Opera Browser

I was not aware of a browser by Opera until we discussed it in one of our first Internet Technology classes. I did a little half-hearted searching to find out about the company but not much about the the browser. Then in preparation for our guest speaker, Molly Holzschlag, I did a little more searching and I was richly rewarded.

The Opera software developers have done a magnificient job of looking to see what is currently available, listening to end users and trying to anticipate the needs of future users and have developed a browser that delivers. I am (now was) an IE user, don't know why, I guess because it was there. Slow and cluncky come to mind when I think about this particular browser. I probably don't need to also tell you that I am a PC user too, you probably already figured that one out on your own. Since IE was slow I thought all browsers were slow and unreliable. This is not true. The Opera browser offers so much and I especially like the 'Turbo' feature that will compress the data for a more efficient download with a slow download speed is encountered.
As I read more about Opera software and the company behind it I am amazed at the increasing number of people that are downloading the desktop browser software, something like 10 million downloads of the new Opera 10 happened during the first week it was available (in early September 2009). That many people can not be wrong.

And Opera is not your typical company, they have an Education section which wants to help others involved in web, whether in development, teaching, or using the web, to learn about web standards and foster a basis for students to learn about the web and the internt industry. Of course, the Opera employees will discuss Opera products but that is not the motivation for this outreach. The company is truly interesting in providing information on web standards and the rewards of adhering to them.

Opera is the leading supplier of web browser software on mobile devices in the world. And then Molly told us that all mobile devices currently available use the Opera mobile software, not most but all. This is truly awesome. I had no idea. I previously had a Blackberry and was happy but now I know what I was missing and I will ask better questions the next time I go looking for another mobile phone with internet capabilities.