While the price is not free, Opera offers a few advantages over the others. It fits in 1 MB disk space, uses only 8 MB RAM, runs fast even on a 386, and it retrieves pages quickly. Some of the advanced features such as Java and ActiveX available to other browsers are unavailable in Opera. PC Magazine has an article on Opera dated April 14, 1998. After visiting many web sites for educational, business, and recreational purposes, we have discovered that there are a few necessary plug-ins that are used.
Many web sites employ multimedia audio and video files.
While most audio and video formats are included in the latest versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer, some sites use other formats. All of the plug-ins and helper applications are free . Some plug-ins are included in the full versions of Netscape or Internet Explorer. Some are specific to the realm of academia such as Chime, a plug-in for viewing molecules within a browser window. M ultipurpose I nternet M ail E xtension Types, or MIME Types, identify the type of file that a browser receives from a web site.