“Opera Software recently released version 8.00 of its eponymous Web browser. I decided to see how the new version of the popular commercial browser compares to the open source Mozilla Firefox 1.0. I found both Firefox and Opera are capable browsers, and though they are very different, they each has much to offer any user.” Read more at NewsForge.
Opera and Firefox: A side-by-side review
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
It’s good to see an article that discusses browsers rather even-handedly (i.e., one that doesn’t resort to simply stating that “Firefox rUlz cuz its opensource!”), though it is disappointing to see all of Opera’s built-in features almost entirely ignored along with the tremendous performance benefits it provides.
The author also compares a customized Firefox interface with the default Opera one, which is more than a little unfair. The notes on extensions and customization also failed to refer to the nontroppo wiki where custom buttons and menus can be added to Opera in a single click but hyped up Firefox’s extension community. Also odd is the author’s mention of Firefox’s small size, when it is substantially larger than Opera (in terms of disk space, download size, and memory footprin).
> though it is disappointing to see
> all of Opera’s built-in features
> almost entirely ignored
emagius, they are not ignored. In fact, they are discussed in the very first two sentences after the title “Look and Feel”. Yes, you read it right, their absense is discussed as an advantage. This might not be your opinion and it’s OK if it isn’t, but they are discussed.
Sorry, a little clarification: With
> their absense is discussed
> as an advantage
I mean
> their absense in Firefox is
> discussed as an advantage
You might not agree, but I know quite a lot of people that do. And only very few people even care about Open Source in the real world, this cannot be the reason, there must be others.
Author forgetes to mention one big big big QUESTION about SECURITY
outof two Opera is much more secure, remember FF has had 4 major updates since its final launch 6 months ago
Aditya, one of these affected both browsers (the IDN spoofing thing), a separate one was only in Opera because it does not use the Java plugin, but executes the java binary directly and a separate so-called “window injection vulnerability” was fixed between 7.54 and 8.0, but you might not know it because it was fixed together with the major 8.0 release and nobody talked about it. I actually doubt that any of these two browsers is more secure than the other one.
Not to mention more people use Firefox and scrutinize it, more people just sit around all day in their mom’s absement trying to find vulnerabilities in Firefox, and Firefox (has been) is more open when they find one, and fix it, where as Opera needs to make money, so has an interest in keeping flaws on the down low.
“Opera isn’t Open Source, so I can’t use it, and nor should you”
Makes me sick.
Thats why we hope /. stays over there. I use what works, but I happen to be addicted to some Firefox extentions, myself.
Would it have been better if Mozilla didnt patch FF for the discovered flaws to make it look secure enough??
Come on… No software is perfect coz us humans arent, so its better to produce patches than stay valrunable.
> “Opera isn’t Open Source, so I
> can’t use it, and nor should you”
> Makes me sick.
Why? Ignore it. The real world does not even care about it, there is no need for that.
Eugenia has developed a six sense to find polemic articles, this one is prone to have a flame war as is an article clearly biased against Opera.
This article only shows personal preference.
So to be fair with it I can only say: Opera Rules!
“To avoid bloat, Firefox developers created a browser that is lean, fast, and by default includes no extraneous features or closed source plugins. This makes for a small application download and a fast browsing experience
…
Opera, on the other hand, does not provide extensions, but includes many more features by default”
Jeez. So Firefox is a small download but Opera has more features. Nevermind that Opera – even with all those extra features is still a SMALLER download. How misleading.
Then throw in the various benchmarks all over the place that uniformly show that Opera is FASTER than Firefox with its “fast browsing experience”.
The language used by the person is trying to be fair and even handed in that review, however their comparisons are – I’ll be nice and say – flawed.
Although written with good intentions, I think this review is pretty much clueless what Opera could do. Since Opera v5 it has been lightyears ahead of all competition for the power user who care about speed, tabs, gestures, all little things about browsing experience.
I think Firefox is a good browser — far better than the former Mozilla browser (which was also hailed by the open-source zealots as #1) and IE6. However I guess there’re fundamental issues with the gecko engine because it’s noticeably slow compared to Opera.
It lacks adblock, image resize, and a few other extensions that have me addicted to firefox. I do use opera on a machine that’s not fast enough for firefox.
Who even cares about the initial download size? Firefox includes a framework that is called XUL and that enables extensibility. Opera does not have that, therefore it cannot be extended and that’s why all the features must be statically built in, whether the user wants them or not. Features that the user does not want must be counted as numbers smaller than zero.
