So I have been downloading different browsers and testing to see if my site displays right. And Opera has caught my eye. I of course have expressed my feelings on Netscape. Which to recap I just don’t like netscape. Mozilla to me is the same as Netscape. So no Mozilla for me. But this Opera has really got me thinking about switching from IE. Here are a few of the features these guys brag about:

• Opera is renowned for being the world’s fastest browser. Measuring speed on the web is harder than it sounds, but our users know and feel the difference.
• Opera is much smaller than other major browsers. In its standard configuration, it almost fits on a floppy disk yet it is all you need to surf the web. We also offer a version of Opera with integrated support for Java. This makes our distribution larger, but still smaller than our competitors.
• Opera support all common Web standards needed to surf the web, including markup languages (HTML and XML), network and security protocols (HTTP, SSL and TLS), style sheets (CSS1 & CSS2) and programming languages (ECMAScript, Javascript).

And I got to say they deliver in spades. This is one fast browser! Hit the back button and whammo your back to the previous page. A couple of other neat features. Mouse gestures are a feature they mention, at first I thought it was a flashy stupid feature. But man all you got to do is hold the right mouse button down and flick left and you’ve just hit the back button. It really comes in handy.

Another neat feature is that there is only one browser window. So no matter how many pages you open it’s all one window. And annoying pop up load but the page you went to stays in main view.

Of course there is a negative to this what seems to be a uber-browser. A big one. It’s a free download. No time limit. But you have a banner ad plastered into the top portion of the browser. After I play with sucker some more I may actually pony up and buy it. Any one else have any recommendations for a preferred browser? Let me know what you think.