I use Opera, and I like it. I often hear Firefox recommended, so why do I never seem to hear about Opera? Dave Morgan
In computing, recommendations often have a pseudo-religious nature. Firefox was claimed to be innovative for adding features that Opera already had because Firefox is open source and free. Opera's genuine innovations, superior accessibility (eg for blind users), robustness, standards-compliance and security were ignored because it is a commercial program, and because the free version (which appeared with v5.0 in 2000) was supported by advertising. Although Opera removed the ad banners in 2005, it was far too late to have much impact.
Also, Firefox comes from California, whereas Opera comes from Norway. However, Opera has found support from companies based outside Silicon Valley, including Nintendo, Nokia, Sony, Sharp, Archos and Psion.
