The first thing I noticed about Opera -- it's small. The Win95 version was a mere 765k download. The latest versions of Netscape and Microsoft's browsers were well into the 15-20 megabyte range. Second of all, I noticed how fast this browser is! It loaded up and drew my pages lickey split (the authors claim the program runs nicely on a 386, too!). Opera has some very nice features. When pages are loading, there is a fairly accurate status bar that lets you know how much more of the page needs to be loaded. When it does load, it loads really fast! The links on a page are "raised" from the page instead of underlined -- a sort of a 3d effect. But most of all, Opera is just a web browser. It's not the swiss-army-knife of Internet applications. It just browses, and does a darn good job of it. The browser takes a little getting used to, but I find using the browser a reasonable pleasant experience.
While Opera supports most HTML standards in place and include support for Frames, Animated GIFs, and background music, Opera has a few problems. Aside from a few minor difficulties rendering HTML and occasional problems rendering pages, it lacks support for things like Java, JavaScript, and ActiveX. If you're concerned about the potential security problems these things cause or don't care to run them because you're computer isn't fast enough, then this is a plus. But you may want to keep your Netscape or Internet Explorer browser around for those sites that require the "advanced features." But did I mention how fast this browser is?
Opera is $30 shareware, available in several languages and there are Windows 3.1, Windows 95, and NT versions.
Opera is available from:
http://opera.nta.no