Do you understand that a framework that enables the featureset to be extended is in fact worth 100 features, even if they are not present immediately after the initial download? It’s always the same, some people seem to find it very difficult to see that not everybody likes a static feature set that he must accept as it is.
As far as it concerns the download size, Opera is cheating a little bit since the user must install the outdated Motif library separately in order to have plugin support. And as far as it concerns performance, I do personally not care about benchmarks that other people did, but only about my own ones and these are OK for both browsers.
It lacks adblock, image resize, and a few other extensions that have me addicted to firefox. I do use opera on a machine that’s not fast enough for firefox.
Image resize: shift+f11
Adblock:
Edit opera6.ini, under the section [Adv User Prefs] add the line:
URL Filter File=c:program filesOpera 8filter.ini
filter.ini
; filter.ini
; This file is part of the Opera browser.
[prefs]
prioritize excludelist=1
[include]
*
[exclude]
http://ad.*
http://ads.*
http://adserv*
http://imgserv.ad*
http://*.ads.*
http://*/ads/*
http://*banner*
http://*Banner*
http://count*
http://par.ad.*
http://*linkexchange*
http://*.doubleclick.net/*
http://*.fastclick.net/*
http://*.burstnet.com/*
http://*.hitbox.net/*
http://*.ivwbox.de/*
http://*.tradedoubler.*
http://view.atdmt.com/*
http://pop.mircx.com/*
http://pagead2.*
http://*.falkag.net/*
http://*.mediaplex.com/ad*
http://*.tradedoubler.com/*
http://*.sistematics.net/admatics/*
http://*.tribalfusion.com/*
http://us.a1.yimg.com/*
http://*.advertising.com/*
http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/*
Add whatever you want to block there.
As for the extensions, if you add too many (more than 4) you normally end having lots of weird issues, and many extensions are incompatible with others, etc.
“Who even cares about the initial download size?”
Not really me but it was the author of the article that brought up that Firefox is a small download while ignoring that Opera is an even smaller one.
Take it up with them.
“Opera does not have that, therefore it cannot be extended”
There are ways of extending Opera’s functionality, such as User Javascript. I’m guessing you don’t know about this nor do you care to know so won’t bother going into it.
“Features that the user does not want must be counted as numbers smaller than zero.”
Oh please. Taking away marks for features? It’s not as if the user has to use the email or the IRC chat or the notes or the far more flexible RSS option or the smooth full page zooming (yeah I know zooming only the text is so much better right?) or the fit-to-width which makes partial screen browsing great.
Smaller than zero indeed…
“It’s always the same, some people seem to find it very difficult to see that not everybody likes a static feature set that he must accept as it is.”
You seem to believe that if a feature exists it must be used. I know that proponents of Firefox are used to making loud noises to try and get noticed but this is just a joke.
“As far as it concerns the download size, Opera is cheating a little bit since the user must install the outdated Motif library separately in order to have plugin support.”
Opera is cheating… well there we have it.
“Who even cares about the initial download size?”
and
“As far as it concerns the download size, Opera is cheating”
Who cares? You seem to, given that you have somehow contrived to accuse a company of “cheating” when it comes to download size.
Do you understand that a framework that enables the featureset to be extended is in fact worth 100 features, even if they are not present immediately after the initial download?
That’s only true if you have the skill to create new features using that framework, or if there are 100 useful features that other people have created. If that framework has failed to provide features that are actually wanted then it’s pretty worthless.
Even with all the extensions available for Firefox, Opera still has loads of unique features that I use constantly. And in Opera those features are available immediately, you don’t have to research available extensions, find out about any incompatibility between them, then download and install them.
it lacks adblock, image resize, and a few other extensions that have me addicted to firefox
if you say you are addicted to firefox. you may have IAD(internet addiction disorder) you should have that looked at.
I use both, none of the two is good by itself.
Opera is faster, and easy to navigate without images and with them, just press Shift + I. Firefox’s look is more organized, and the Bookmarks section is superb. Both of them suffer from the “we don’t enable that, because it’s not invented here” syndrome. The devs on both companies are narrow-minded.
Oh well…one is free, and the other has a free version.
