Contemplating using Opera rather than Firefox

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Yes, I know... burn the heretic... but I have valid reasons.

 

I've downloaded Opera 8.51 (the one with no ads in it!) and it looks rather nice. The UI, while it took me a bit of tweaking to get it to look right, is rather nice, and it's fast. Very fast, especially when you take into account these benchmark tests. Also, it uses around half of the memory that Firefox does, which is a good improvement when I have a few programs running.

 

The only thing I'm missing so far is adblocking capabilities. I know there's filter.ini, but that doesn't collapse the ads so there isn't a big white space. But I figure I'll do blike a favor and take a look at the google ads for a while.

 

Now, I'd like to hear your comments on each, if you have any. I'm not going to bother reading if you say things like "Firefox is open source" as that doesn't matter to me, or "Firefox is portable to other OSes" because I don't use other operating systems.

 

May the best browser win.

[ecoli]

I think I would choose Opera + a good pop up blocker over Firefox. But I'll wait to hear what other's say before I'd switch.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Opera has a built-in popup blocker. I meant banner ads.

[ecoli]

really? How does Opera succesfully restrict banner ads?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

No, it doesn't. It blocks popups.

[cosine]

No, it doesn't. It blocks popups.

I never heard of software the blocks banners?

 

And uh, does anyone know what happened with my posting thingy there? I hit the Post Quick Reply button and then like 20 of my post were listed and then something happened and they were all gone.

 

Edit: um okay now there are 2 besides this one... sorry I don't know how to delete posts, so... yeah...

[ecoli]

I've downloaded Opera 8.51 (the one with no ads in it!) and it looks rather nice....The only thing I'm missing so far is adblocking capabilities.

and

Opera has a built-in popup blocker. I meant banner ads.

and

No, it doesn't. It blocks popups.

 

Then what did you mean by these statements?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I meant that I was missing the adblock extension for Firefox, which blocks banner ads. Opera has a popup blocker but no decent banner ad blocker.

[ecoli]

I meant that I was missing the adblock extension for Firefox, which blocks banner ads. Opera has a popup blocker but no decent banner ad blocker.

 

ahhh, I gothca now. I didn't even realise that FF had a banner blocker extension, in which case, Opera would act essentially the same way for me.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=10&application=firefox

 

Best extension there is.

[ecoli]

thanks.

[Dak]

thats the one reason that i havent even concidered opera over FF; the extentions are so useful.

 

Having said that... half the memory... hmmm, might give it a try.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Indeed. It also seems generally faster at rendering.

[RyanJ]

Feature wise Firefox is far superor as its web standards support, Firefox gets new features added more often, Firefox has an auto-patch system.

 

Firefox has a vast number of extensions, plugins and a good popup blocker.

 

Firefoxes patch time averages 3 days faster than Opera.

 

On the other hand Opera is a great browser too but Firefox is still the better one.

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Actually, Opera is roughly equivalent in standards support (a bit better in HTML, a bit worse in CSS) and Opera 9 is going to change a lot of that (CSS3 selectors, oh my!).

Opera has a decent popup blocker.

Opera rarely has security holes, so I don't care about patch time. In fact, the only unpatched vulnerability is marked "Not critical" by Secunia, whereas in Firefox has three unpatched, marked "Less critical" (although that's still pretty good).

 

I am missing extensions, however, though the only one I used regularly was Adblock. Oh well.

[RyanJ]

I must appologise in advance, I am having keyboard problems right now so if any abnormal characters fly in sorry:-)

 

Actually' date=' Opera is roughly equivalent in standards support (a bit better in HTML, a bit worse in CSS) and Opera 9 is going to change a lot of that (CSS3 selectors, oh my!).

[/quote']

 

Fx 2.0 will have full css standards suppport wiht any luck - some good features too be upsed here

 

Opera has a decent popup blocker.

 

I know it does' date=' it's about as good as that of Firefox.

 

Opera rarely has security holes, so I don't care about patch time. In fact, the only unpatched vulnerability is marked "Not critical" by Secunia, whereas in Firefox has three unpatched, marked "Less critical" (although that's still pretty good).

 

There are a few up-released securiy holes in Opera but those are also low rated too

 

I am missing extensions' date=' however, though the only one I used regularly was Adblock. Oh well.[/quote']

 

I prefer the nice choices I h'ave.

 

cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[Dak]

Just out of interest cap'n, why is it a choice between firefox and opera? What about all the other browsers, like mozilla, slimbrowser, chameleon etc.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Fx 2.0 will have full css standards suppport wiht any luck - some good features too be upsed here

2.0 will only have bug fixes for "all crash, dataloss, leak, and security fixes from 1.8.0.x [Gecko] releases."

 

There are a few up-released securiy holes in Opera but those are also low rated too

Sure, I'll just take your word for it... No, really. Source, please.

 

Just out of interest cap'n, why is it a choice between firefox and opera? What about all the other browsers, like mozilla, slimbrowser, chameleon etc.

I already have Thunderbird, so I don't need the Mozilla suite, and I've never heard of the other two.

 

Opera definitely seems a lot faster...

[RyanJ]

Sure' date=' I'll just take your word for it... No, really. Source, please.

[/quote']

 

Last time I checked wiht them in a testing period (Last month), it was located here: http://security.opera.com/

 

Not shure if it has been moved or not but thats where the testers board was.

 

I'd give you exact information on the problems but that would violate the contract so I can't :S

 

cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[Mike Kovich]

I have read everything here, I have checked both websites and....

 

I am going to be using [hide]Firefox, because it owns other browsers lol.[/hide]

[Dave]

Opera definitely seems a lot faster...

 

That's because Opera is a lot faster. I'm a big, big fan of Firefox because it's a great browser, and it rather appeals to my morality by being open-source. Having said this, the Gecko engine is a great big hefty brute when it comes to rendering speeds, and as such it needs a lot of work. Opera's, in comparison, is extremely streamlined and it deserves to be commended for this.

 

However, I prefer Firefox because I could never get along with Opera. There's something about the interface that I don't like - can't really put my finger on it - but it's enough to stop me using it after about 20 minutes.

 

That's my 2 cents worth, at least.

[Dak]

Dave, have you checked out chamelion? I dont know much about it, but apparently its a streamlined geko browser. Its stated intention is to be all-round zippier than other geko browsers, although I dont know wether it succedes or not. I briefly used it some time back, and it seemed quite firefox-esque.

[bascule]

I've been an Opera user since 5.x

 

My main reasons for doing so are the cohesiveness of the UI. What takes 5 Firefox plugins that don't integrate at all is built into Opera by default.

 

In terms of speed and resource usage I really don't notice a difference. They're both resource hogs (although Firefox 1.5 really sucks in that respect) due to their pro-active caching, but I have so much RAM I really just don't care.

 

For information on blocking banner ads in Opera, see:

http://nontroppo.org/wiki/OperaAdblock

[bascule]

There's something about the interface that I don't like - can't really put my finger on it

 

MDI seems to be the biggest complaint

 

As for me, I consider Opera's interface to be its greatest strength. It changed the way I used the Web.

[RyanJ]

It really makes no difference, as long as your not using IE that is.

 

As long as the browser supports web standards people have no porblems with it

 

Opera, Firefox and a few others fit this so are all great in their own ways

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones