The Internet has long been a place whose wonders I've chosen to explore using my favourite web browser, Opera. To tell you why, I'll have to go back in time a bit.
When the Internet revolution was sweeping through India, I was excited to be a part of it, though only through VSNL's student account, which a dear friend of mine was kind enough to share with me. In those days, an Internet connection meant logging in to a Unix server (those SunOS prompts) and surfing the www using a text-mode browser (lynx); if you wanted to look at pictures you were out of luck.
Not exactly, actually. There were some really smart guys - whose names I forget - who had come up with a hack that involved replacing a Windows DLL with one of their own. And then, voila, you could surf the Net in all its hypertext and image-filled glory using the latest and greatest version of Netscape Navigator, the only browser any self-respecting Netizen at that time would use.
Of course, using lynx, you could have always downloaded the image to your login server and then used the z-modem protocol to transfer the pictures - using HyperTerminal - to your PC. I fondly remember the hours spent waiting for applications, various zip files and pictures to be transferred from the server to my hard disk, with nothing but the progress indicator to entertain me. I could almost say, "Ah, those were the days!", but then what else can you expect from an incorrigibly nostalgic guy?
I think it's partly a case of the "We beat the system" euphoria which makes me remember those days with an emotion similar to fondness. Though I enjoy a 2Mbps Internet connection these days, I wish occasionally that I could fire up HyperTerminal - which continues to be bundled with Windows XP, as a matter of fact - and connect to a server, if only to hear the analog modem's beeps and trrrrrrps (the handshake signals), though I'd really prefer a faster speed than the 14.4kbps and, much later, 33.6 and 56kbps, that we had to contend with in that Jurassic - Cretaceous even - age of the Internet in India.
Before I get back to to the main topic that I wanted to discuss, I seek your indulgence to permit me one more detour which, I promise, will be quite relevant to our discussion.
When Netscape Navigator was winning the hearts and minds of the early surfers, Microsoft wasn't happy, and it certainly wasn't twiddling its thumbs helplessly. The OS giant was getting its arsenal ready but the first salvo it fired - Internet Explorer 3.0 - actually backfired: it was pitifully slow, and as regards its support for the Web standards of that period - well, I won't even talk about it!
Stung, I think, by a lukewarm - if at all - reception of IE 3.0, Microsoft got its masterminds together and the result was a deadly combination - one that dealt Netscape its deathblow. It was the bundling of the next, substantially improved version of IE with the ground-breaking - if frequently crashing - OS, Windows 95. IE 4.0 was shiny, fast, and came with something called ActiveX. If you had IE 4.0, you could actually have a live web page as your desktop! In those days, this was mind-blowing. I mean, what could be cooler than a desktop which showed a live, dynamic web page on your desktop? And what was better, you could actually interact with that page as you would with your browser.
But the real sucker punch was Microsoft's strategic, insidious (w.r.t. open standards) introduction of JScript and ActiveX. Not only did JScript understand Netscape's JavaScript - which was the de facto standard - it also extended it by adding some features that would work only within IE.
Fast-forward to today, and you'll still find many websites that clearly state that they have been optimised for IE (our office Intranet stands out as an example, despite my constant laments to adhere to open standards), with some claiming Firefox compatibility as well. Along the way, however, I picked up a gem of a browser, one that's little-known but which, nonetheless, impressed me so much that I actually shelled out money to buy it (since it wasn't, alas, free).
When I started using it, Opera 3.0 was a mere 1.1MB download, and easily fit in a 3.5" floppy disk, which was the most-used portable storage medium of its day. If you had followed my life closely in those days, you'd have found me carrying my copy of Opera to a browsing center, installing it, and surfing the Net on it. It would have been indistinguishable from fanaticism, but I had solid reasons for sticking to Opera: the tiny-browser-that-could was fast. And when I say fast, I mean blazing fast! Though the 56kbps modem ruled the roost, you would have been excused for thinking that you were on a 100kbps line - the browser was that fast. And then it had some terrific options - like Multi Document Interface (precursor to that ugly phrase - "browser tabs"), a Print Preview that worked, single key shortcuts which could be customised and extended, a zoom feature that let you zoom the whole page - images and all - rather than just text, configurable network settings (which you could tweak to surf even faster), and many, many more.
Years later, I realise that this little browser which has something akin to a cult following, was ahead, way ahead, when it came to innovating and adhering to standards. Even now, when it comes to standards compliance, Opera beats hands-down almost all the browsers in the market. Take the ACID2 test, for instance. Or CSS standards-compliance. Or JavaScript execution speed. No matter what benchmark you throw at it, Opera comes out on top. And the best part is it's available on so many platforms (including OS/2) that it's really difficult to find an excuse not to use it ;-)
Let me point out what I mean using just one example, and then I'll leave you to form your own, well-informed decision about which browser you should use.
This is how a page appears on IE 
and this is how it appears in Opera. 
See the original page here.
Notice the text shadow that Opera correctly renders that IE has no clue about? That's just CSS support. There are other areas where Opera leads the pack, said pack consisting of Firefox, among others.
What I feel sad about is that, despite its abundance of features, tremendous customisability and a rich history of continuous innovations, the market share of this browser on the desktop is minuscule. In the mobile space, however, the story is quite different. There, Opera Mobile and its free cousin, Opera Mini, rule the roost. With the introduction of Opera Link, these versions of Opera let you share bookmarks and other settings among the various copies of the browser that you may have installed on different machines.
Here's how you can help yourself - go to www.opera.com, download it and give it a shot. I assure you, your experience will be an eye-opener, and it's likely that you won't want to go back to your previous browser.
Happy browsing!