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Browser battle: IE 8 vs Opera 9.5 vs Safari vs Firefox 3

By Nate Lanxon on 28 March 2008

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What's new?

The most interesting feature the lovely Norwegians at Opera Software have introduced in this version is 'Opera Link'. This syncs your bookmarks and Opera's 'Speed Dial' homepage selections with any other computers you use Opera on -- so wherever you are, you get the same browsing experience. It's similar to Firefox's Foxmarks Add-on, but having it native in a browser is a massive bonus. It worked perfectly for us across two machines. Very useful and very cool.

Another useful feature is the 'Full Text History Search'. Opera 9.5 indexes every word from every Web page you visit. You can type keywords in the URL address bar and Opera searches every site you've visited -- in real-time -- and suggests links for you. Although the suggest links list that pops down looks cluttered, it's extremely useful and a killer feature for anyone in the business of research -- students would love this.

Opera browser 9.5, beta 1

It's worth noting that Opera is still the only browser we looked at that has a built-in mail client, and it still works well in this new beta.

How it compares

Along with linked bookmarks, the terrific page indexing and searching, and general ease-of-use makes Opera ideal for students, or indeed any researcher, who needs to quickly plagiarise look up a quote, reference or source.

We'll be very keen to see some critical Javascript-handling errors fixed in post-beta releases, as this would increase the browser's compatibility with certain Web sites. On the whole we think this is the best version of Opera yet, but Firefox is probably still better for most people.

Topics: firefox, ie8, internet explorer, opera, safari, flock, browser, browse, beta, introduction

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Comments (65)

  • suresh commented on 23/09/2009 18:12 Report abuse

    OPERA is fastest browser in the universe

  • kalemer0 commented on 23/09/2009 12:55 Report abuse

    thnx for notice

  • Philosoraptor commented on 18/09/2009 15:03 Report abuse

    SO Opera for light browsing (like flash games on the couch) but for real business i like Firefox (there is a Speed Dial add on)

  • vic commented on 07/09/2009 01:43 Report abuse

    Opera is genius.

  • declinkz commented on 31/08/2009 20:16 Report abuse

    Firefox for me... It has a ton off add-on!

  • mohsinrashid49@yahoo.com commented on 27/08/2009 21:21 Report abuse

    EAST OR WEST OPERA IS THE BEST.FOR MORE COMMENTS HIT ME ON MOHSINRASHID49@yahoo.com

  • dante commented on 27/08/2009 17:35 Report abuse

    safari browser versi 4, the lightning speed browser i ever use

  • fauzi commented on 27/08/2009 17:30 Report abuse

    omg, did you see that ? safari speed ? even my dialup connection speed looks very fast

  • Albi commented on 26/08/2009 02:04 Report abuse

    IE8 is still the best for me, using always IE with all updates and stuff clean, fast and pretty easy with everything... MEM Usage: 20K - IE8 rocks \m/

  • Rosenrot commented on 20/08/2009 21:40 Report abuse

    Opera's the wineer,hands down,considering it's speed and speed dial,as if that was'nt enough,to top it all it has this ultra cool mouse gestures

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