Opera - error 403 Forbidden

catbasket

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Jan 25, 2002
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I thought I'd give Opera a try as some here say it's better than Firefox, but after installation I cannot connect to t'internet with it -

Forbidden
You were denied access because:

Access denied by access control list.


Any ideas what might cause that? I'm running XP Home SP2 behind a hardware firewall/router/modem and Norton Internet Security 2005. (NIS automatically configured itself to "permit all" for Opera).
 
Try switching off NIS altogether first of all. Secondly, Opera is designed by default to open the last page viewed on start. If the last page viewed is a password protected site then you will need to re-enter the password.

Go to tools, preferences and set www.google.com as the home page and set Opera to start on the home page.

If you are receiving a 403 then it means that the site is able to respond to you - it's a good sign!
 
To expand: A 403 error means that the web-server you tried to contact refused your request. The "Access denied by access control list" message sounds like you may have been banned?
 
NIS switched off - 403.
Last page viewed / password protected - 403s since first install of Opera.I have never managed to view any webpage with it, let alone a password protected page!
Google as homepage / start at homepage - 403.
"you may have been banned?" - Banned by Google? Ed save me from a life without Google! ;)

:confused:
 
Found it - unclick "Enable proxy servers" and Opera works ok.

Happy happy joy joy.
 
I really like Opera as well. I like the tabbed windows but what I really appreciate most of all is that it allows me to remove all the clutter of the status bar and the back and forward buttons which I never use so I can actually SEE the web.
 
NIS switched off - 403.
Last page viewed / password protected - 403s since first install of Opera.I have never managed to view any webpage with it, let alone a password protected page!
Google as homepage / start at homepage - 403.
"you may have been banned?" - Banned by Google? Ed save me from a life without Google! ;)
Hehe! So maybe not that then... :)
 
I really like Opera as well. I like the tabbed windows but what I really appreciate most of all is that it allows me to remove all the clutter of the status bar and the back and forward buttons which I never use so I can actually SEE the web.

... both of which are features of Firefox as well.

What is the special appeal of Opera? Is it just a "feel" thing? Last time I used the free Opera I didn't get on with it at all well, but I'd be hard pressed to put my finger on why that was. It seems to me that in terms of features all the main browsers are converging rapidly, anyway.
 
... both of which are features of Firefox as well.

What is the special appeal of Opera? Is it just a "feel" thing? Last time I used the free Opera I didn't get on with it at all well, but I'd be hard pressed to put my finger on why that was. It seems to me that in terms of features all the main browsers are converging rapidly, anyway.

I suspect it's mainly familiarity and some of it is just personal preference. My "feeling" is that Opera is over all less "intrusive" - I can concentrate on what I am interested in rather then the browser itself. (I did swap to FireFox for quite awhile because there were too many problems with the later Opera version 7s - pages not completely rendering etc. on my PC, but with version 8 I swapped back and was happy again.)

I've also always found Opera much more "responsive" then IE or FireFox.

Interestingly I don't use Opera on my Mac - I use Safari on that, just never got around to installing Opera - I should because I hate Safari! :) In fact I think I'll do that right now.
 
That's better Opera on the Mac! Hey and I get a lot of the features back that Safari doesn't support! Hooray!
 
Hmm. Well, given some odd little problems I've been sharing with other people where Firefox occasionally crashes, I shall give Opera another spin.
 
I wish they had an activity signal on the tabs. I see that the title on the tab changes colour when a page finishes loading, but it's not a very strong signal.
 
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I wish they had an activity signal on the tabs. It see that the title on the tab changes colour when a page finishes loading, but it's not a very strong signal.

Bloody hell what do want singing and dancing... :)

You mean the "progress bar" and animated icon in the tab title that Firefox uses? You see that's one of things I prefer in Opera and sums up what I meant when I said "less intrusive". At first I thought the Firefox idea was very nice (and it is) but after a while the novelty wore off and I didn't like my tab bar having three or four tabs all loading all with the busy icon and moving progress bar.
 
Yes by Jingo, singing and dancing!

