BTW, For anyone looking for a way to stop their computer from being infected daily by spyware there is good news.

The Opera browser is now *free* without ads !

Yes, the company that makes Opera has decided that their income streams from sales to mobile phone companies and other sources can support releasing the desktop browser for free.

If you're still living in Internet Explorer land, itsnt it time you changed to a browser that doesnt have a "Welcome Viruses, Spyware and Malware" mat at the front door ?

FireFox is a nice free browser, but you need to add about 50 plug ins to it to get the functionailty that is built-in to Opera as standard.

Once you get used to the mouse gestures, speed of rendering, built in download managers, tabbed browsing, security, skins, search toolbars, stability, zoom features and so on, any other browser feels like a model-T ford.

Try the mouse gestures - right click'n'hold on a link, pull down, let go. bam, new tab window with your link open in it.
Finsihed looking ? -right click, pull down a bit, then right at 45 degrees and let go. zap, window gone and your back where you were. I dont know how you guys browse the new posts list on the forum without it.

I know I sound like an Ad, but seriously, give it a try. there will be a little bit of initial discomfort as you feel your way around a new workspace, but its worth it..

If you dont like the extra toolbars and things the default configuration uses.. just right click and "customise".. turn on and off whatever features you dont want and even make it look like internet explorer to ease the culture shock of changing if you want.

And you'll never get hit by spyware again. I wouldnt be game to venture into some of the seedier areas of the internet running Internet Explorer for concern about what my system might pick up. With Opera you can charge in anywhere without fear.

www.opera.com
_________________
Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

I've been running Opera since version 5. Totally kicks ass! I support it over Mozilla.
_________________
https://www.halfdonethings.com/

i have been running firefox for a while
tabbed browsing and all that jazz
dunno if mouse gestures are a key "selling point" for me, and on cable feh download managers ;->

I just changed to 1.5 beta. render speed is up higher still than 1.07 and that was up over IE by alot.

i have nfi how people deal with the new posts section without tabs either, it'd just get messy. But then most people dont seem to use it anyway?

i click the little page looking thing to the right of the persons name but that moves alot and its a really small target.
might it be possible to either shift that to its own column or perhaps easier, put a bigger image in, and possibly move it to the left, before the user name.

my only concern with opera would be that they may "go back to the dark side"
_________________
Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

*Try* the mouse gestures.. they rock. Seriously, it increases your browse speed enourmously.

Takes a little while to get the "feel" down pat, but once you get it, going to a browser without them is like going back to a mouse without a wheel.. instead of having to mouse precisely to a little X to close a window or go back a page you just twitch the mouse the right way and what you want is done.

Some people have watched me searching for something in a page of google results and cant even keep up with the speed at which I open and close windows thanks to not having to reach for buttons all the time.

I agree it would be nicer if they went totally open source, but I doubt they will go back to charging unless they manage to gain a microsoft-like dominance over the market, and probably not even then. When your two competitors (IE and FireFox) give their product away free, you dont have much of a chance of selling yours unless its light years ahead.
_________________
Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

Would Opera help a computer that is already infected with CWS?
_________________
So even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems

how safe is Opera for noobies as i have a female here and she knows jack about pc's and keeps killing firefox would opera be safer for her cos i am sick of having to fix this thing on a daily basis

how the hell do you kill firefox?
_________________
Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

how the fruck does one make opera do something... it wont load a page full stop. my verdict is too hard lol
_________________
www.demon50s.com - Minimoto parts
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyzerGlen - Videoooozzz

thats because you have lame ass tafe proxy man.
set the opera proxy settings to the same as IE and it'll work.
who the smeg makes their proxies non transparent anyway?
_________________
Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

mm Aaron put opera on here and its on the other computer Brett set up for me .. i find it a bit harder to use than ie especialy as i sometimes hit the wrong key or something while typeing and it just disapears and i have to reopen it and fing the site then start all over again sometimes it realy anoys me especialy if ive writen a long email reply . As for browsing the forums i cant see any difference i always just open the topic i want, the click on the last post number and it opens then i click the arrow button to go back and then find another page i want to look at

dont ask me how she kills firefox but everytime she finishes on the pc firefox goes wierd and my firewall is blocking everything and i have to uninstall everything to make it work? its really confusing me

I dont know that I would reccomend Opera as wholeheartedly for complete newbies. Then again, I wouldnt reccomend IE for newbies either. In fact, for compete newbies, get them a pen and paper.. they'll be much happer..

It has a lot of functions and stuff that can confuse people.. its more of a power-users browser. The main advantage from a newbies point of view is that its hard to get any nasty web-malware via it, but the multiple document interface and the various modes, zooms etc could potentially confuse some.

With Flexibility comes complexity.. Opera does as good a job as you can expect of keeping its complexities out of your face, but you cant have it do everything and still have a very simple interface. If you try hard, you can of course mess up the config.

It wont do anything to remove CWS if its already on the machine, but if CWS is an IE hijacker, then it wont bother Opera that its already there, since it doesnt share any functions with IE.

As far as it dissapearing when you hit a key, about the only one I know of that can make it dissapear is ALT-F4 . And even then, you just set it to "remember last session windows" and it will reopen with all the windows in exactly the same place you left them. This is one of the best features I find. I typically have anything from 20-50 tabs open at any one time with windows that "I'll get back to later". Its great, its like a web-browsing "to-do" list

Not loading a page at all ? Definitely sounds like a proxy or connection issue.. I've never seen it not and thats been installed on plenty of systems. Check you IE lan connection / proxy settings and put the same ones in Opera.

There are some good tutorials and help things at www.opera.com, and theres this "30 days to becoming an opera lover" guide that gets you up to speed with its features pretty quick
http://tntluoma.com/opera/lover/7/
_________________
Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

I believe Andrew is hitting crt + Q which is a quite command in Opera. I demonstrated it to him tonight
_________________
https://www.halfdonethings.com/

Thanks spockie if its hard to get use to it MIGHT be safer to stay with firefox but i might get opera for myself thanks guys catch ya's

I have just run Toolbar Cop, Ad Aware, Microsoft Antispyware and Spybot Search and Destroy and found no threats. Thank you to Brett and Vallen for helping me find these programs.
_________________
So even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems