Niponwave

I dumped Internet Explorer (IE) as early as 2003. I started using Opera then which was shareware at that time (I had the banner ads removed though, using some serial no. obtained from net). Then my Greek friend Lefteris asked me to switch to Firefox (FF). I was reluctant as it lacked the visual appeal that was (and is) Opera’s forte. But when I got to know about extensions in FF I became a Firefox fan.

Of late my FF experience has been bitter. Readers of this blog will know that I am using Reliance data card to connect to the net. This Reliance Netconnect has super slow speeds. Surfing at this speed using Firefox has irritated me like anything for the past 3-4 months. I can’t do anything unless a page has loaded completely - can’t click on whatever part of the page has loaded or worse still, switch to another tab. Firefox kind of hangs when I open 3-4 tabs using this Reliance connection, something that I have never noticed in my broadband experience and seemed unusual to me. Must be this pathetic connection speed is to be blamed. This slow Firefox interface and slow connection speed drove me nuts. So yesterday, I made the switch to Opera. Opera is working just fine.

Opera was already installed as I need to see how a webpage looks in different browsers. So the switch was easy. I miss the Firefox extensions though, especially the del.icio.us extension for FF. I know Opera too has many widgets. But I am lazy to find them out. I will be using Opera as long as I am with this Reliance. As soon as I go home, where I have Dataone, I will revert back to FF. Or if Airtel broadband comes to Siliguri.

Lesson learnt: for a slow connection, use Opera.