Install Opera

Downloading and installing the program is a snap. Visit the Opera Web site, hover your mouse pointer over Download, and click Download Opera. Click the green Download Opera button. When the File Download–Security Warning dialog box appears, click the Save button. In the Save As dialog box, choose the folder in which you’d like to save Opera’s setup file. If you’re not sure where you want to put it, click Desktop at the left of the dialog box, and then click the Save button. This saves the file directly to your Desktop. When the Download Complete dialog box appears, click Close. Go to your Desktop (or wherever you saved the file) and double-click the setup file. Click Run in the Open File–Security Warning dialog box.

When Opera’s installation wizard appears, click Next and then (if you agree with the software license) click I Agree. At the Select Installation Directory step, you’ll need to choose whether Opera uses the same settings for all of your computer’s accounts or assigns separate settings to separate accounts. If your computer has multiple Windows accounts, choose the separate settings so you won’t irritate other users when you make changes to Opera’s interface and settings. Complete the wizard and then open Opera.

Tools & Tabs

Opera has tabs that let you quickly flip from one area to another. When you select features from the Tools menu, you’ll find that that they appear as tabs in the main Opera window. For example, open the Tools menu and click Notes. The Notes tab appears next to the default browser tab. The Notes tool fills the main window, but you can easily switch to the browser by clicking the browser’s tab.

Browser. The browser appears as soon as Opera opens. As with other Opera tools, the browser window has a corresponding tab in Opera’s Page bar. If you want to open another browser, simply click the New Page icon near the top of the screen. A new browser window and tab will appear. Each browser window has a single toolbar that sports Back and Forward buttons, as well as Rewind and Forward buttons, which let you skip directly to the first or last pages you visited.

The browser’s toolbar includes an address bar. Type a URL into this bar to visit a site. When you click the address bar, another toolbar will appear directly below it. This toolbar has the Home button and the browser’s Bookmarks button, among others. A Google search bar sits next to the address field.

You’ll also find a small Wand icon on the browser’s toolbar. The Wand feature lets Opera store your IDs and passwords for various Web sites. When you visit one of these sites and click the Wand, Opera fills in your login information. To enter your login information into the Wand feature, visit the site that requires your ID and password and then enter the necessary info on the page. The Wand window immediately appears and asks if you’d like to store the info in the Wand feature.

Tools. You can access other Opera tools, such as Notes, Transfers, History, and Links by clicking Tools at the top of the main window. The Transfers tool keeps track of your download history. History, on the other hand, tracks the Web pages you've visited. If you want to revisit a page and can't reach it via the Back or Rewind buttons, browse the History's list and then click on the appropriate link.

Clear Your Tracks

Opera lets you easily clean out traces of your Internet activity from your computer. Open the Tools menu and click Delete Private Data to open the Delete Private Data feature. If you click the Delete button, it will erase all of the pages in your browser history as well as any information in the cache. This simple feature will clean out all cookies, your transferred file history, and any data from password-protected pages. You can configure the feature to delete specific types of information by clicking the Advanced button in the Delete Private Data dialog box and then checking or unchecking the data type boxes.

You can manually clear many of the features that store Internet activity data in Preferences. Open the Tools menu, select Preferences, and click the Advanced tab. Next, click History. You’ll find settings for storing Web addresses you typed into the browser, as well as for your memory cache and disk cache. Use the Clear and Empty Now buttons to clean out these areas.

If you’re particularly nervous about people unearthing important personal information via your browser, you can instruct Opera to track certain pages and delete them from its storage areas as soon as you close the browser. This security feature keeps track of any pages you visit after you use an ID and password to log in to a Web site. When you close the browser, Opera immediately deletes those pages. You can always delete these and other pages by clicking Tools and Delete Private Data, but this feature performs the task for these important pages automatically. To enable the password-protected page tracer, open the Tools menu, click Preferences, and then select the Advanced tab. Click Cookies and deselect the Use Cookies To Trace Password Protected Pages checkbox. Click OK.


Work Offline

You can revisit pages stored in Opera’s Web cache without connecting to the Internet. This is a particularly useful feature for dial-up users. To enjoy the feature, open the File menu and select Work Offline. (A check mark will appear next to this option.) You can easily find recently visited pages by clicking History in the Tools menu. After you open a page from the History, the History tab will remain in the Page bar. To return to the online mode, simply visit any Web page and click Yes when the Offline Mode Is Enabled message appears.

Bookmark The Web

As with IE, Opera lets you create a list of Web addresses so you can revisit those pages without re-entering the URL. To bookmark a page, click the address field, select Bookmarks, and click Bookmark Page. If you want to put the page in a particular Bookmark folder, click Manage Bookmarks. Note that the Bookmarks toolbar appears above your list of bookmarks. Click Add and New Folder to create a new folder for certain bookmarks.

Opera Mail

Opera has an email client. If you have an email account and want to manage your email via Opera Mail, open the Tools menu and click Mail And Chat Accounts. When the Account Needed window appears, click Yes. Next, choose your email account type. If your email account is from your ISP (Internet service provider; such as Road Runner), you’ll probably want to choose the Regular E-Mail account type. Click Next and enter your account’s information.

When you finish adding your account info, Opera places two columns in the main window, next to the area that houses browser windows. The far-left column is a toolbar that links to your Contacts list, as well as your Internet Bookmarks. The second column has Check/Send and Compose buttons and displays your email account’s message settings.

Security Settings

Opera has several security settings. To configure these settings, open the Tools menu, select Preferences, and click Security in the Advanced tab. This area lets you determine whether the browser alerts you before taking certain (potentially dangerous) actions. It also lets you set a Master Password that applies to personal certificates and (if you select the appropriate box) Opera’s email and Wand features.

Next, click Cookies (just above Security in the Advanced tab) and determine which (if any) types of cookies the browser can automatically approve and receive. You can also manage your cookie alert settings here.

Remove Opera

You can uninstall the browser even faster than you installed it. Click Start, Control Panel, Add Or Remove Programs. Select Opera and click Change/Remove.

by Joshua Gulick