WebProNews

Internet users who have a small rotation of websites they visit regularly will have an easier way to hit them from the Opera web browser.

It's no secret to WebProNews readers who have hit my articles from time to time that I've been a big fan of the Opera browser for years. Tabbed browsing and no IE worries have been enjoyable experiences with it.

I won't even pretend to remember where I first heard that people tend to stick to a limited group of websites that they visit regularly. RSS feeds have probably had an impact on that for the more tech-savvy users, but plenty of people rely on good old bookmarks to get to their favorite places.

Opera has a beta version, 9.20, of its next browser available for testing. The clever folks in Oslo, Opera's homebase, have added a new feature called Speed Dial to it for those repeat bookmarked site visitors.

Once Opera 9.20 has been installed, Speed Dial will become available in a tab. Click one of the nine boxes, and you have a choice of picking a frequently visited page, open pages, or a typed-in web address, to make one of the Speed Dial selections.

Speed Dial goes out and grabs a screenshot of the page, and displays it in the box. It's similar to what you see when hovering the mouse pointer over a tab in Opera, where a thumbnail of the site appears.

Opening a new tab makes Speed Dial appear. Clicking a 'Hide Speed Dial' link puts it away, and a 'Show Speed Dial' link appears in the bottom right of a blank new tab page.

The Speed Dial feature is a nice little super-bookmark implementation, and having some frequently visited links available immediately does speed up browsing. I've already got mine populated with links.