Opera Software Opera 8.5 review

Opera is one of the most popular alternatives to Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser.

The main innovation in version 8.5 is the way it's licensed. Until now, Opera has used embedded advertising banners to pay the bills, which were removed only when the user registered their copy. Now there is no registration, no prompts and, best of all, no ads.

Tabbed browsing makes it easy to keep track of your browsing sessions, while keyboard short cuts streamline your online movements. A mouse gesture system increases browsing speed further, letting you activate navigation and menu functions by holding the right button and moving the mouse. Accidentally closed tabs can be re-opened from the recycle bin and sessions are saved automatically when you exit. Opera includes a fully integrated POP3 email client and support for RSS news feeds.

For the security conscious, Opera classifies the encryption level of secure sites and delivers detailed information on any certificates a site holds. An automatic password manager makes logging into your favourite sites more efficient, but you can deactivate this if you're worried about security. At any time during a session you can remove all your data, including passwords, history, cookies and cache from the browser with a single click.

Opera doesn't always display sites properly -more often on complex sites that use DHTML and CSS. This can be infuriating if you complete an online application form only to find the submit button inactive or missing. The blame often lies with website designers who haven't stuck to W3C development rules, but that's little consolation if you have to return to Internet Explorer to proceed. Firefox faces the same problem, but its popularity has ensured that website developers check site compatibility, and we rarely run into trouble now.

Opera is efficient, fast and friendly, and a far more attractive proposition now that it's free. However, Firefox is still our favourite browser, as it's more reliable.