Have you dropped IE for Opera? I know I have...

We all get stuck on using one piece of software for a certain function - for years now I have been a loyal supporter of Internet Explorer in its various forms.

It just seems though that the more Microsoft update IE, the slower the damn thing gets!
In an attempt to make my life easier, I tried out Google's browser Chrome, expecting miraculous results.
Although the results are pretty darn good, Chrome eats up your resources if you run multiple tabs within your browser.
Each tab in Chrome opens a new instance of the chrome.exe file, so pretty soon your 10 tabs are munching away at your system resources with great vigour, and you are left sitting dazed in the cloud of smoke pumping out from your now over-stressed PC (or Mac)... :)

Having used Opera Mini on my phone for some time, I decided to try out their PC browser (also available for Mac OS X) to see how it fares in an already overcrowded sector...

"Wow" is the only word I can use to describe my initial experience - the interface is clean, the tab switching is slick and fast, the navigation is clever and logical... the list just goes on and on.
Currently I have 12 tabs open in Opera and my system is sailing along quite happily - impressive!

There is something about Opera that just gives it that edge over other browsers I have used - can't quite put my finger on it.
All I can say is that I am converted - so long Internet Explorer!

On the mobile front, the Beta release of Opera Mini 5 is also making waves among cellphone users.
Check out some of the features of this awesome browser:

- Tabbed browsing (works really well)
- Speed Dial (puts your favourite sites at your fingertips)
- Touch & Keypad (optimized for both touchscreen and keypad phones)
- Password manager (saves your personal information for social networking sites etc.)
and more...

Get Opera here.

Get Opera Mini here.