Opera 7 beta 1 for Windows was released to the public this week. Okay it's not open source, nor is it free beer (adware), but it's always been a pretty good if not very popular browser.
Externally it still looks very similar to the older 5.x/6.x GUI - so it's still a bit ugly when compared with a Mozilla based browser. The excellent tabbed interface is still there, and there are now more ways to slice and dice the interface. Internally the new version is a major re-write of the rendering engine, and on a few quick tests on DOM pages that the old browser failed on, it passes quite well.
At the end of the day not many people will actually use it - which is a shame, as it's a tiny download, and blisteringly fast......
...must truly be in the eye of the beholder since
Externally it still looks very similar to the older 5.x/6.x GUI - so it's still a bit ugly when compared with a Mozilla based browser.
... I've always found Mozilla to be garishly ugly (never mind slow as a sloth in molasses [1]), no matter what platform, and Opera 6 is my broser of choice, at least in Windows (work). In Mac OS X (home) I vacillate between Omniweb and Opera. In Linux I usually use SuSE and if I need a graphical browser at all there's konqueror.
[1] Yes I do know about the leaner versions of Mozilla like Galeon, Phoenix, Navigator, but they are then usually too cut down in features...
Re:the beauty...
ajt on 2002-11-14T21:13:19
The default Mozilla chrome isn't very nice I'll grant you, but some of the alternatives are very pretty. Opera 6 (Win32) even when skinned always looked a little rough round the edges, and doesn't quite match it. Opera 7 is a slight improvement over 6, which while I don't think it's as pretty as Mozilla yet, it is nicer to look at than IE.
I couldn't agree more regarding speed, Opera is tiny, so it's quick to download, and it starts and runs amazingly fast. I've always liked it's tabbed browsing, which I think is excellent, and it's still better than Mozilla in the usability stakes, but the tabs (on windows) look a little ugly. The new Opera 7 tabs are prettier, and just as functional as before.
Overall I rank Mozilla as prettiest GUI, then Opera 7, then IE 6. Page rendering looks, I'd now have to say that Opera 7 and Mozilla tie, they look so similar, with IE last, and for speed, Opera 7 has to be first, and then IE6 with Mozilla last. Mozilla's "Quick Launch" is okay if you are willing to trade memory for speed.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as you say, but for the first time in quite a while there is lots of choice, and they are mostly W3C compatible now, so we can (in theory) use what we want - Web Standards.
