Opera 8 is a replacement internet browser and email application for both Internet Explorer and Outlook Express that is much easier to use and offers good protection from internet nasties such as spyware.

Even better, it's free of charge if you don't mind a few adverts at the top of the screen. A fee of £21 removes these ads.

It's clear that a lot of effort has been made to keep the menus uncluttered. You can browse multiple websites within tabs and there's the option to save a selection of tabs to open several websites at the same time.

Opera displays web pages quickly and has several useful additions to standard web browsing. You can change the look of pages to a style that suits you, which is extremely useful if you find text hard to read.

Another clever trick is the ability to automatically scale pictures and web pages down so that everything fits on screen, which means you don't need to scroll to see the site's full content.

Opera also offers several alternative ways to navigate websites, such as holding down the right mouse button and moving the mouse to the left to go back a page which is a great way to speed up surfing.

Voice-activated browsing is now included, which is very useful for anyone who finds it hard to use a mouse, although a headset with a microphone is required.

Opera also has a built-in email client that can access any number of standard POP3 email accounts. A spam filter stops most nuisance emails and there are plenty of ways to label and organise your emails. Opera can also read RSS feeds, which is great for news fans.

The only downside is that a small minority of websites won't load in Opera.

While the free version comes with advertising, it isn't intrusive and provides a great way to try Opera without parting with any money.

Opera can be downloaded by clicking here.