I have been using Opera 8 beta for a year now on Xandros and just purchased Opera 8 final. The final is a very nice browser and the email rocks too. I like Firefox but Opera just fits me better. Open source is great but if a product works better than open source for my uses and the cost is reasonable I will purchase it.
I purchased VueScan because because it works better for me than Kooka. I see nothing wrong with using what works best for me no matter if it is open source or for pay. I spent countless thousands of dollars on Microsoft software when I was a windows user and using Linux has saved me thousands since switching. I for one would like to pay back all those people who have worked on programs for the Linux desktop.
penguin7009
From the article: By default, Firefox has a clean interface, with only the basic necessities (back, forward, reload, stop, and home buttons, an address bar, and Google search). Opera, on the other hand, displays many more tools and buttons by default.
Here’s a screenshot of the default Opera 8 GUI:
http://www.opera.com/img/screenshots/opera8-tabbed-browsing.jpg
Where are all the buttons and tools he’s talking about?
But apart from that it wasn’t a bad opinion piece, not as biased as a lot that I’ve read.
Firefox seems to be the fastest browser in my testing. Opera really doesn’t seem to be faster at all, in fact, its slower!
Test it yourself: http://www.numion.com/Stopwatch/
(For me opera 8.0 was always often .3 to 2.5 seconds behind, on new sites, and refreshs)
The results might vary on people’s connections/systems but for me firefox was ahead in nearly ever single one.
+No ads
+Open Source
+Extensions
+Themes I actually like
+Cleaner interface
For me Firefox was better, but to each their own. (I hate seeing the Opera is faster arguement because I’ve never seen it be proven correct for me)
The author of this article is also not mentioning very important Opera features, like session handling and tabbed browsing. Very often you have to reboot your computer, or your browser crashes, but you still want to keep all your tabs when you start it next time. This is very simple with Opera, but almost impossible for Firefox. I haven’t found a plugin which automatically saves all the tabs, and reopens them after a browser crash.
Also, although plugins in Firefox allow greater flexibility, the “bare bones” approach has a negative side, because people have to download many plugins (which may appear to be incompatible with each other) when they install Firefox, and later, these plugins might not be compatible with the new version of Firefox, so this adds constant trouble. In case of Opera, pretty much any browser functionality I ever needed is already there, there were only a few cases where I needed a specific functionality (for instance, viewing http headers of the open page, but I doubt many people want that), and you do not need to warry that plugins will not be compatible with the next version of your browser.
Regarding the opensource/freeware issues, I think, the time one spends finding/downloading/installing all the FireFox plugins to get even close to Opera functionality worth more than the price you pay for Opera. Also, Opera is now free for schools/universities.
Valentin
“The author of this article is also not mentioning very important Opera features, like session handling and tabbed browsing. Very often you have to reboot your computer, or your browser crashes, but you still want to keep all your tabs when you start it next time. This is very simple with Opera, but almost impossible for Firefox. I haven’t found a plugin which automatically saves all the tabs, and reopens them after a browser crash.”
The Session Saver extension does this very well.
I haven’t found a plugin which automatically saves all the tabs, and reopens them after a browser crash.
I have, it’s called SessionSaver.2, I only discovered it recently however, so it may be new. I do think that this feature should be built into firefox and not an extension, but the extension does the job, so I’m happy.
Mozilla have excellent tools for developing, debugging or inspecting web sites. The DOM inspector, the web developer, HTML validator and the ColorZilla extensions are just great. However, it’s so-so for web browsing. Its rendering is okay but I keep running on small, but annoying bugs.
Opera is okay but I won’t pay for a browser.
I hope more users and developers will write scripts for Opera that are comparable to some of Firefox’s extensions; if they do, the playing field may begin to even out.
I hope more users and developers will write extentions for Firefox that are comparable to Opera’s rich features; if they do, the playing field may begin to even out.
🙂
I like both of them, but I use Firefox more on my pc and Opera more on my Mac(beside Safari)
you really should try surfing on dialup then you know which browser is faster. and i still think opera is faster.
Opera is okay but I won’t pay for a browser.
Time is money my friend
The amount of time you’ll save using Opera will pay the $39 fee the very first week.
With Firefox you got what you pay for, unfortunately.
This extension almost made me want to abandon FF. It’s not robust and not well thought out. It makes FF take ages to initially load. FF crashes often. And if it happens that you are viewing a chromeless (no menu, no address bar, no toolbar) window when firefox crashes, you’re doomed. Well, you could manually edit prefs.js to disable it, but ravaging through those lines to find out which line to disable is not a painless one. Uninstalling the extension didn’t help recover FF’s stability. Solution? Uninstalled FF, delete user folder, reinstall FF.
