Over at ZDNet, it is being reported that the next major revision of the Opera browser will be “prettier”, as some of the users of Opera, especially those using it on the Mac platform, think it needs work.

Well, having not seen Opera 9.6 for the Mac, I suppose I can’t make the most informed comment, however, if the shoe goes on the other foot, I must say that Safari for Windows isn’t the [insert favorite female beauty here] of browsers either. In fact, I think Opera is a very nice looking browser, and can be fitted with many skins to alter the appearance to the user’s taste with very little effort. Opera is actually the best looking browser, in my opinion, and doesn’t have the corporate look of IE7, or the overly busy and colorblind look of Firefox (these are observations of the basic look, not after customization – still, Opera wins here too, as there are many skins that would make any artist or designer very happy, whereas IE7 is much less changeable, and Firefox has lost some of its best skins; many were never carried over to revision 3.

The bad news, for lovers of Opera, in its current state, is that the designer being called upon to do the redesign is the person who did the Firefox logo. Not that that look is bad in itself, but designers tend to stay with the same general styles, and Opera is not a remodeled Firefox, nor should it be. In today’s best political parlance, Opera was, and is, a maverick, and the user base will probably prefer it stay that way. Also, the surveys I’ve seen show that most users of Opera are both more tech savvy and less interested in interface beauty than other browsers’ user bases.

I guess we will see when 10 is released. If the interface departs too much with the current one the company will probably include a way to revert to the interface that users now know and love.

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Quote of the day:
The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy. - Steven Weinberg