September 1st, 2009
Opera 10: Worth deploying in schools?
I’ve always been a Firefox sort of guy. It works well, it’s largely standards-compliant, it’s relatively secure, and all my bookmarks are there (a bit tongue-in-cheek, I know, but if there isn’t anything drastically better out there, why switch?).
One of my techs swears by the latest Safari, but that’s never held any allure for me and I’ve had better luck with Firefox handling the widest variety of content encountered by all of my users.
On Windows now, it’s Chrome all the way for me. Super-speedy, especially with Google Apps, where I spend most of my time, a bit more secure (if you drink the Google Kool-Aid and take a look at their sandbox strategy), and the interface is slick on both netbooks and larger computers. Chromium works well in Linux and OS X, but it’s still not at a point where I’d want to deploy it to hundreds of clients, nor do the performance gains on Windows feel as substantial on *nix operating systems (seat of the pants here only, folks).
Opera, on the other hand, has always felt like an almost-ran. It’s too bad, because Opera is (and has been for some time) a great, mature browser. It even works on a really wide variety of operating systems, including mobile devices. So why is it that as we all fire up the labs this fall, finish re-imaging, install new software, and upgrade machines for students and teachers, most of us won’t bother installing Opera?
I don’t actually have an answer for this. All of my Windows machines are running Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.5, and Chrome. All of my Macs are running Firefox 3.5 and Safari 4 (or at least my techs have almost finished updates and are heading quickly in this direction after a very short summer). The only machine in the district running Opera is my Mac since I just installed it today to give it a spin.
Needless to say, it’s impressive. It seems to do everything well.
So tell me why so few of us are using it…and if you are using it in your labs and on teacher machines (not just on your personal computers), why did you move to Opera?
Follow Chris Dawson on Twitter! Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts and a member of the Internet Press Guild. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations, but always keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are his own and not those of his daytime employer, even if he talks incessantly about his day job.
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