Opera 9.5 Alpha out: Very Nice - Time to Switch?

Web browser underdog Opera 9.50 Alpha 3 is up and available.

I've always liked Opera and actually used it quite a bit back in the v6 and v7 days. I've tended to use it off and on over the years. I've been playing with the latest alpha of 9.5 today after reading several Digg comments about it's rendering speed.

After visiting most of my normal sites, I have to say, it does feel very snappy. And to tell you the truth, I have not been overly impressed with Firefox since v2 debuted. It's been relatively crashy and not all that stable and quick as of late. So many times recently I've noticed that when I start Firefox, it tells me of an abnormal termination and gives me the option of returning where I left off, even though I don't remember it closing abnormally.

I think it's high time to give Opera a serious go. I'm not big on FF plugins (although the It's All Text add on is something I'd like to find an Opera equivalent for - anybody know of one?), and maybe Mozilla's developers have become a little too big for their britches. There's nothing like a little competition to light the fire.

Right now I'm just testing it out on XP here at work, but I think I'll load it up on Linux at home and make it my default browser for a little while.