I don't know exactly when but probably in somewhere year 2001 I started using Opera, a minority web browser which was one of the pioneers to introduce the wonderful tabbed browsing experience to the masses.
With growing concerns of computer security, lack of standards, viruses, spam, scams (even my credit card was exposed one time), popups, exploits, crashes and the sheer slowness of Internet Explorer made me to look for alternatives. I tried everything else on earth and finally settled with Opera which was the only viable alternative I could find at that time.
Four years went by. It was a good browser. Opera's small single folder installation, fast page retrieval, popup blocking, prune to browser hijacking and tabbed browsing were the features I liked. It was light years ahead of IE which made me to use it and promote it to couple of other people too. But Opera wasn't without glitches. The default installation was daunting for a newbie. It has rendering issues with secure sites. None of the banking sites I use works with Opera. So occasionally I had to switch back and forth to IE. Anyway my computer was happier without malware so I was also happy until recently.
And then came all the wonderful gMail and blogger.com from Google Inc. which I got virtually addicted overnight. Problem again, NONE worked well with Opera so back to square one finding a better browser for my everyday use.
Surprisingly at the same time Mozilla Foundation released there infant beta version of Firebird (Now called Firefox) So I decided to give it a try. It had almost all the features of Opera and probably a better page rendering style. Honestly I liked it. Using gMail and blogger.com was a snap with Firefox. All my banking sites work fine with it. So from last November I was again switching back and forth to Firefox and Opera.
Suddenly I realised I no longer need multiple browsers. Firefox works fine with all the pages I throws at it as yet while Opera does not. It has proved me it's better than Opera in page rendering. So I was wondering why the hell I keep using the both which forces me to maintain two set of bookmarks.
May be I was sad to let go OPERA. It is like letting go someone you closely knew. Anyway now it's time, So goodbye, farewell My Opera. From now onward I am gonna stick with Firefox. See the screenshot. It can easily be skinned like Opera or originally like Safary.
Now the browser wars back on track again. IE is too combing armed with a tabbed version soon.
Whoa! It's Wonderful Wild Web all over again!
Read more here:
Modern Browser Wars
A new Internet Explorer version is coming
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