Opera 9 review

Opera wants to replace Internet Explorer on your PC and version 9 has even more features to tempt you.

If you're sick of flashy adverts on websites, then you'll love the easy-to-use advert blocker in Opera 9. Instead of annoying adverts, you can use Opera's new range of Widgets to fill up your Desktop with clocks, games, photo slideshows, currency convertors or news feeds from popular sites such as the BBC. Some widgets are genuinely useful, some not so, but it's a fun addition nonetheless.

Like FireFox and Internet Explorer 7, Opera is also capable of tabbed browsing. But Opera has an additonal trick up its sleeve: when you open the browser, it will display the same set of tabbed web pages that you were looking at when you shut it down - a huge time saver. And, if you close a tab by accident, you can reopen it by clicking the trashcan icon and selecting it from the drop-down list. If you're looking for a particular site, you can hover over each tab and see a little preview of each page, which is handy too.

Another fancy addition is the ability to surf the web using mouse gestures. By holding the right mouse button and performing different movements with the mouse, you can open a new tab, refresh the current page or go back or forward a page. Once you're used to the movements required it really does make surfing the web quicker.

You can customise almost any aspect of Opera to provide just the options you want and move buttons about if you find them placed awkwardly. If Opera isn't perfect for you at first, you can make it your perfect browser in no time at all.

Opera 9 is gloriously easy to use. Whether it's setting up an RSS feed to monitor the latest news from the BBC or checking your email with the built-in email program - even beginners will soon get to grips with all the features on offer. Best of all, you can download it and use it free of charge from www.opera.com. If you can't wait for Internet Explorer 7, get Opera 9 instead.