Re: How about Opera?
Windows 95/98/2000, MacOS, Linux, *BSD etc. are operating systems. Internet Explorer, FireFox, and Opera are web browsers; applications that ride on the OS so you can surf the web.
I run Opera, FireFox, Epiphany, full Mozilla, and numerous other browsers daily (LOTS of comparative research on just about Everything), but my OS is Linux so any Windows vulnerabilities don't affect my system. Opera has it's share of vulnerabilities and issues. Security wise, I'd place it between IE and FireFox.
The opera browser *can* be downloaded free from
http://www.opera.com/ BUT the free version is only free because of the built-in ad banner so applications like Ad-Aware will NOT work on the free version.
All in all, I like Opera and use it routinely, but the browser I jump to most often is FireFox.