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Using Opera is like slipping on a comfortable pair of shoes, and then discovering that your formerly comfortable shoes have been surreptitiously filled with broken glass. As you make this realization, a troupe of baboons rounds the corner, baring and snapping their grisly teeth. They howl and begin to chase you. Knowing you’re the only fresh meat for miles, you start running from this horrible Ape Menace, suspecting that you have somehow fallen into the hands of the Global Monkey Conspiracy. As the simian horde draws closer, in your desperate panic to get away, you slide into a steep ravine. As you strike bottom, you awake, in bed. It was all a dream. You are safe, asleep, and your computer has only non-Opera browsers installed.
For those not satisfied with simply being safe from the monkeys, I will describe the horror that is the Opera experience. Let’s start with the installation process. Opera comes in a 5 meg .sit archive, conveniently named om_en_6.0.sit (easy to find in that crowded download folder!). Within that .sit archive, we discover several text files, and a .smi file. Didn’t SMIs die out along with the Passenger Pigeon, and the Kudzu Monkey?
Nevertheless, I carried on with the installation process, and thankfully discovered that the disk image has a draggable folder with the actual application inside. I then launched the browser, and proceeded to my favorite web site. After struggling with the counter-intuitive plague-ridden tabbed browsing interface for a few moments, Opera crashed. Undaunted, I re-launched the application, and was presented with a dialog asking whether I wished to browse with windows or tabs. Against all reason and logic, it did not appear on the first launch, nor does it disappear after you answer its inane questions, which could be easily relegated to the preferences dialog. A rather small checkbox claims to allow you to avoid this dialog in the future, although when you try, you’re told that you have to purchase the browser before you are allowed to turn off this hideous abortion of a nag screen.
After thwarting this Hades-born dialog, I plunged back into the breech, and attempted to once again use the browser. This browser has a monumental toolbar. It is the largest single toolbar I’ve ever experienced. This toolbar is about 130 pixels tall. That’s around three standard Cocoa toolbars. It also features controls for: Back, Forward, Reload, Home, Hotlist, Print, New, Amazon.com search, Ebay.com search, Find in page, Tab Bar, SSL indicator, Show Images control, Pancake Toggle, User/Author mode control, Google search, and zoom. And that’s with the Main Bar in “Simple” mode. It is possible to customize this beastly toolbar, but only through a rather Netscape 4.xish process.
Oh yes. There’s also a way to type in a URL somewhere in there. Opera’s rather hefty approach to software design also extends to the bookmarks, as Opera ships with around 270 of them. Bringing a touch of humor to the bookmarks, the Opera team has wisely decided to mangle site’s names and proper capitalization, “Mac in thouch” being my favorite example. They have also unerringly chosen to bookmark many Windows-centric download sites, while ignoring popular Mac options. Perhaps by properly alienating their user base, they can ensure minimal market share for this browser among influential Mac-using web designers. Brilliant, Opera. Simply unsurpassed technique! The only way this winning strategy could be improved is if the browser would transmit a fatal case of chilblains directly to the user.
On attempting to load PerversionTracker, Opera laid out the page poorly, claimed to be “done,” and yet continued to spin its progress indicator. For 25 minutes. Well done, Opera. You have taken the cake, and it is filled with plague and cottage cheese. Before I forget, the Cro-Magnon watch cursor that sporadically springs into view has to be seen to be believed. For scrolling and window resizing, this browser is slower than a squashed waterbear.
Since this browser may be marginally more useful than downloading raw HTML by typing “telnet perversiontracker.com 80”, and perhaps a smidge less excruciating than bamboo splints under the eyelids, I acknowledge some small amount of usefulness. This is not, however, outweighed by the preposterous $39 (305.17 Hong Kong Dollar) price tag, and hence I award a 9.7 to Opera Software.
Posted by ladd at February 24, 2003 11:26 PM | TrackBack...slower than a squashed waterbear.
Holy shit, that was good.
Posted by: serrano on February 25, 2003 01:07 AMThat's the second time this week (and in my entire life) that I read "surreptitiously". I must be special.
Posted by: Thuros M. on February 25, 2003 03:25 AMThank you. Excellent and well said.
Posted by: Stalker on February 25, 2003 05:29 AMWonderful review! I'll stick to Safari. :)
Posted by: iBug on February 25, 2003 07:20 AMWhy won't you stop picking on Oprah?
Posted by: Squashed Waterbear, Esq. on February 25, 2003 08:34 AMBravo! Exellent review. It actually has made me want to upgrade to 6.0 just to share in the experience. I always wondered why I never used this expensive alternate browser and while the banner ads were one clue your review has filled in the rest of the mystery.
Squashed Waterbear is nice when roasted with paprika.
Posted by: Troupe of Baboons on February 25, 2003 09:54 AMYou're being unfair. It's Apple's fault that Opera sucks so bad. Didn't you see their temper tantrum when Safari was released?
Posted by: George Bush on February 25, 2003 10:38 AMI thought you made up the word "waterbear".
Guess not…
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artjun00/mmbearp.html
Simply genius.
Posted by: Joseph J. Finn on February 25, 2003 12:23 PMI must say that not all of the people at Opera are whiny bastards. Here's proof:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-984632.html?tag=fd_top
Rather naughty if you ask me(but you didn't)
Posted by: Jason on February 25, 2003 04:37 PMOpera for Windows is the best browser ever. Opera for the Mac is the worst browser ever.
I don't use Windows.
I am sad.
Posted by: unmentionable on February 25, 2003 05:48 PMWhere is he pancape button. I actually fire up this piece of crap but didn't see any pancakes. I feel cheated...
Posted by: Harold on February 25, 2003 07:36 PMI agree with the above that Opera on Winders is the best of all of them. I had high hopes for Opera on the Mac, but had a huge disappointment.
