Topic: Why You Should Switch to the Mozilla Firebird browser

[Simon]

Well, I thought I'd have one more try with Opera, as it's reckoned to be so good, but it won't even install!  I/O Error - corrupt installation file, or something, so taking that as an omen, I'll stick with IE.  

[Simon]

Got it now.  Must have been the wrong version.    It's better without the ads!  

[Big_Boss]

Yeah im using Opera the now too. Its pretty good  

And fast too!  

Boss

P.S Can you get skins for it?

[Adept]

P.S Can you get skins for it?

Loads BB Try View | Skins | Get Skins


Stick with it Simon. Apart from a few very badly behaved (mostly Microsoft) sites, you'll not want to use anything other than Opera.

Try using "Search New" with the "Reload Every.." option on. You won't want to use IE again!

[Big_Boss]

P.S Can you get skins for it?

Loads BB Try View | Skins | Get Skins

Thanks, got a really nice looking one now  

Boss

[Adept]

I'm using Metal Blue Small



Which looks quite nice and uses a small amount of space

[Simon]

OK, well I'll use it for a while, but at the moment I'm still finding my way round it.  

A couple of questions for our Opera Expert    Is is possible to adjust how the mouse wheel works (i.e. how many lines it moves per 'click'), how can you get it to automatically dial up to go online, and (for Chorley Dave), how do you do that Google UK thing exactly??

It still doesn't display pages as I would like, i.e., as nicely as IE does, and some of the text, particularly on here looks a bit odd.

I don't like too many toolbars cluttering up the screen, so I have stripped it right down to a few essential buttons (small), with the address and search bars along side, leaving a nice big area for the page.

I have to say that the toys alone are not going to sell this to me, and the speed is nothing special, in fact the Mozilla Firebird was the quickest I've seen so far - what a shame it's incompatible with Pals, otherwise I would be more inclined to give it another outing.

[Adept]

Not sure how you change the mouse wheel clicks. Isn't it set via the control panel mouse icon?

Presumably if you set Opera as your default browser it will dial out automatically.

I'm not sure why Pals is showing different on IE than Opera. I've taken great pains to make sure it shows identically on both browsers apart from a few minor centering differences. You might want to try File | Quick Preferences | Identify as Opera and make sure that View | Zoom is set to 100%. What View | Text Size value do you have set in IE. It should be set on Medium to display Pals as it is meant to be viewed

I agree with you about Firebird - it is far faster than both Opera and IE6. Unfortunately (for Mozilla) the lack of auto reload, mouse gestures and some of the other toys makes me want to stick with Opera.

[Simon]

What View | Text Size value do you have set in IE. It should be set on Medium to display Pals as it is meant to be viewed

I have it set to Small in IE, as that's the way it looks best with my screen resolution.  (I know - trust me to be different)  

As far as the mouse wheel clicks, there's usually a browser setting somewhere, but I can't find it at the moment.  I don't want to change the settings in the mouse software, as that will then affect other things.

I'll give it another thourough going over.  

[chorleydave]

and (for Chorley Dave), how do you do that Google UK thing exactly??

Hi Simon.

Look in your Opera directory for the file search.ini and  open it in Notepad, or another txt editor.  The first search engine listed should be Google.   All you need to do is change the URL from .com to .co.uk.  I've copied mine below:

[Search Engine 1]
Name=&Google  UK
URL=http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%s&sourceid=opera&num=%i&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Query=
Key=g
Is post=0
Has endseparator=0
Encoding=utf-8
Search Type=0

[Simon]

Hi Dave,

Yeah, that's what I did but it didn't seem to make any difference.  The address still comes up as google.com, even though I changed it like you said.  

[Adept]

Opera 7.11 for XP stores the search.ini file in the users' private area.

Use the Windows file search to find it Simon. It'll be somewhere in "Documents and Settings"

[Simon]

Err, mine is Opera 7.02, I believe.  

I did find the / a search.ini in the application folder, and the thing Dave said about was definitely in there, and I definitely changed it, but I'll have a look and see if there's another one somewhere.

I've had to go back to IE on at least 2 occasions so far tonight, when Opera failed to display webpages.  I'm not convinced yet.

[Simon]

Having realised I seem to be using an older version, I've tried to update it, but keep getting instawwation ewwors (as Elmer would say).  Slowly losing patience.  

[chorleydave]

Hi again, Simon.

Sorry your having problems.  I've never used XP, having once tried WinME and hated it so much that I reformatted and went back to 98SE within the day.  Whenever I have upgraded my Opera browser to a newer version (as Opera does not write anything to the registry AFAIK) I have simply deleted the Opera directory and downloaded the newer version without any problem.

Hope you get it sorted one way or the other.