Ohhhhh. Ok so that was the guilty party.
I found two major problems with Firefox when using it. That was one the other was with the TBE screwing up some javascript on some sites.
I’d probably use FF more if it wasn’t so sloooow. It’s by far the slowest browser on my computer, even beat hands down by Mozilla. Is anyone else having the same problem?
OTOH, if they’d fix more of the annoying bugs in Opera, I’d most likely use that instead. Can’t beat the speed, memory usage, and features of Opera.
Time is money my friend
The amount of time you’ll save using Opera will pay the $39 fee the very first wee
Getting a free extensible browser is very hard to beat. =) Plus, since the code, bug fixed can be done by any one worldwide, that is a unvaluable resource that closed source will never have.
How about using about:config on Firefox to even speed up your browser?
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_:_FAQs_:_About:config_Entries
http://www.windowssecrets.com/comp/041202/
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Using_Firefox:_Advanced
Not to be the official OSNews vocabulary officer or anything, but eponymous is the wrong word to use in this article. Perhaps the author meant ubiquitous.
An eponym is a person who something is named after (or is believed to have been named after), for example Alois Alzheimer is the eponym of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Now, even if the original creator of Opera was named Frank Opera, then Frank Opera would be the eponym and not the Opera browser, so the article’s introduction would still be wrong.
I am an opera user so you may not believe my words.
However, I did some testing on *my* surfing habits and found Opera to be faster. Please consult this thread for actual numbers: http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?s=7759e41da76e4d4ea99f316…
There is also a webdeveloper toolbar for Opera. Just visit this page: http://nontroppo.org/wiki/WebDevToolbar
click on the links and they are installed automatically.
For me Konqueror rules!
But then I might be one of few who think a browser which is also a filemanager has some benefits compared to a browser only application
I also have thought very often to migrate from Opera to Mozilla/Firefox. And every time I go back to Opera.
Some of the reasons:
1. I dont have enough time to browse all the extensions, check it if it is compatible and install it and hope that it wont crash (Yes the last time I did it, it takes me almost half of the day, and the result is very disappointing –> please count the time and the cost, let we say, if you get $30 per hour, and it takes you 4-5 hours to browse the extensions (check it, install, uninstall it if it is not what you hope, check another extension, uninstall the whole firefox it it crash, etc) than it costs you at least $120, it is enough to buy 4 licenses of Opera! Okay perhaps you would say that you dont need so long time to search extensions. Okay than let we say 1 hour? It is still enough to buy a license. You just need 30 minutes to do that? Stil, I just need to pay $30 once for an Opera license and I can upgrade with no cost for every updates and major versions in the future and I can use for every operating systems and computers I have. With Firefox you must do the same ritual for every update and major upgrades).
2. Firefox is a resources hog. Now, there are 14 tabs opened in my Opera 8.0. And you know what, Opera just needs 38 MB RAM.
For fairness, I opened the same websites in tabs in firefox. And it takes me to 130 MB RAM. More than 4 times overhead.
3. The Opera’s built-in bookmark manager and mail client is, in my opinion, the best one. For the mail client, i dont know if it is just me, but i do think that Gmail uses the idea for its unique mails handling (Google calls it as “conversation style”)
4. The speed. The difference of how long it takes to load the page and render it, is too small. I myself ignore it. But try it to reload loaded pages (back button). Opera doesnt rerender loaded (cached) pages. Firefox does. And it makes the difference. I have read somewhere that Firefox 1.1 would use the same way like Opera does. And Opera does it from its early version (I notice this feature since I use Opera for the first time, Opera 4.x, I dont know if it did come earlier)
5. Did someone say about session handling? No, the Firefox extension for it, is a joke. It crashed my Firefox. And it does make Firefox looks like a crap.
6. I use something that works for me. I dont care if it is open source or not. I will pay for a good software. And I do think that the author (company or programmers) does deserve it. And I am sick if I read a review and the author said that just because it is an open source than I should (or must?) use it. And consume is good for the sake of economy.
