Tutorial for Opera (draft)
This is a draft tutorial for Opera. It was written by Brandon from the Forums. It is currently unfinished. Please add/edit more features as you feel.
Introduction:
- This is a tutorial designed for people who are new to the Opera browser.
- This tutorial for the most part is designed for Opera7, but you may find some information that also applies to Opera6.
Opera's features:
- Opera has so many features and options that make browsing easier, but because of all of those features, it may take people new to the Opera browser some time to find them all.
- Nearly all of Opera's features can be accessed by going to File > Preferences, however some can be reached by pressing F12 on a blank part of a page.
- That's why this tutorial was written, so people inexperienced with Opera can learn of some of its greatest features.
Opera's privacy features
- Since many people who browse the internet care about their privacy, I shall discuss Opera's privacy features.
- Opera's privacy features can be found by going to File > Preferences > Privacy.
- This picture you see here is where you can change Opera's privacy settings.
- A cookie is a small text file that is stored on your computer to tell if you have visited a certain website.
- Some cookies tell sites your browsing habits, so it is a good idea to enable Delete cookies when exiting Opera. (Note) this will not delete cookies which are frequently updated, such as those from message boards.
- Referrer logging allows sites to gather information from other sites that you have visited. It's a good idea to disable it, but some sites require it.
Opera's security features
- Opera has many security features which can be accessed by going to File > Preferences > security. These options make browsing more secure.
- For example, you can set a master password for Wand (Opera's password manager), or M2 (Opera's built in email client.
- The Wand is very secure in that it is encrypted very strongly, so if someone wants your passwords, they are going to have to work very hard for them. If you have Master password enabled, then it is even harder for someone to collect your passwords.
- To make the security even better, along with a master password click on the Security protocols box, and uncheck Enable SSL 2.0 This is less secure than SSL 3.0, so if you uncheck it, it'll use the more secure version of SSL.
Quick Preferences in Opera:
- Opera since version 6 has had a feature called Quick Preferences. They can be accessed by pressing F12, or by going to File > Quick Preferences.
- This picture is what the Quick Preferences menu looks like.
- Quick Preferences has many settings that can be enabled/disabled just by checking or unchecking the appropriate option.
- The quick preferences menu is a quick and easy way to change browser settings.
- Quick preferences is where you can access the popup settings for Opera. Set Opera to Open requested popups only. This will allow legit popups, and block most popup ads.
- You can also tell Opera to use plugins or not within this menu.
- You can also specify if Opera animates GIF files. GIF's are just images, so you can disable this option.
- It also has identity settings, so if a site refuses to serve you content because you're not using Netscape or IE, then you can change the identity of Opera to fool (most) sites into thinking you are not using Opera.
Delete Private Data:
- Opera also has a feature called "Delete Private Data" which can be accessed by going to File > Delete Private Data.
- If you take a look at the picture, you'll see all the things Delete Private Data does.
- It is a good idea to use this tool regularly, because it will increase your privacy.
- Just in case you're wondering, Opera (does not) store data in files that are impossibly hard to delete, like in Internet Explorer.
Cache Settings in Opera:
- Opera's cache settings are the settings that tell Opera what to do with cookies, and various other data websites put on your computer.
- This can be a very handy feature, because here you can tune up Opera to increase its performance. If you are using a fairly old computer, then it is recommended that you fine-tune these settings to get the best performance.
- If you take a look at the picture, you'll find settings that increase Opera's performance on slow computers, and also on faster computers.
- Of course though, you might want to set Typed in addresses to 50, and Visited addresses to 100.
- Using these settings will ensure faster browsing with Opera.
- Note: You can adjust these settings to whatever works for you. Customization is what makes Opera such a good browser.
Network Settings in Opera:
- You can access Opera's network settings by going to File > Preferences Network.
- Fine tuning your cache and network settings can speed up Opera greatly.
- A lot of people complain that it takes a long time to type text into the address bar. This can be fixed by clicking on the “server name completion, and unchecking “Look for local network machine, and “Try name completion using...”
- The Max connections to a server dictates how many lines of communication the browser should open up per web site, and Max total connections dictates how many total connections Opera can make (see Opera7Performance and HttpProtocol for more detailed discussion).
- You'll also notice the Identify as: feature that was mentioned on the Quick preferences page.
- If you are using an early Win95, then Synchronous DNS should be checked.
File Upload / Management
If you add images, please use the file upload mechanism, then add them to the page using the convention used in this document.
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