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Opera 5.0
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Opera 5.0's biggest news is that it's free as long as you're willing to stomach a few ads. A host of additional new features, from an integrated Web search tool to a built-in ICQ client, bring Opera much closer to parity with IE 5.5 and Netscape 6.0. And although you shouldn't throw away IE or Netscape yet, Opera's small hard drive requirements, memory footprint, and awesome stability and speed make it a worthwhile download.
But should you replace Netscape or IE with Opera? If you use your browser for surfing only, the answer may be yes. Opera loads pages as fast or faster than other browsers and accurately displays basic HTML Web pages. For example, Opera loads cached pages more than twice as fast as Netscape 6. And if you have an older PC with a slow processor or limited RAM, Opera is a much better choice than either Netscape 6 or IE 5.5.
Run the Opera 5.0 installer, and you'll see a dialog box that explains that Opera 5.0 is free as long as you accept the banner advertising feature. You can always turn off the ads by paying the $39 registration fee. The dialog box even invites you to view Opera's privacy policy, which describes how the ad window works.
Opera 5.0 offers a number of useful new features, including a stripped-down version of the ICQ instant messenger (IM), which is located in the toolbar. The built-in IM sends and receives ICQ messages but doesn't perform more advanced ICQ functions such as file sharing.
Unfortunately, the Messenger tool isn't quite as integrated as Netscape 6's instant messenger. For example, the Opera email client doesn't alert you when one of your address book contacts is logged on to ICQ. Still, Messenger loads much faster than ICQ does and uses much less RAM, which makes it a useful alternative, especially on PCs with limited RAM.
http://www.opera.com/
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