My hat’s off to the Opera team for pushing out what looks to be a fine browser in the final release of version 7. So far, only the Windows version of Opera 7 is available. As always, it’s lightweight, it installed quickly (sans-Java), and starts up lightning-fast as well (without using the “Quick Launch” cheat.)
It’s obvious from floating around on the Web this morning that Opera 7 makes significant improvements in support of web standards over versions 5 and 6. And it finally gets CSS font-size keywords correct out of the gate, with no preference adjustments. I don’t care for the default skin, the overdrawn 3D icons that face away from their light source, and the Flash-like effect for the appearance of the icon text labels. Opera 7 isn’t flawless yet, and there are still minor glitches and differences in CSS support compared to the other major browsers. But the release is still commendable.