Opera was number one, two, or number three in Russia and in most of the CIS countries. I think the major reason was that it was pretty fast, and at that time most people had Internet access through a 56k modem. It was ad-supported, but nobody gave a bear about ads because of the extreme levels of piracy.
yeah! I remember easy cache control was a popular feature. Many people would make sure that all pictures are cached and not reloaded. Especially in times when social networks with tons of photos came along… And this was a typical thing that many ppl were aware of and using, not even counting geeks.
