We installed the OLPC Opera package today. Opera is an alternative web-browser that is “out in front of the pack” when it comes to the OLPC project. They have released their software to run on the device – and, in my opinion, is a vast improvement to the default browser the machine ships with. Here’s why:
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Tabbed Browsing – you can open up multiple websites through the single browser.
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Handles popped-up windows (through tabbed browsing) – many websites these days pop-up content or other websites. I know there are web developers out there who cringe at this – but it is necessary to support!
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Defaults to a (although shrunk) 1020 pixel width. Most modern sites (cnn.com, nytimes.com) these days have designed their websites to fit on a larger screen than the OLPC default browser supports. Opera fixed this – and also has zoom-in / zoom-out features.
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Bookmarks – enough said.
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Options to configure plugins/java and a web proxy. MANY school systems go through a web-proxy and filter these days.
Here’s the installation instructions off of the OLPC wiki:
