drive, go to Tools > Advanced > Preferences > Cookies then select “Manage Cookies”.

One last thing on the topic of security (you’ll want to know this). If you ever want to erase all traces of where you have been online, you can clear your browser history and cache at any time. This is done simply by going to Tools > Delete Private Data. Piece of cake.

Cosmetic Surgery: Getting Rid of Advertisements

I hate ads. I hate them with a passion. I hate them more than health nuts hate junk food. Fortunately I can do something about it. Once again, Opera comes to the rescue with its pop-up blocker, inline content blocking technology, and even the capability to allow for user style sheets that specifically block advertisements. It’s like performing cosmetic surgery on a Web page.

Blocking pop-ups is easy. All you have to do is either press F12 or go to Tools > Quick Preferences and choose how you want to set up the pop-up blocker. I have mine set to block all unwanted pop-ups, which works very well for me. Your mileage may vary of course. These days though almost every browser has a built in pop-up blocker, but the next two options available to you will make any Web designer or online advertiser cringe.

A lot of Web sites rely on advertisements to bring their owners/creators money, and a lot of people don’t want to look at them. Fortunately Opera agrees, and has provided us with the means to get rid of them. In-line content blocking is one of them. This feature can be used either by pressing Ctrl (Cmd on a Mac) and M followed by K, or by right-clicking on a Web page and selecting “Block Content” from the menu that appears. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a way to block content just by using the keyboard; this may be one of the few features to require the use of a mouse. What you’ll have to do instead is take the mouse cursor, hover it over the content you want to block (it won’t be faded out, so you can see it clearly) and click on it. When you are finished, click “Done” and Opera will block the content for you.

If that wasn’t bad enough, someone came up with a unique way to remove (almost) all the advertisements found on Web pages – even Google Ads. This requires a custom user stylesheet, which I’ll cover in the next installment of this multi-part article. But suffice to say (for now) it will literally remove advertisements from the Web pages you visit.

Ok, that’s enough for this week. It’s time for an intermission. Go take a break, comment on what’s been written so far, play a game, hug your children (if you have them), and relax. In the next installment, I’ll talk more about some of the intermediate level and advanced browser features, as well as the built-in email client, BitTorrent, IRC client, and even how to extend Opera to suit your needs.