Opera 7 for Windows

Service and support of Opera 7 for Windows

Setup and interface: 8 Features: 8 Performance: 7 Service and support: 6 Remember the old adage: You get what you pay for. Although the paid and free versions of Opera 7 don't look that different, their support options diverge dramatically. If you choose the freebie Opera download, you'll have to try to solve your problems at the Opera support Web page and searchable knowledge base. You may also subscribe to one of Opera's newsgroups, where you might be able to get help from fellow users.

Registered Opera users get additional e-mail support. This concession may not seem like much, but when you're utterly stuck, nothing beats live contact. After registering at Opera's customer-support Web site with the registration code you purchased from Opera, you can use a Web form to send your question to the support team. A tech responds to the problem via e-mail and posts the reply on the customer-support Web site so that the next time you log in to the support site, you can view a full history of all your support questions. Having the history stored in one place is very handy--one of the nicest online support systems we've seen. The time difference between the United States and Norway may affect reply times. But usually, if you e-mail your questions in the evening, you'll have a response waiting for you come morning.

There's no phone support for Opera 7, but given the cost of long-distance calls to Norway, the omission is understandable. Fortunately, the aforementioned e-mail support for paid users is pretty good.