Opera 8 is now released. You can download it from here. It is a great piece of software, it has really a few advantages from previous versions that make it attractive for your students.
I particularly enjoyed the speaking ability which you can now install on Windows XP. Unfortunately, it isn’t available on my Windows 98 version. Shame. The male voice is fine, mostly, but the female voice is mildly irritating and less clear. I don’t know if that’s a fact or if it’s just MY perception. I did find the female voice difficult to understand. I don’t know why.
It has other useful functions, too, which make it an attractive browser. Moreover, it now displays pages that are more like regular browsers, which is neat. It really is more ‘standard’, however, I’ve noticed that Yahoo! Groups Themes don’t work properly in Opera if the browser is identified as Internet Explorer. Odd, eh.
Many of the features that I like are still here: going back/forward pages is so fast, I usually do that a lot. I did have problems with Cookies and getting access to my Internet Broker, I don’t really know why yet, it may have been their problem, acutally.
Kenneth