7. Let’s talk about size (because the author of the article mentioned it). Opera’s initial download is just about 3.6 MB. It includes full-featured browser, mail client, IRC client, fully functional download manager. On the other hand, Firefox’ initial download is about 4.7 MB. It includes a bare browser (needs some extensions to match Opera’s feature), some good developer tools, but unfortunately which is not usefull from the point-of-view of normal users, and a half-functional donwload manager (It doesnt work to continue the download if you close the browser…okay at least it doesnt work in my Firefox). If you want mail client, etc than you need Mozilla-Suite, which is 11 MB of initial download, and it still lacks of some Opera’s features.
8. About the interface? Well, this time, I am not sure if the author of the article has even installed Opera to review it. As stated by someone above, the default interface of Opera is indeed much cleaner and professional than Firefox.
9. The Consistencies. Opera has a very good consistency. In MDI-mode, I want that there is a single window in my taskbar and using tabs for pop-ups etc. Whatmatter I do, I cant make it works under Firefox. It opens a new window instead of tabs for the pop-ups. Yes, there are some extensions for it. No, they dont work well.
“For me Konqueror rules!
But then I might be one of few who think a browser which is also a filemanager has some benefits compared to a browser only application
”
The Internet Explorer does this job very well
)
“The Internet Explorer does this job very well
)”
Except it sucks at both tasks, and Konqueror is a nice browser and truly amazing as a file manager. And you can get both in the same Konqueror window
Except for tabbed browsing which if you want can be done in maxthon (IE based). IE does all of its job well. You can get many addons for IE that other browsers lack and the best part of it its free and robust.
If you think that’s a solution for adblocking in Opera, then I conclude you’ve never used the adblock extension in Firefox.
Although preferences cannot be argued, there are some points that need to be debunked.
1. I dont have enough time to browse all the extensions, check it if it is compatible and install it and hope that it wont crash (Yes the last time I did it, it takes me almost half of the day, and the result is very disappointing –> please count the time and the cost, let we say, if you get $30 per hour, and it takes you 4-5 hours to browse the extensions (check it, install, uninstall it if it is not what you hope, check another extension, uninstall the whole firefox it it crash, etc) than it costs you at least $120, it is enough to buy 4 licenses of Opera! […sic…]
At that point, you argument are fundamentally flawed from the start. Do you really think mainstream users are willing to spend money on a browser without ads? You exaggerated the time to get extension especially those who are essentials (tab browser extension and adblock) without giving the kind of connection you use.
3. The Opera’s built-in bookmark manager and mail client is, in my opinion, the best one. For the mail client, i dont know if it is just me, but i do think that Gmail uses the idea for its unique mails handling (Google calls it as “conversation style”)
You know Firefox is designed to be a browser that can be extended to support listed features if user wanted. If you want to compare Opera as a suite, you should refer to Mozilla. Oh, did you know Gmail extension is available for Firefox?
5. Did someone say about session handling? No, the Firefox extension for it, is a joke. It crashed my Firefox. And it does make Firefox looks like a crap.
Which extension caused that crash? I guess you didn’t bother to try profile to verify the problem.
7. Let’s talk about size (because the author of the article mentioned it). Opera’s initial download is just about 3.6 MB. It includes full-featured browser, mail client, IRC client, fully functional download manager. On the other hand, Firefox’ initial download is about 4.7 MB. It includes a bare browser (needs some extensions to match Opera’s feature), some good developer tools, but unfortunately which is not usefull from the point-of-view of normal users, and a half-functional donwload manager (It doesnt work to continue the download if you close the browser…okay at least it doesnt work in my Firefox). If you want mail client, etc than you need Mozilla-Suite, which is 11 MB of initial download, and it still lacks of some Opera’s features.
Firefox developers goal was to make a browser useable for mainstream medias. How many features won’t be used by mainsteam users? Having a lot of features on a browser may be good for power users, it does mean that will be the same of mainstream users.
8. About the interface? Well, this time, I am not sure if the author of the article has even installed Opera to review it. As stated by someone above, the default interface of Opera is indeed much cleaner and professional than Firefox.
Mainstream users migrating from IE will have a tendancy be confortable with Firefox than Opera because of the clean interface. Frankly, for some people, Opera 8 feels confusing (search tools on url navigation bar for example) and some features should be confused by default to attract users.
afaik firefox focuses on extensibility and replacing IE as the default brower. if we are to compare opera to another mozilla-based browser using speed and lightness as the main criteria, shouldn’t we be comparing it to k-meleon?
