Yes, the first association that comes to the mind of an ordinary person with the word “opera” is a huge theater, official setting, expensive decorations. But not only a form of art bears such a name.
Active users of the World Wide Web will answer the question of what opera is, in another way, from them you will learn that it is also a great web browser.
The story of the Opera browser began 19 years ago, in 1994, even before the first browser war. It was created by enthusiasts from a large Norwegian corporation Telenor.
There are versions of Opera that work in Windows, Android, Linux, MacOS. The browser, thus, can be called cross-platform.
Opera for PC occupies a small share of the browser market (just over 2%), but this indicator does not say anything about its quality. Many of Opera’s own developments are built into the program code of the application. The most famous of these features is the Opera Turbo mode, the inclusion of which allows the user to compress traffic several times, which helps to save money if he is sitting on the Internet at a limit tariff.
Do not forget what Opera is for lovers of smartphones and tablets. A special version of the browser, Opera Mini, was developed for such devices. Like the older version, the program has the function of compressing traffic, which is very good for smartphone owners, since there are no acceptable unlimited tariffs for mobile Internet in Russia. And with Opera Mini, everything is very simple and clear, and traffic savings reach up to 75%.
Opera for Windows 7 is available for direct free download on the official website of the developer. Users will find here many different builds of the distribution package. For Opera, more than 60 language localizations have already been created, so no matter where you are from - China or Peru, you can use the browser without a dictionary and in full.
There is also a version called Opera Mobile, which essentially duplicates Opera Mini, so it is successful only for novice users and owners of old smartphones. The application program code is rather cumbersome, so it often slows down and throws errors on some devices.
It is likely that we will soon forget what Opera is, because the developers of the browser either jokingly or seriously announced their intention to switch to the Chromium engine, which means that all the program code written by the Norwegians will fly to the "Trash". It is possible that such news was a raffle, but IT experts are confident that the developers' statements are based on and aimed, first of all, at popularizing the new, 13th version of the browser in the world.
Today, Opera is positioning itself as “the fastest Internet browser in the world,” but no one can say for sure whether it will be used in the future, or simply sent to a virtual museum, like Netscape itself. The Internet does not tolerate the weak, and therefore many different browsers built on outdated engines will die. Only history will be able to answer the question of what Opera is - the fastest independent browser or another potential Google Chrome clone. Of course, many users of the World Wide Web use both that and that browser. Someone finds convenience in the first for himself, someone in the second. Perhaps this is due to the fact that people just get used to what they always used.