Browsers

I never though about browsers much before this class. I pretty much stick with Firefox. However, I started using Opera recently and really like the interface and widgets they provide. I started setting up my "speed dial" on Opera with my frequently visited web pages. I like the notes feature, the thumbnail quick view when you scroll over your open tabs, and the fact that you can easily re-open recently closed tabs. 

Then I started noticing some flaws. The first thing I noticed was that Opera has no "auto fill/memory" feature for forms. You can designate your name, email, etc, and it will fill it our for you, but it uses the same information on every site. For example, when I'm filling out a form, depending on what it is, I will sometimes use my NYU email and other times my personal. Which one I use is pretty consistent with the pages I am regularly on. In Firefox, it knew how I'd filled out a particular form before and uses that information. Opera dosen't do this, so I have to type my information into every form I fill out.

The second observation was that Opera cannot open NYUHome emails. I can log onto NYUHome, but if I click to open my email, the page will say "loading" indefinitely. It cannot open NYU email - this is a major problem for me.

The latest observation is how Opera displays audio/movie content. When you open a page with embedded video or sound (and for some reason fill-in enabled forms) it opens with an icon - a grey circle with a "play" symbol - in place of the actual image or control bar. This became really irritating when I was trying to view my animation page. The animation will begin playing instatly, but I have to click on the "play" icon and wait for my auto-play sound to start playing, so I couldn't properly time the animation with the sound on Opera.

I hope that Opera works out its kinks because it has the potential to be a great browser, but for now I'll stick with Firefox.