Opera has always been that browser that some people love, some people have never heard of and everyone else hates. It’s always been there, but never really been a player amongst the big boys. It’s always been missing a few important Javascript calls, been fairly ugly to look at, and never as refined as a lot of the other browsers. Version 9.6 shows potential of all that turning around.

Opera Browser 9.6 although not quite there, shows Opera is finally getting the browser where it needs to be in order to be a real player. Design wise the new release is vastly improved, the Windows version is extremely sexy and it’s a shame they didn’t mix a similar design in for the Mac version. The Mac version is 1,000 times better than the old Mac version design but there are a few elements that are still “old style mac”.

Speed wise, Opera has really improved it’s HTML and image loading time, faster than Safari! Javascript is speedier than ever and I haven’t found any Javascript support issues which I have previously had in the past. I tested some of my intense Javascript sites in Opera and it held up really well. On par with Safari which is really good to see.

For developers it’s really important that browsers follow the web standards in terms of the way it renders HTML, Javascript, CSS etc. From my tests Opera seems to follow Mozilla with this, but with the speed of Webkit – The best of both worlds!

Opera also features a new developer console called Dragonfly which is similar to the Firebug add-on in Firefox. This is great news for developers wanting to test sites in Opera, it allows you to see any Javascript, CSS, HTML errors etc. Which as we all know helps dramatically when trying to combat various browser issues. It’s missing the network feature which both Safari and Firefox’s Firebug have. The network feature allows you to see how long each script and image takes to load which allows you to pinpoint exactly what is causing your site to load slowly. I have no doubt this feature will come shortly, Dragonfly is still only at version 0.7.

So is it time to switch? For me, not yet, I’ll be sticking with Safari for now. There are a few features missing that I’m accustomed to using such as the bookmarks bar at the top. Opera has a side bookmarks bar option, but I prefer it on the top. The design is not quite finished on the Mac version, it’s got it’s ugly bits and doesn’t have the flair of it’s Windows counterpart. I don’t think it will be long before Opera wins me over though, it’s moving in the right direction.

In this day and age where we are discovering the web was only so slow, not because our internet speeds, but because of the lack of browser speed. It is really important for browsers to be fast with 500 tabs open. It is also important a browser follows web standards *cough* Hint Hint Microsoft *cough*. Over the past few years we’ve seen the rise and fall of many web browsers. The real choices we have are Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer and now Opera, the new old kid on the block. As far as developers are concerned, another browser to take share from Internet Explorer is a good thing. Opera has launched a new word of mouth campaign to help give it a real share in the browser market. Visit Opera’s website for more details on that. You can view and share one of their “choice” viral videos. I hope this campaign works for them!