I recently gave the new Opera 9.5 browser a try on Windows 2000 and XP and was just blown away by what I found.
The speed is much, much better than any of the browsers I'd used before. (Firefox 2, IE 7, Safari 3b) Unlike the Apple Safari claims concerning speed, this is the real deal.
I think I'll still use Firefox a great deal because of all the great extensions which are available and its nicer interface, but when it comes to navigating and viewing pages quickly, I now find myself choosing Opera.
The 9.5 version is much different than previous 9.x versions which I really didn't like. This is a new code base and it renders more acurately, operates more quickly, and seems very stable for a beta. I haven't found any problems with the Beta, and I also didn't find any problems in the last Alpha release before this Beta. Beta's are also available for OSX, Linux and old legacy Windows (98, Me, etc.)
Oh great...
Oh great...one more thing I now MUST download and try. Thanks alot ;)
-Rob Feature
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.mustardseedmedia.com
Be careful
One you start using the email functionality, you will never go back. It take a long time to get used to it. I have over 4GB of email in my database and it is still fast. Blows Outlook away.
That is not to mention the browser, which is top notch. I do not see that it is much faster, but I have been using it for many years and the tab functionality is something that I can just not live without. Nice that IE and FireFox have it now.
I still have to use Outlook at work, IE at work, and our business operational software runs on an ASP and works best with FireFox (don't ask) so I would not say that I am an Opera fanboy. But I love all of the functions. That simple.
M2 is very cool
I think they still call Opera's mail client M2. It really is amazing software. It does take a long time to get used to, but once you do it makes you wonder why other mail systems don't work that way.
The way it tags and indexes all your mail is awesome. The major downfall is that it doesnt create html mail. That can be argued if that is a downside or a plus as many people do not use html for mail.
I agree it isnt needed but sure is purdy :)
One of my all time favorite mail applications for Windows is The Bat.. Now thats a rocking email client. The macros, filters, rules, and on the fly encryption make it super powerful, but again there is a small learning curve.
Now that Im on mac I use the default mail.app. But if there was a mac version of thebat I would probably use it.