I’ve never been to an Opera and despite downloading the Opera browser several times on several different machines, I haven’t used the Opera browser either. This isn’t saying I don’t think it is any good, the point is that I’ve never given it a fair chance.

It’s tough for a commercial browser to make it when free browsers like Firefox are making such huge splashes these days. I have only purchased one commerical browser: iRider which was actually my very first review at this blog: 6 reasons the iRider browser is worth downloading. In MacWorld magazine February 2005 they are pointing to a commercial Mac-only browser called Omniweb which I also downloaded to check out. Anybody reading like/dislike Omniweb?

The newest version of Opera — its name is still a secret — is slated to be released in February. Among the new features is the Trash Can, an oddly named but useful addition that acts as a sort of extended bookmark for stored history. The Trash Can also allows users to save a series of pages as a “session” and then reload that session later. Voice Interaction, Opera’s splashiest new feature, allows users to control the program by talking to their computers. Websites, e-mail and documents can also be read aloud by the browser.

Among features that I personally don’t care enough about to pay for in a browser, voice integration is one of them. I’m usually listening to something on the computer so in order to use voice integration I need to turn off what I’m listening to and then dance with the speech recognition software. The only implementation I’ve seen of this to date that’s works practically without special configuration is hands free voice calling through OnStar (via Verizon). What happens there is I press a white dot button and my radio or whatever is playing in the car automatically quiets so I can tell the computer what number or “tag” to use to call. I suppose with a couple mouse clicks or a hotkey combination I could mute what I was listening to and utter my commands to the browser. But the point is if I’m going to use hotkey to do that, why not just save the extra step and use hotkeys to activate what I’m trying to do in the browser? The only practical use for voice integration in a browser is for accessibility reasons and for that I think it’s great that it’s there.

• 6 reasons the iRider browser is worth downloading
• Multiple installed browsers more than a good idea
• More irider - version 2.07 is out
• 4 ways Internet Explorer could improve and steal the Firefox thunder
• Opera goes free — banners and licensing begone!
• Opera and Google Adwords