Opera 7 for Windows

Features of Opera 7 for Windows

Successive Opera releases have traditionally introduced innovative features, such as the tabbed browser window, later mimicked by Mozilla/Netscape. Opera 7 continues that tradition with a collection of clever new tricks.

In particular, the fast-forward button caught our fancy. With it, you can run Web searches and check out all the resulting links without having to scroll to wherever the Next link appears on the page (traditionally, the very bottom of the page). No matter where you are on the page, just hit the fast-forward button, and Opera will automatically go to the next page of the list. (Most search sites, such as Google, use a Next link to indicate the next page of your search result.)



Another handy feature, the Password Wand, launches a little dialog box whenever you enter a password on a Web page, asking if you want to save the password. If you click Yes, the next time you visit that same login page, Opera will display a little gold frame around the username and password boxes. Then, just click the magic wand icon in the toolbar, and Opera will fill out the username and password boxes for you--very handy for managing your myriad login screens. This process actually seems quicker than IE's Auto-Complete, because one click of the Wand not only fills out the username and password, it actually submits the form. In IE, the same action would require these steps: Start typing your username; select the right one from the IE Auto-Complete list; hit Enter to prefill the form with the selected account data; hit Enter again to submit the form.

Our one concern with Opera's Password Wand is that there's no master password to protect it; Mozilla's password manager, on the other hand, does require a master password. In other words, anybody could walk up to your computer and use the Wand to enter your passwords. A word to the wise: it might be safe to use the Wand for your My Yahoo or Amazon.com passwords but not for the passwords to your bank and brokerage accounts.



From the outset, Opera 7's refined e-mail client, M2, is quick and responsive. To save you massive data entry, M2 can import existing e-mail and settings from popular IMAP/POP3 applications such as Eudora and Outlook Express. Further, once you've set up your e-mail account, the program will automatically check for new messages every five minutes. You can also configure the mail check to run on a different schedule (Mail > Manage Accounts), or you can just click the Check button at will.

Better still, Opera 7 lets you access e-mail from within your browser rather than launching a separate e-mail program--a real time-saver (clicking the Mail buttons in the Netscape and IE browsers brings up Netscape Mail and Outlook Express, respectively). Double-click the Unread folder, and a new tab appears in your browser window displaying your most recent messages. In fact, M2 is about the most seamlessly integrated e-mail app we've ever seen. In one single window, you can switch quickly back and forth from the e-mail program to any Web page.