While Firefox 3 is around the corner, Opera recently released 9.5 version. Having a habit of playing with all new software’s, I downloaded Opera 9.5 and felt that this browser just can’t be ignored. If you are anti-plug-in person then this browser is the perfect match for you as it has got loads of features inbuilt with the beautiful black design.
FIRST RUN: The browser was amazingly fast & stable, even on Windows Vista (I tested on Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium). I actually enjoyed my first browsing session on it. I visited my routine sites, all things went good.

But when I opened Gmail, it didn’t load chat in it. Also the progress bar of Gmail was not seen here as the Gmail detects the browser first and then accordingly loads the proper version. For opera it loaded the default without chat. I tried to load the default version of Gmail with chat by doing some tricks. This time it showed the loading progress bar but chat panel wasn’t loaded. After using it for sometime, chat panel appeared & was working properly. Its not opera fault but the Gmail chat version is still not developed by Google.

FEATURES: The feature which I loved was the text-to-speech engine of Opera 9.5. It has to be enabled from the Preferences menu, then it downloads a file of around 10.5mb. After that’s done just select any sentence, right click it & select ‘Speak’. You can now listen the text you selected. Cool! Isn’t it? Not only this, it offer two voice - one of male & another of female. I was more comfortable with the Male’s voice.
The display was quite clear & font looked better than that of Firefox 2. It also has the functionality to remember the passwords & set a master password. Right clicking anywhere on page showed up many handy options.

Hovering over the tabs, resulted in preview of those tabs which made life easy. The other feature that inspired me was the auto complete of URL’s which worked at lightning speeds. It has ability to auto-complete URL’s as you type from the history.
Also when new tabs are opened, a Speed Dial window open in it. You can specify up to 9 speed dials of your wish. This tool really proved handy.

I will just say don’t miss out this browser. Opera really worked hard to beat the Firefox 3 and this black beauty is capable of biting the market of Firefox 3.

Download Opera 9.5