That's the question the Oslo, Norway-based Opera Software AS is testing with the "Technology Preview 1" release of its Opera 5.0 browser.
The company already has full versions of its $39 browser for Linux, BeOS, EPOC (which runs on portable devices) and various flavors of Windows. The company also offers a free version of Opera 5.0 for Windows, albeit with ads, and plans to do the same for Mac and Linux.
"From day one there has was a huge interest in the browser," said Pal Hvistendahl, Opera's communication manager. "This has continued as the news has--and continues to--spread through the Net." Hvistendahl said that the feedback the company had received so far was overwhelmingly positive.
Though Opera 5.0 tp1 is far from feature-complete (a splash screen warns "This version of Opera is not for permanent use" at launch), Mac-centric sites and message boards have been buzzing about the browser since its preliminary release on Feb. 22.
Writing in the pro-oriented news and opinion site MacEdition, Tony Leggett said that even the early, pre-beta build of Opera had, in his testing, performed better than the established market leaders Netscape Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer (which comes bundled on Mac systems) as well as Netscape 6, the "next-generation" and long-awaited version of that company's browser, which has been met with a generally negative reaction.
Supporting Opera's tag line of "the fastest browser on Earth," Leggett praised the browser for loading Web pages featuring long, threaded discussions in approximately one-third the time it takes for Internet Explorer to render the page. Leggett also pointed to Opera's compact size and RAM requirements, customizability and promised (if not fully implemented) support for Web standards--a bugaboo for the market leaders. In particular, Opera promises support for HTML 3.2 and 4.0; Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) 1 and 2; HTTP 1.0 and 1.1; XML; and WAP.
Not included in the latest release of Opera are Java support; file uploading; a full keyboard-based user interface; AppleScript support; cookies; page source display; and some preferences. In addition, there are oddities that might be expected so early in a piece of software's development process, such as the inability to quit the application if no browser windows are open.
Though Leggett's comments were largely echoed on Mac discussion sites, which also register dissatisfaction with Navigator's and Internet Explorer's expansive footprints, RAM requirements and the feature bloat that can often cause system-wide slowdowns and instabilities. Not all Mac users are so sanguine, however.
Joe Gillespie, who writes and publishes the monthly Web Page Design for Designers site, acknowledged Opera's speed but asked "What is the point of being fast and wrong?" He pointed out errors he's found in the new version's implementation of CSS, JavaScript and animated GIF displays. For example, certain fonts specified by CSS render at a smaller screen size.
"When it comes to money, supporting even a relatively big player like Netscape on the Mac is dubious in most instances," Gillespie said. "Browser usage appearing up in their logs shows the Mac very low and Netscape a small fraction of that." Most published metrics of Web browser usage have increasingly ranked Internet Explorer surpassing Navigator, in addition to showing the two of them combining for an overwhelming majority of browser usage.
However, MacEdition has seen Opera rise quickly to become the third-most frequently used browser by visitors to the site, according to representatives. This, they point out, is in spite of the fact that Opera, by default, identifies itself as Internet Explorer.
As for standards support, Gillespie said it was a nice idea but "isn't it a bit like the case of the mother watching the troops march past and remarking that 'everybody is out of step except my Johnny?' "
Surprisingly, in a market dominated by two free products, Opera is not the only attempt at an alternative, for-profit product. Over the last few years, the German developers The iCab Company have been releasing preview versions of their iCab Web browser, which was begun with the idea of complete standards support. Originally, the company had planned that the final release would be available for a fee. That policy was recently changed. In addition to a feature-complete "iCab Pro," which will cost $29, there will be a free version with unspecified changes.
