Drawar

I am always happy to test things in Opera because as a browser (both in terms of it's rendering capabilities and as far as features go for the user) I think it's pretty good. Especially since v9 was released - it has a lot of the useful things which I love in Firefox (and related extensions). Generally it seems a fair bit more polished and responsive than Firefox does.

It's a modern browser, and it adheres to standards pretty well. It does have some odd default settings for some things (padding here and there, etc...) but I always try and make sure my sites work in Opera. It has definitely been easier for me to get things working in Opera than IE, and not having a Mac, it is a lot easier to test for than Safari.

I use Opera for daily browsing, sometimes Firefox, and never IE. I think it is equally good as Firefox, the upgrade procedure is usually painless, and it's fast.

Opera has been around on my system forever ... I just don't use it much, although I do update it regularly since iot became free.

I usually test on Firefox or Opera before IE and I've never experienced severe Opera problems ... errors are usually coughed up by other browsers. Actually, if Opera coughs, I usually screwed sth up in my CSS that other browsers can (but shouldn't) live with.

No.

If I get a note about something not working.. I'll download a trial or free version to check it out, but that's not happened. I don't think it's through any good design on my part, I just think my opera audience is so small it doesn't matter.

This got me thinking and I went and dug a bit on my site stats.

I run two servers, with about 40 different sites. Of those I find the following:

MSIE 6.0 - 35%
Firefox - 43%
Safari - 12%
Other - 10%

Digging a bit deeper... across 40 sites, this year, millions of hits, I've had 23 opera hits. Now I know a lot of opera users set their browser to report something else for compatibility issues, but even so that seems rather low.

Most Opera bugs that I come across will also be found in Safari, so usually fixing one browser fixes the other.

Ozone42, that's my experience too. I thought the number of users would increase drastically when it became free but the only browser that increases in number is Firefox.

Although I use firefox for browsing, Opera is a worthwhile browser if you're a web developer. It's complance with ACID2 is why I use it to test my web work.

I use only FireFox ( i'm under Ubuntu Dapper Drake ) to check my designs , and for other browser's compatibility , i use carfully my css and i follow theses compatibility tables : http://www.quirksmode.org/css/contents.html .

I use it on occasion, but never test with it, whenever I have tested it, all my sites have worked, so now I just assume they work as in Firefox, I hope they do...

Nah I hate Oprah, she's always recommending books I don't want to read.

Oh wait... :)

Ever since I began designing in 2000, one thing I have ensured is that all my sites work across as many bloggers as possible including Opera.

It can be really irritating when I can't use Opera on certain sites because it isn't supported.

And I really wonder why, because Opera today works perfectly if your site is designed according to web standards.

I have only tested in Opera when someone reports an issue. For the most part Opera seems to render my page well, except for my menu bar. Every other browser (including IE) doesn't seem to have a problem with it, but Opera makes the menu look like shit. I've done some CSS hacks to fix it up, but it's still not the way I would like.

It's a nice browser, I'd use it but firefox looks nicer and has all the extensions.

I never test in Opera. No one uses Opera and those that do are fan boys that I don't mind upsetting. ;)

There's a difference between a designing for a personal blog and a paid project. Personally it's not important to me but if I'm paying for a design I would expect it to work in Opera. Unless there's something I want and it just won't work in Opera for some reason.

The range of responses is interesting. For those of you who have had to make modifications to CSS to make it work with Opera, did it involve padding?

For those of you who like Opera, <i>what the hell is it doing with padding that's so off? :)

I've actually found Opera 9 to be generally good with CSS.

I'll test for the latest version of Opera, but unfortunately I just can't do much more than that. I've never had to hack for Opera though; it's been great since version 8 about handling CSS correctly.

I primarily test in Firefox as it is my main browser,

i also test in
- IE 6 and 7 (though I care less and less for IE 6
- Opera 9.2
- Ubuntu Firefox (which renders slightly differently than in Windows Firefox

I do not go any further though i'd like to have a Mac with Safari (longing for the day...!)

I'm not a big fan of Opera, a lot of CSS didn't work well. The command "overflow: auto" didn't work back then, maybe they updated it.

I'm not sure of this, but I've heard that Nintendo Wii online browser is going to be Opera.

Just to throw more info in, I manage an international business web site as well. Roughly 2 million hits per month.

Opera doesn't show up on the radar except 5-10 times a month, and that's hit numbers, not visits!

I'd say coding for opera is MORE important on personal blogs and the like and less important on businesses simply because businesses don't use alternative browsers. They use IE, Some Mozilla Variant, and very rarely Safari. Sad but true!

Opera 9.02 seems like it might be a good browser, but most people I know use Firefox. First, time a came across Opera 9.02 someone had visited my blog Funniest Video Lane Sitemeter is usually pretty good about finding the origins of my visitors, but this time it did not recognize a lot stuff it normally does. I think it definitely has more to do with the IP address, than the browser. IP Address: 89.240.161.#

thanks

I personally don't use Opera. I've never been a big fan of the interface for some reason. But I always check to make sure my pages render properly. Maybe they aren't perfect, but things are primarily where they should be. :)

No, I always check my designs in Firefox</strong and IE.

Opera is an important browser to test against, particularly in the handheld and mobile markets. My gripe with 'alternative' browsers is peoples inconsistency to keep them up to date which makes CSS testing a real burden. All you can really do is test for the latest. Someone mentioned different browser/platform combinations. How many variables does one have to cater for? All you can do is follow the standards, test in browsers that are faithful to the standards such as Firefox, Safari and Opera, then check it out in IE5/6/7 to see what needs tweaking. That's as good as it gets.
Todays stats are:

• Internet Explorer 609 64.72%
• Firefox 278 29.54%
• Safari 22 2.34%
• Konqueror 14 1.49%
• Opera 10 1.06%
• Netscape 3 0.32%
• Mozilla 3 0.32%
• gzip 1 0.11%
• SonyEricssonK800i 1 0.11%

All we need, mobile phones on the website too. They are even worse at rendering CSS. Responsibility has to lie with the developers of the software to follow the standards.

Used it once upon a time but really now it's just there for testing - sad I guess when it comes down to it but there are far more that are higher up on my would use list.

Well, design should be tested in all mayor browsers, and opera9 is one of them, especially when some symbian cell phones are working with opera mobile, just check the asian market: most of the cell phones have opera mobile installed.

In the last week, this is what my site has seen for browsers. You might note that my results tend to always have more firefox viewers just because of the demographic of visitors to my site is the type that is interested in web design and javascript, making them more likely to use Firefox over IE.

Browsers - Percent
Firefox - 47.12%
Internet Explorer - 42.69%
Safari - 5.48%
Opera - 2.92%
Mozilla - 0.87%
Camino - 0.42%
Netscape - 0.27%
Konqueror - 0.1%
Lynx - 0.02%

I'm actually surprised at Opera. I do check things in it periodically, but so few people use it and it does have pretty good CSS support that it is sometimes hard to really think that it is necessary to look at.

I test most things in Opera because a couple of friends use it, and they hassle me if I don't make it work in Opera as well as everything else...