At the moment the Firefox loading wotsit is just a little ring of dots - I don't find it intrusive, but I guess that's exactly the sort of "feel" that makes things like this so subjective and difficult to quantify.

I'll keep going with Opera this week and see how I get on. It's often surprising how familiarity overcomes small objections. And hopefully finds new things to like (as opposed to big objections :D )
 
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Right, well, this week I have mostly been using Opera.

Things I didn't like:

Locked up now and then.

I couldn't always scroll a page while it was loading.

If I clicked my scroll wheel to roll a page up and down the cursor would snap into the middle of the screen (Leave it alone!)

No way to complete URLs (like ctrl-enter will wrap http://www. .com around in IE and FF).

The aforementioned lack of activity monitor on other tabs than my current one.


Things I did like:

The "Start where you left off" feature when starting, and session handling in general looked useful

So on balance, I think I might return to Firefox. But thanks for sending the idea my way!
 
Right, well, this week I have mostly been using Opera.

Things I didn't like:

Locked up now and then.

That does surprise me the 7.x versions had a few bugs like that but I've never had 8 freeze or lock up.

I couldn't always scroll a page while it was loading.

Yeah that can be annoying but I think you can alter that behaviour in the preferences?

If I clicked my scroll wheel to roll a page up and down the cursor would snap into the middle of the screen (Leave it alone!)

I didn't realise that was an Opera "thing". I use a trackball and use a "snap to focus" option and I always thought that was doing that. You live and learn.

No way to complete URLs (like ctrl-enter will wrap http://www. .com around in IE and FF).

No need to - just type (for instance) msn or wikipedia or google and the search will find the site.

The aforementioned lack of activity monitor on other tabs than my current one.

I bet you also like twinkling Christmas lights!

The "Start where you left off" feature when starting, and session handling in general looked useful

So on balance, I think I might return to Firefox. But thanks for sending the idea my way!

Note to self add a few more "bugs" for FireFox users....
 
That does surprise me the 7.x versions had a few bugs like that but I've never had 8 freeze or lock up.
Hmm. I did consider that it may be not properly locked up, but that I had several tabs loading at once and being unresponsive. But I couldn't switch between tabs either. Possibly with a bit of patience it would have come back to me, but...

Yeah that can be annoying but I think you can alter that behaviour in the preferences?
Can't find anything obvious. I don't see why it shouldn't be enabled all the time either, to be honest; it seems like an obvious thing to want to do! Even you find it annoying, and you clearly have a very high tolerance for annoying things ;)

I didn't realise that was an Opera "thing". I use a trackball and use a "snap to focus" option and I always thought that was doing that. You live and learn.
It's only Opera that does it for me - it's remarkably irritating!

No need to - just type (for instance) msn or wikipedia or google and the search will find the site.
Ah. okay, I'll give you that. Let me just check... Firefox does this too, as it happens, although I've never realised it. Ooo, interesting. Opera gets www.randi.com when I type "randi" and hit enter, but Firefox uses Google and gets www.randi.org. Nifty.

Actually it would be nice if they checked my history as well, so that if I typed "randi" it would find forums.randi.org instead of the main page. No browser does that as far as I know by the way, it just occurred to me now.

I bet you also like twinkling Christmas lights!
Hehehe... actually twinking lights do my head in! But I do like to have a clear indicator when something's happening. I like the way XP changes minimised window colours if something requires my attention, for example. The Opera attention grabbing is too subtle for my tastes.

Note to self add a few more "bugs" for FireFox users....
Swine!
 
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Due to killing my old desktop pc I've rebuilt an old P4-1200 ... which led me to give Opera a decent trial run -

I likes it. Mouse gestures without having to download a Firefox extension. A really useful feature which tells me how big a web page is and the download speed (my ADSL connection gets really flakey at times due to excessive distance from the BT exchange). Love the "paste'n'go" option for right-click pasting URLs into the address bar.

The only thing I miss from Firefox is the "undo close tab" option (which may be in Opera and I just ain't found it yet).


Edit - spelling, as usual.
 

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