We all agree that the best cell phone browser is none other than Opera Mini. But when it comes to computers Google Chrome & Firefox are much more used than Opera. I used Opera some long time ago and then I fell in love with Mozilla Firefox later and after that with the Google Chrome because it gave me a lot of screen space and so many good options. Since, the idea of giving the web more screen space than the browser was accepted by the users almost all browsers adopted the same policy. And Firefox had some major difficult time with their latest version loading slowly and Chrome gained popularity in the mean time by adding more and more add ons as well.

Anyway, I somehow got into the Opera's website and I thought of giving the latest version a shot – and I really liked it. You know, here in India, most of us use Bsnl Broad band connection and mine is Rs. 7500 (approx. $150 ) a year connection with unlimited bandwidth and 512 Kb/s speed. Now this is not a fast connection. And that’s the main reason I liked the new Opera. And I’ll tell you why!

I’m not a pro or geek or whatever and I don’t know what some features are for. But I will tell you what I liked about this browser.

Opera Turbo

Opera Turbo is the most useful tool for me in Opera. If your internet connection is slow you can turn on this guy and your pages will get loaded faster than the normal speed. Thy uses some technique here to load the important contents first or something. I don’t know what is the science behind this little tool but it does works pretty good and when ypu open some new web 2.0 site with loads and loads of clutter graphics you’d better turn this thing ON if your connection is slow.

I think Opera is popular for their speed itself. I came across an article on their website about the speed tests and the opera stood first.

"Opera's still the speed champion, as usual."

- Lifehacker

Opera Unite

I actually doesn't use this thing but it is something about accessing your data from anywhere in the world via internet. It’s not a unique thing, there are so many services out there but I don’t know whether Opera is the first browser which comes with such a feature by default.

Open Individual Private tab

In Firefox there is Private browsing option, but once you go private then browser as a whole will go to Private mode. In Chrome there is Incognito window, still one can’t have an Incognito tab in a normal window. But that’s possible in Opera! Yeah, you could Open some Incognito tabs while you’re working in a normal window if you don’t want your pc to store data from that particular page. This is good since we won’t have to deal with multiple windows whenever we want some privacy!

Extensions

Add ons was the best thing about Firefox. But now Opera and Chrome have lots of useful extension or add ons (or plug-ins or whatever they call them). I think still Firefox have way too much add ons than any other browsers but I have everything I want on Opera itself. Facebook, imdb, Ad free YouTube and everything I want is right there. I think Opera has great potential and more developers will be interested in Opera.

Widgets

Opera got some cool and productive applications called ‘Widgets’, there are hundreds of them available and you can publish your own if you want to. There are games, social networking and developer widgets which will help to make your online life and little bit more fun and easier. It’s fast and easy to install.

If you haven’t tried Opera on your PC yet, I would recommend you to do so. Opera is a browser which is really really fast and which can provide you all the options a normal user needs. Opera is, without a doubt, getting better and better and it’s definitely in mainstream competition with Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari etc.