Sure, I've had a copy of Opera on my computer for years; any good web builder does, for testing purposes. I loved it because it was small (who needs Java?) and it was fast. IE for Windows may have been the buggiest browser on the planet but it was also used by a staggering 97% of the visitors to my other web site, and I was comfortable with it. Sure, sure, insecure, blah blah blah. I was used to it. I'd been using it for years. I was comfortable. Coolness like the Google Toolbar and the Nutshell Toolbar helped. I was likely to use it indefinitely.

Two major things changed my mind: lack of updates without upgrading your OS, and sitting hunched over my computer trying to clean out the billionth piece of particularly nasty spyware/intrusiveware that had embedded itself into IE.

So I went shopping.

Netscape is good. No question. But it's slow sometimes for me, it's got a HUGE file size that I don't completely understand the purpose of, and the interface was kind of clunky.

Next. Opera.

I seriously played with it for two weeks, configuring it to do and behave how I liked. Testing my favourite sites in it - because I'll be honest. Even if the site didn't display properly because it was created by a developer who only used IE, it was important to me that my favourite sites display properly. Sure, stupid developer, but in the end I want my goodies.

At the end of two weeks I was sold, and bought a copy. This raised it to true favourite status on my computer, since it takes a lot of utility to part me from my money when it comes to software. I will buy Opera for a long time to come. Here's why:

Tabbed browsing. Sure, Netscape has it too. It's a lovely feature that I'm used to in a lot of my other favourite tools but never had with IE. No more thousands of windows stacking up in my taskbar.

Integrated search bar. A lovely replacement for the Google Toolbar and Nutshell Toolbar. Customizable just as soon as I finish reading the tutorial.

Double click any word and a context menu pops up. One of my favourite features. Lets me copy the text, look up the word in a dictionary or encyclopedia (how I wish they'd add a thesaurus search), search for that word with Google or any of the dozen or so other searches from the integrated search bar, or translate the word into a dozen+ different languages. Very nifty.

New page button. You can add a button to the toolbar that lets you open a new, blank window with a click. Yes, I know about Ctrl-N. Sometimes a button is handier if you're mousing.

Zoom in the toolbar. Incredibly handy particularly for viewing images. Opera's zoom feature always impressed the heck out of me since it zooms everything, not just the text.

Notes tab in the hotlist. Basically a scratch pad where you can jot notes to yourself, make note of URLs, good quote from somewhere, anything you want. Very handy if you do a lot of surfing.

Cocoa skin. Pretty pretty. Nuff said.

Right-click context menu for developers. Check the site for valid HTML or CSS, for accessibility compliance, link checkers, HTTP header checkers, the works. Yum.

Lots more here to love, but I just don't have time to describe it all. Another good resource if you're wanting to learn is Mark Schenk's site.

I feel like I've only scraped the surface with what this browser can do, but for now it has become one of... My Favourite Tools. Stay tuned for more tools.

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