No monkeys, though.
Posted by: Jacques Chirac on February 26, 2003 12:18 PM"I agree with the above that Opera on Winders is the best of all of them."
That was five years ago. Today, Opera on Windows is one of the worst examples of bloatware. Are they trying to compete with Mozilla's awful interface design?
Posted by: Sören Kuklau on February 26, 2003 02:44 PM"Opera for Windows is the best browser ever. Opera for the Mac is the worst browser ever."
Obviously, this means that Opera has a double worsted interface.
Opera 7 performs very well on my PC, better then IE 6.0 and Netscape 7.01 (and even the real bloater Mozilla). I used Opera on the Mac for some time and I can only agree: It's a bad port. Opera 6.05 ruled on the PC and 6.x sucks so far on any Mac. I am kinda surprised, because the nordic guys are usually pretty good in getting their software fixed.
Posted by: orangeguru on February 26, 2003 05:58 PMif you guys ever get a version of opera as good as the windows version, you'll eat your words.
opera 7 windows is possibly the best browser currently available on any platform.
until then, i feel your pain =)
Posted by: david on February 26, 2003 08:08 PMWell I wouldda'h saved the entire first paragraph (the shoes an' all that cool monkey shyte) for a M$ product review, but that's just me.
Nevertheless, an excellent review--I never fell off my chair so hard I couldn't stop laughing.
BTW I did click "FORGET PERSONAL INFORMATION" but to my chagrin I can still remember it all. :(
Posted by: Double Worsted on February 26, 2003 09:02 PMWhat's unintuitive about tabbed browsing? I've been using it on Mozilla since the feature was introduced, and I won't go back to the "other" way of browsing. You can't make me! Nyah!
Oh...um...yeah. Love the site. ^_^
Posted by: Elvis McPelvis on February 27, 2003 09:34 AMQuote:
Opera 7 performs very well on my PC, better then IE 6.0 and Netscape 7.01 (and even the real bloater Mozilla).
Please. You have used Mozilla and Netscape installed and you think they are different programs? Netscape 7 is nothing more than some older version of Mozilla with a little bit of more bloat sticked on, courtesy of AOL.
Posted by: perc on February 27, 2003 01:56 PMUh, "perc", dude,
Shouldn't you be off somewhere looking up shyte on the Micro$oft-support web site or something--this review is about the **Macintosh** version of Opera.
Here we don;t give a flying-fuçk about the Windows version of stuff.
Sincerely Yours,
Double-Worsted
Posted by: Double Worsted on February 27, 2003 07:49 PMyou should check out your separated at birth web site, applecrap.com
i love you both.
really.
Posted by: crap on February 28, 2003 02:23 AMI have never read a better review of anything in my life. This is my new homepage from now on.
Posted by: beanzo on February 28, 2003 01:53 PM*long and boring discussion zapped*
Posted by: morg on February 28, 2003 02:11 PM"Since this browser may be marginally more useful than downloading raw HTML by typing "telnet perversiontracker.com 80".
Genius, I laughed my ass of at this one.
Posted by: Luke on February 28, 2003 02:47 PMOpera 7 is definitely the best browser for windows.. hmmm, even opera 6 is better than the other browsers.. pheonix (sort of like mozilla with less bloat) is good as well, but lacks opera's refinement, feature set, and speed. It is unfortunate that to make pheonix less bloated than mozilla, they also cut off many useful things.
Posted by: moshimoshi on March 1, 2003 08:48 AMOK, now, Opera has ONE (and only one) feature the others haven't : it is simply the ONLY Mac OS X browser with an acceptable display of Arabic (I said "acceptable", not "good"). So we poor Arabic users have to stick with it, since Safari is far more useless with most Arab sites.
Posted by: Fred on March 1, 2003 10:55 AMOpera is the worst piece of crap I've ever seen. There's nothing even remotely Mac-like about it and it's the quirkiest piece of software I've used. After 5 minutes I trashed it & went back to Chimera.
I have to wonder how what was once the "OMG U DONT USE IT U SUKC LOL!" of alternative browsers became so amazingly horrid.
Slower than a squashed waterbear just made my day...
Opera 6 is slow as hell, is not free and the toolbar is too big. This said, it may have a few nice features here and there, but I've trashed it long ago. For OS X, Chimera is the best, while for ole OS 9 I recommend Mozilla.
Posted by: Michele Bugliaro on March 3, 2003 01:33 AMWoka Woka Woka!
Posted by: WaterBear on March 4, 2003 11:29 AMOpera 5 was the bees' knees. Opera 6, on the other hand, had too many annoying "features", like forgetting its settings. Liked the tabbed browsing, though, but in the end went back to Opera 5
Posted by: beercat on April 23, 2003 05:44 PMbut macs suck
why do mac users have screensavers that say "ibmsux" but IBM users never seem to have any screensavers that say macsux? Mac users are immature. Not all of them, just most of them.
Posted by: poop on September 9, 2003 05:33 PMOpera 5 is the best browser on any platform I have used. I downloaded Opera 6.0.3, used it for half an hour, and roundfiled it. It is slower than a wet week in winter. It can't even draw - there are horizontal bars of glitch that look like a scrambled cable channel. Forget it.
Posted by: DrBunsen on October 3, 2003 08:14 PMWe have ibmsux screensavers? Mine shows pretty Sequoia pics going by.
Posted by: ryaxnb on November 12, 2003 01:23 AMOpera claims to be the faster browser out there.
Nothing could be further from the truth. It seriously has nothing for it.
Limited functionnality, half the superfluous functions don't work properly
Might as well use anyother browser Opera is CR@p.
Posted by: Shane on June 11, 2004 06:00 AM