Opera 9's Speed Dial.

Anyone besides me uses it? I thought it was unnecessary at first, but I really like it now and I'm starting to find it a must have.


Ctrl + 1-9 = Speeddial shortcut
Or
Select new tab and see all Speeddials and be able to click anyone.

They don't even have to be Bookmarks.

 

I'm actually finding it really useful. I wasn't expecting to but I find I'm using it more and more.

Opera is really growing on me. My gf had a laptop and she was using FF on it - it kept overheating cause FF was just taking up too much ram. We switched the Opera and it was as cool as cool can be!

I just wish Chris Pederick would release a developer toolbar for Opera!

 

I use it. Saves me clicking on Bookmarks and then scrolling down and clicking on the incorrect link forcing me to repeat the whole process.

 

I to switched to Opera from FF2 as my default browser.

I still love FF2 as the extensions/add-on are priceless, but I just always hated the way FireFox rendered pages. So I just gave Opera9 a try a couple days ago and now I'm hooked. But I will still use FF2 alot being the extensions are so useful. (like recording vids/flash etc

 

I've used opera and firefox side by side for a few years now, but recently I've been using opera almost exclusively. The speed dials are nice, the page rendering is perfect, the speed is better, its got a memory leak, but it doesnt go completly out of control like firefoxes.

 

i have also found it to be unexpectedly useful.

most of my bookmarks are already nicknamed so i didn't think Speed Dial would offer me any real boost in speed. it does, however, remind me to visit sites that i sometimes forget to visit. and like most Opera features, it is unobtrusive and doesn't force itself to be used.

when do you think we will be seeing an FF extension of this? =P

 

I don't use it, as it doesn't really fit my browsing habits. I tend to use F8 and searches and google... I don't have sites I visit regularly that aren't always open. I do think this could be a really useful feature for some though. It's good to see they're still coming up with new stuff. (Now if they'd get utorrent integrated into the browser instead of their client... )

 

I miss clicking on the address bar and getting the home button.

 

You can turn that back on. Go to Tools->Appearance->Toolbars (tab), and click the Start Bar check box.

 

Tools > Preferences... > Advanced > Downloads > find 'torrent' > Edit... > Open with Other Application > Choose... etc.

integrating the utorrent client into the browser would be infinitely cooler, but unfortunately unlikely.

also: Add Home button to Address Bar: Right-click on toolbar > Customize > Buttons > Drag n' Drop

 

Awesome! Thanks!

 

I don't really use Opera. Tried it for a while, but ditched it because it was actually slower than FF for me. On top of that, it doesn't have all the extensions and so forth that really give you options in Firefox.

Now, my reasons are different. Opera is not an open source application, and has a restrictive license that limits not only your rights to distribute and modify it, but it even limits what environment you can run it in (it stipulates that you can ONLY run Opera on a PC and you can't use it in certain businesses and settings). No thanks... I'll stick with Firefox; it's open, easy, modifiable, cross-platform, and pretty much the most standards-compliant option out there.

 

I use both Opera and Firefox, but I still prefer Firefox. Just love the extensions.

 

I think Opera is falling down on the extensions and open-source issue. In my own experience Opera renders faster and uses less memory - but falls down on allowing people to develop cool things for it.

I think if they did at least allow extensions, (not just widgets) they'd probably get a lot more downloads.

 

i am interested to know where i can find this stipulation. i was under the impression that there were Opera versions for Macs (and Linux), as well as Opera for mobile phones and the Wii.

i partially agree with this; the widgets that are available now are hardly breath-taking (or even useful). the widget engine only appeared starting in version 9.0, so it is still young, but how much can you really add to Opera's feature-pool with widgets?

in the same vein, what sort of cool improvements would an extension API yield in light of the features and innovations Opera already packs into a package smaller than Firefox's base install? an API would bloat the package, as well as making coding rough for the Mobile, Mini and Wii platforms. the reason Opera is so far ahead of the game in those other platforms is because they use the core rendering engine from the desktop browser. see Tim Altman's take on Opera extensions. he's smarter.

i agree that the Firefox model is attractive: give users the basic essentials and then let the nerds build on it for those that care. however, the casual user probably has no idea what to do with the extensions. i know i had Firefox for a year before i bothered finding extensions, and even then, i didn't really find too many things that met my simple browsing needs (faster start up, faster rendering, lower memory usage). i did, however, find a lot of neat tricks to compact the interface; userChrome = fun (is there a manual for this?).

 

It's all in the EULA you agree to when you install it. Reading helps.