I want to set cookies only from the sites i trust.
In firefox– I donot allow to set any cookies–then put exceptions e.g mozilla.org–allow It allows only mozilla.org cookies in my firefox browser.
In opera there is no option/or at least it doesn’t work… to set cookies selectively for sites i know and block ALL OTHER sites.
No offence but please comment with working examples for this problem and not your precious(!) suggestions.
I fell in love with Opera about 6 months ago. I’ve got nothing against Firefox but the Opera interface is awesome for me. All of the shortcuts, the mouse gestures, the mail client, everything appealed to me. The things people would point to as Opera weaknesses are strengths to me. Do I think Opera is for everyone? No. Just like Firefox isn’t for everyone or even IE or Safari or Konqueror or Nautilus or any other browser. In fact, I think there should be as many browsers as possible out there. Why? Because that is a victory for open standards. If there are enough browsers with enough marketshare then developers won’t be able to code for a specific browser anymore. They’ll have to code to standards. Conversely, browsers will be forced to adhere to standards. No more making up your own extensions or not supporting what you don’t like. Then standards will control the web and not the other way around. This would be a win for everybody.
OK, that kind of turned into a rant. Sorry. So, I fell in love with Opera but my main stumbling block for using was my addiction to adblock. However, adblock was frustration too because I’m always tinkering with OSes and re-installing, etc so I was continually moving around my adblock files and it was just frustrating and annoying. Then I found privoxy.
Privoxy lets you set up a proxy that filters ads for you. This was awesome. I set it up on one machine and it filter ads for Opera, Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, Safari, and even IE. All I had to do was configure proxy settings. Now I can use whichever browser I want/need to (which is usually Opera) without worrying about ads.
Well that was kind of a rambling little post but the point was that people should use what works best for them. Each browser has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Pick the one that’s best for you. For me, it’s Opera.
This extension almost made me want to abandon FF. It’s not robust and not well thought out. It makes FF take ages to initially load. FF crashes often. And if it happens that you are viewing a chromeless (no menu, no address bar, no toolbar) window when firefox crashes, you’re doomed. Well, you could manually edit prefs.js to disable it, but ravaging through those lines to find out which line to disable is not a painless one. Uninstalling the extension didn’t help recover FF’s stability. Solution? Uninstalled FF, delete user folder, reinstall FF.
There are more extensions which make Mozilla/Firefox unstable. Especially on “non-major” platforms. E.g. adblock makes Firefox and Mozilla on FreeBSD crash on any page with Flash content. Only Mozilla 1.8.x doesn’t have it, but it’s not updated anymore. 🙁
Okokok…I think Opera is great. I use Firefox, though, because it simply does what I want, nothing more, nothing less. Simple, extensible UI that by default does enough and can be extended. Very customizable. It’s free and OSS.
In closing Opera is great, but not for me.
“Except it sucks at both tasks, and Konqueror is a nice browser and truly amazing as a file manager. And you can get both in the same Konqueror window
“
Give it some credit, IE as a file manager is pretty good and fast and is much simpler to use.
If you think that’s a solution for adblocking in Opera, then I conclude you’ve never used the adblock extension in Firefox.
Quite the contrary.
As oposed to many people here I use FF Opera at home and while on my job. I know FF’s adblock extension very well indeed. And yes it is quite superior to Opera’s built in web filtering. But the point is that while adblock in FF is an external feature developed by someone else than the FF’s main team, the one in Opera is been developed by the opera team themselves. What the point is? Well, as Opera is a comercial product, they can not make the ad-blocking too evident or enable by default as they may get criticised by the rest of the industry, or worse, get websites banning Opera.
The person who developed the extension for FF did so as an independent party and had no problem integrating it onto FF as well as he did (in fact I like a lot that when you block an ad the whole html element that contains the image or flash anim dissapears from the page).
Extensions are quite a great thing, but as many people said before if you install too many, you end with an unstable browser, not to mention that quite many of those extensions are incompatible with one another or that they integrate the functionality much worse than Opera does.
Overall Opera is all about the experience, and overall as today Opera’s beat out FF big time.
All of this by no means mean that FF is a bad browser, on the contrary it is indeed a damn good one, is just that Opera’s environment is superior.
I cannot say that one browser is superior to the other.
