Leslie Franke

There is a nice discussion going on now over at Opera Watch about why more people do not switch over and use Opera as their main desktop browser of choice. As a current Mozilla Firefox user, who has used IE, Firefox, and Opera in the past, I believe there are several reasons that Opera has not developed a large following.

One of the most important reasons that people have not switched to Opera is a lack of a clearly defined reason to make the switch. A key to marketing is to market a solution not the product. For the average user, what compelling reason is there to switch to Opera? Or put another way, what does Opera add to my browsing experience? Mozilla, with Firefox, pointed to issues such as tabbed browsing, extensions, and most importantly security, which people could easily understand and relate to. With Opera the solution is missing, Opera’s innovation and advanced features do not matter to the average user.

A second reason people avoid switching to Opera is that too many web sites fail to function properly in Opera. Whether it be with Google or other sites, Opera has failed to work on too many times. Users are not going to understand that it may be the web site’s fault, not Opera’s, that the page does not render correctly. Since it works fine in their current browser, they will blame it on Opera and go back to the browser they were using before.

Finally, the look and feel (UI) of the Opera browser is different than Internet Explorer or even Firefox. It is not as smooth as a transition from IE to Opera, as it was from IE to Firefox. Opera is not always easy to use, has a very busy interface, and is missing buttons, like the stop button, on the toolbar. This only adds to the confusion. First impressions are very important. The average user will only quickly give Opera a try. To them the UI is a hurdle to continued usage of the product.

One way for Opera to grow their desktop browser market share is to use their name recognition and leading status in the mobile browser market to encourage and push people to using Opera on the desktop as well. As mobile browsers become more and more sophisticated and people learn to trust Opera on their phone or PDA this may become an easier and easier thing to do. Ultimately, though, Opera needs to find an answer to the question of ‘What compelling reason is there for me to switch to Opera?’. In many ways, like the new Flock browser Opera seems to be a solution without a problem.

The article posted here several months entitled “Mozilla Firefox – Have It Your Way!” has been updated to include several new extensions, more information about managing extensions, and a few extra tips. If you have not seen the article yet it deals with how to use extensions, themes, search engines and other tweaks to personalize Firefox to your tastes. Please note that while the article has been written for Windows users most of it is applicable for other operating systems as well and a few of the ideas presented in the article (with managing search engines for example) will become obsolete when Firefox 2.0 is released.

Link: Mozilla Firefox – Have It Your Way

See the originial post here.

eBible.com is a new web 2.0 online Bible study tool with tagging and searching among other features. (See my previous posts about eBible here and here.) A good way to enhance your eBible experience is to use the Mozilla Firefox web browser when browsing through eBible.

Firefox can make it easier to search for items in eBible. The first way is the most simple, install eBible’s Firefox search plugin and just like searching Google or Yahoo, you can search eBible from Firefox’s search box in the upper-right hand corner.

Secondly, you can use a keyword on a Firefox bookmark to search eBible by typing search terms into Firefox’s address bar. First you must create a search bookmark by doing the following:

1. Navigate to eBible.com.
2. Right-click on the search box at the top of the page.
3. From the context menu that appears click on the “Add a Keyword for this Search…” option.
4. Give a name to the new bookmark, such as ‘eBible Bible Search’.
5. Choose a keyword for the bookmark such as ‘eb’. You will type this string along with a search term in the Firefox address bar in order to search eBible.
6. Click on OK.

To use your new search bookmark, just type ‘eb’ into the address bar followed by a space and then the words to search eBible with, such as in the example below.

Finally you can search eBible with the help of the Firefox DictionarySearch extension. First you must install the extension. Once it is installed go into the extension options and set up a search term. Now whenever you’re reading a web page and want to look up a term or passage on eBible hightlight the words on the page, right-click, and from the context menu select the “Search eBible for _______” option.

The screen shot below shows how to set up DictionarySearch extension to search eBible’s Bibles, tags and answers. You can use any or all of the settings below. Each one will create a different search entry on the Firefox right-click menu.

Firefox also makes it easy to view eBible on your full screen in Windows, getting rid of the Windows Taskbar and many or all of the Firefox tool bars, thus allowing you to view more of the Bible on the screen at once. By default pressing the F11 key, when in Firefox, will hide the Windows Taskbar and Firefox menu bar. If you want even more screen space install the Firefox AutoHide extension and the full screen can now be devoted to reading eBible.

I have updated the Mozilla Thunderbird Cheat Sheet to include a couple of suggestions that have been made. Available in the following formats:

• PDF format
• HTML format

Note: The location of the PDF has changed.

For those who are still looking for an invitation to eBible.com, Mobile Ministry Magazine is running a contest where an invitation is being given out to the person who best answers the question “Where will the Church be in relation to the use of mobile and Internet technology in 3 to 5 years?”.

See my review of eBible.com here.

I have updated the Mozilla Firefox Cheat Sheet to include a couple of suggestions that have been made. Changes include:

• Tab Select shortcuts
• Undo shortcut
• Another Open Link in Background Tab shortcut
• Changed the path to cached elements

Available in the following formats:

• PDF format
• HTML format

Note: The location of the PDF has changed.

Opera has released version 9.0 of its browser adding a number of new features including a built in BitTorrent downloader, content blocker, tab previews and widgets. While it does not have the marketshare of Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer, Opera is a free browser with a very loyal user base. Besides a desktop browser Opera is a significant player in the mobile browser market.

BitTorrent support has made its way into this version of Opera. A separate BitTorrent application is no longer needed to download large files. Now, downloading a BitTorrent file works the same as downloading a regular file. The simplicity of the one click download process should appeal to many BitTorrent users. (For more information on BitTorrents please visit Wikipedia.)

Opera Widgets are small applications, such as multimedia, newsfeeds and utility programs that run on the desktop outside of the browser. They are similar in idea to extensions in Mozilla Firefox. As all of Opera’s browsers run on the same core components, widgets holds extreme promise for the future. It should be easy to develop and distribute applications for mobile devices through the use of a widget. While the number of widgets available is currently small, this should grow over time.

Opera’s new content blocker will block various kinds of web page content, including ads, from being displayed in the browser. Opera’s tab preview is also a nice new feature. Hover the mouse over one of the browser’s tabs and a thumbnail appears which will display a screen shot, page title, URL, and other information. Finally, Opera now lets you easily add your favorite sites to the browser’s search engines by right-clicking on a site’s search field.

The major problem that many will find with Opera is the lack of support for many of Google’s services such as Google Notebook and Calendar. The way widgets are implemented can also be annoying. They spawn themselves in new windows, thus removing one of the major benefits of tabbed browsing.

Opera enthusiasts should find that this new release really appeals to them. It remains a solid browser that continues to remain at the forefront of browser innovation. If you have never tried Opera before give it a try. I would still recommend Mozilla Firefox or even Flock over Opera to others, but different features appeal to different users. You can not go wrong selecting Opera has your main browser.