Anyway, the truth is that, yes, there are versions for other platforms. But what the EULA stipulates is that you can't take the PC version and put it on the Wii, or on your cell phone. You have to get that particular version. For instance, there was no version of Opera for the Palm OS (maybe they prefer supporting Microsoft Windows Mobile) until recently. If the program were open source, it could have been simply ported (probably by using Opera Mobile as a base) to the OS a long time ago. However, it's not, so Palm users had to wait around a long time to get it to work. And what if you have a phone that uses a proprietary OS? You can't modify Opera to work on it.

Also, it is stipulated in the Opera EULA that you cannot use it in certain business settings. For instance, I believe it is illegal to use it in Air Traffic Controller settings.

 

haha, i rarely read those.

i see what you mean now (great example). probably just a standard closed-source policy to ensure that their product remains 'pure'. if someone did port Opera to a system it was not intended for and grievous errors occur, Opera would likely be blamed for it.

From the EULA:
"You acknowledge that the software is not intended for use in (I) on-line control of aircraft, air traffic, aircraft navigation or aircraft communications; or (II) in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility."
-- sounds reasonable to me. Speed Dial would be of little use in those situations, or any piece of software that has an EULA for that matter.

 

I wouldn't want Firefox running in any of those situations. What if it memory leaks and the system runs out of memory? Or a malicious extension somehow installs itself.Then what would happen

I'm just poking fun but I am a bit of an Opera fanboy. For an application that's developed so well, I don't mind the developers wishing to remain closed-source if they want to, as long as they keep up the good work. Now if only they would switch back their original implementation of Widgets (Mac-style) from Opera 9 Beta 2.

 

I also agree that Opera desperately needs some Add-ons/Extensions.

 

I agree that extensions are good as an option, but I disagree that Opera desperately needs them. Out of curiosity, what kinds of extensions are you thinking of?

 

I currently use on FF2 .........

Ook? Video Ook! ....downloads video content. flash etc:
CookieSafe ...On the fly cookie controler
SwitchProxy Tool ... Toogle differ proxies
zoomFox ..... Nice zoom in extenstion (differ than any other zoom)
MouseZoom... Zoom with mouse wheel
PDF Download ... PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML), if you want to view it outside Firefox with your default or custom PDF reader, or if you want to download it.
Map+....View a Yahoo! map of a selected address without having to open a new window or tab.

Would be nice if Opera have them too.

 

- there is a widget for downloading flash videos, requires pasting in the permalink.
- Right-click, edit site preferences to manage cookies per site
- not sure what sorts of crazy zooms are involved
- zoom can be done with keyboard shortcuts
- pdf files can be set to open in either browser window, in default app or app of your choice (see previous post on utorrent). same goes for any file type.
- maps: eh.

[EDIT]This is turning out to be one of those "why isn't Opera like Firefox" discussions, rather than what the OP intended (you can only talk about Speed Dial for so long). It is, however, moving along quite politely, for which I commend the forum members.

Both browsers have plenty of merit in my mind. Firefox's extendabilty and sheer coolness factor sets it apart from the other major browsers. it might technically not be the best at everything, but it does what its users want it to do and it does it well. Opera has a richer history, richer feature-set (out of the box) and the statistics to back up its claims as fastest and smallest, but a lot of its recent popularity is owing to Firefox breaking through the IE stronghold and showing users that there is an alternative (and then some). that and Opera dumping the ads.

I personally don't think Opera 'should' be more like Firefox because Opera is Opera. It's like you have a PhD in Internet and your parents (or friends or people in general) are constantly comparing you to your younger and sexier college sophomore sister who has a bajillion accessories.[/EDIT]

 

I know of the default Opera settings, zoom, etc.

You really can't compare that to the productivity, quickness, and config options/settings of the FireFox Extensions/Add-ons. And Opera's Widgets are a joke to me. And the Map+ extension I mentioned is amazing. If you use FF, give it a try.

I think it's more like why can't either (FF, Opera, IE) have the qualities of another. Why can't FF render pages as well as Opera does? Why can't Opera have the very useful extensions/add-ons like FF does?

And why can't both have the same Advance Cookie settings that IE6 & IE7 has? I have yet to see any browser implement a simple "Prompt cookies from site & block 3rd party cookies" settings like IE. Other browsers have tried but no Cigar, other browsers will ask for permission too many times under those settings compared to IE7 only asking for each completely differ cookie. Cookie Safe Add-on for FF is the closet thing I got to it, but I'm still not satisfied.

 

sorry to drudge this up from last month, but the Speed Dial Firefox extension is available (since April 16th, as it were). so if anyone isn't willing to give up Firefox but wants some Speed Dial action, there it is.

i'm not going to bother installing it so someone else might be able to give a comparison.