Pointless review. We haven’t had to pay for a web browser for a very long time(I bought Netscape along time ago) I refuse to pay for one now i don’t care how good the perception of it is.
forget about you fancy smancy browsers with tabbed browsing, adblocking etc..
eLinks and net+ rule ;P
Elinks has tabbed browsing (which works much better than Firefox’s) and excellent customization. That’s why I use it as my primary browser at home (with Opera as my backup).
And of course it doesn’t need adblocking, as it doesn’t display images.
yeah, I remembered right after my post that it does tabs
This is a joke.
First of all, it’s coming from an OPEN SOURCE NEWS SITE. Second, he subtly dismisses Opera because it is not Open Source.
Third, he talks about how much simplier the FF interface is than Opera, yet claims to be using Opera 8.0. I for one don’t believe him. If he was using 8.0, then there is no possible way he could claim the default interface is anywhere near cluttered/bloated/confusing.
I’ve seen better reviews straight from the Mozilla community.
Firefox includes a framework that is called XUL and that enables extensibility.
XUL is the interface engine. It’s very similar to HTML.
Opera does not have that, therefore it cannot be extended and that’s why all the features must be statically built in, whether the user wants them or not.
Can not be extended? I assume you’ve never used Opera then. No, it can’t be extended to the same LEVEL as Firefox, but it sure as hell CAN be extended!
Extensibility is a double-edged sword. It lets you do so much more, but at a cost. The cost is that doing these things isn’t as seamless as if they were originally developed in parallel. That cost is important to me.
Not to mention the fact that many many people have problems with extensions causing Firefox to go slow, crash, and other various issues.
Time is money my friend
The amount of time you’ll save using Opera will pay the $39 fee the very first week.
Maybe for you, but not for me. I actually make money with Mozilla’s tools since they give me a better productivity. Different people, different needs.
For me Konqueror rules!
But then I might be one of few who think a browser which is also a filemanager has some benefits compared to a browser only application
Dismissing konq as a browser that’s also a filemanager would make the kde devs cry
Certainly after using it as a filemanager, it’s really painful to try to use windows (no remote browsing over ssh? wtf?), but konq also has the prettiest man page viewer I’ve ever seen. I think it also has a finger client, but I’ve never been too impressed with that. There’s tons of other stuff that konqueror can do; it’s definitely the coolest software swiss-army knife I’ve ever seen.
This release just stripped down Opera’s UI to be more like Firefox. Why? Because Firefox has over 4x as many users. User Scripts are a direct copy of GreaseMonkey for Firefox, though not as widely used as GM, and therefore not as extensible yet. The filters in Opera are a rip of Adblock. The same applies in reverse. Fx can have mouse gestures if you want them. It can save sessions if you want. You can even add annoying google ads in a sidebar with an extension if you want.
The point is, if its in Opera, its an extension to Firefox. If its an extension to Firefox, eventually it *may* be added if the Opera devs feel like it. If you can’t take the time to understand a few things, enough to where Firefox stays stable, quick, and has the features you want, you’re better off with a prepackaged, purchased Opera. That’s not me though. The burning edge is Firefox. 50+ million users know that.
I didnt post that. a coworker did.
At that point, you argument are fundamentally flawed from the start. Do you really think mainstream users are willing to spend money on a browser without ads? You exaggerated the time to get extension especially those who are essentials (tab browser extension and adblock) without giving the kind of connection you use.
I didnt exaggerate the time. I dont know if I am too picky, but my definition of getting plugins: search at the plugin site, check the compatibility, check the comments, recheck the user comment in google, apply the plugin, test it…and i mean really test it, if all is ok, search other plugin, check the compatibility and so on. If something broken than uninstall the plugin, retest again, and if the whole firefox goes down, than start from zero again. Okay it is perhaps for me. I just want that all is robust enough and dont break anything. Anyway how long it takes normal user to get plugins? 10 min? Okay let we say 10 min. How about if I have 2 PCs and 2 laptops and there are multiple OS? And how many releases of Firefox are there in the last 8 weeks? It is indeed a nightmare for an admin and takes too much time. And as someone stated above: time is money.
You know Firefox is designed to be a browser that can be extended to support listed features if user wanted. If you want to compare Opera as a suite, you should refer to Mozilla. Oh, did you know Gmail extension is available for Firefox?
