I have been using Opera 11 since it was released and I am fairly impressed. First, you should know about my taste in browsers. I want something that has my favorite extensions which is LastPass and an ad blocker. I want a browser that’s fast… very fast and it must have a minimalistic design. Let’s see how well it stands up to my requirements.

Opera 11 added support for extensions and it has the LastPass extension. The LastPass password manager worked just as well it worked on the other browsers. I tried the NoAds extension but it does not work exactly as I hoped. It blocks ads on very few sites. You also cannot add filters to block additional ads. I am really disappointed in the NoAds extension but hopefully the extension will improve by the stable version of Opera 11.

Opera 11 is fast but it is not as fast as my default browser, Google Chrome. Google Chrome is able load blazingly fast and Opera 11 is noticeably slower. However, Opera 11 speed is live able and I hope it becomes faster by the stable version. Opera has a minimalistic design and it makes good use of the screen size. There are even sidebars which can be turned on if you want.

There is an innovative feature in Opera 11 which I have fallen in love with. I love Opera’s feature of stacking browser tabs. It is simply amazing. Not only is it extremely useful but it also makes good space of the screen size.

When you click on the arrow beside the tab, it opens up all the tabs that you have stacked on that tab.

Opera 11 is already very customizable and extensions will only add to its features. For a long time, Opera said that they would never add extensions to their browser but I am really happy that they have changed their mind. Maybe Opera 11 will actually take a share from the major browser but it seems unlikely. Still, it’s a major leap from their previous version and I cannot wait till the stable version of Opera 11.

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Guest post by Ahmed Qadir author of the Windows Tuts blog.