I compare Opera with Firefox because the author of the article compared Opera with Firefox. I think you miss my point here. What I want to say is that the article is totally biased. Because he said the small size of initial download of firefox but in the same time he dismissed the Opera’s built-in capabilities with smaller initial download size. By the way, I dont want an extra plugin for Gmail. I want that my mail client can do for all accounts i have. And i meant that the view (how the Opera’s mail client handle messages) is so unique that perhaps copied by Google.
Okay Opera is not the first one. The first one that create “conversational style” in mail client is Lotus Notes I believe.
Which extension caused that crash? I guess you didn’t bother to try profile to verify the problem
Session saving plugin. Try it with 15+ saved tabs and you will see how smooth and well developed Opera is.
Firefox developers goal was to make a browser useable for mainstream medias. How many features won’t be used by mainsteam users? Having a lot of features on a browser may be good for power users, it does mean that will be the same of mainstream users.
Which feature does a joe user need more? A built-in mail client or built-in developer tools?
Okay Firefox allows you not to install such tools during installation. The next version of Opera will allow users not to install some features though.
yes, opera ripped every god damn feature it has off firefox! Even the fact that it’s a browser, is ripped of FF. And, OMG, it has an ADDRESS BAR!!!!!!!!!!!! The Opera devs certainly copied that from Firefox?
The point is, if I have it in Opera, why download (x+1) extensions to firefox to gain the same functionality? And to add that, more often than not, the extensions cannot coexist happily… Fine, if I don’t want to use a feature of Opera, I don’t, and I don’t worry about it being there. Of course, if you can’t take the time to understand a few things, enough to where Opera stays quick, full-featured and stable WITHOUT all the extension-managing BS, then you’re probably better off with battling with firefox and all the extensions.
Maybe the Mozilla Suite will eventually get anywhere near what Opera is today but certainly NOT Firefox (or shall they rename it to Firewolf for the next major release?), shall it be with or without the numerous extensions, PERIOD.
Anyway how long it takes normal user to get plugins? 10 min? Okay let we say 10 min. How about if I have 2 PCs and 2 laptops and there are multiple OS? And how many releases of Firefox are there in the last 8 weeks? It is indeed a nightmare for an admin and takes too much time. And as someone stated above: time is money.
What kind of plugins/extension this normal user need?
About yout PC and lapton running on multiple OS, does software have different extension (i.e exe, rpm, dmg)? what about plugins that are only available on a specific OS?
As for many release within a week, there are related to vulnerability and bug fixed. Will you take a risk to let that vulnerabitly to be exploited by not fixing it? Speaking about administration, read
Check this article: http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=03100000N62Y .
Session saving plugin. Try it with 15+ saved tabs and you will see how smooth and well developed Opera is.
Then the problem is related to the extension itself. Next time, avoid to generalize the about extension seen on your previous post.
About yout PC and lapton running on multiple OS, does software have different extension (i.e exe, rpm, dmg)? what about plugins that are only available on a specific OS?
Thats my point. The incompabilities between plugins, between versions and even between Linux distros!
As for many release within a week, there are related to vulnerability and bug fixed. Will you take a risk to let that vulnerabitly to be exploited by not fixing it?
Nope, serious bugs should be fixed immediately. But it’s far better that the developer really test it through releasing some Betas and RCs before the final. There should be a good quality assesment. If the short update-interval cant be avoided, than it should have a capability to do incremental update. The backward compatibility with plugins should be guaranteed. I can understand the incompability issue between major version. But the compability between minor version should be guarateed (eg. Firefox 1.0.3). Sorry, but until this time frame, I have an image that the Firefox is carelessly developed. Hopefully it will be much better in the next releases.
Speaking about administration, read
Check this article: http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=03100000N62Y
It is indeed a big news. But it doesnt mean something meaningful in point of view of system administration. IBM encourage to use Firefox that means it’s not a must. There are supports from HelpDesk, but not centralized administration.
My point is: it is indeed a significant news for Firefox, but it has nothing to do with administration.
Then the problem is related to the extension itself. Next time, avoid to generalize the about extension seen on your previous post.
It’s just one example. There are many of them. I have neither enough time nor bother to type the problematic plugins here (plugins needed to be comparable with Opera basic browsing features).
I am not against Firefox. I just want to say that the article is totaly biased and the author ignores the strength of Opera and in the same time he ignores the weakness of Firefox. Because Firefox is an opensource that it is better than other closesource software and therefore users should use Firefox, is not a valid argument in a review.
Give us a break with all the Firefox fanboy FUD already.
“This release just stripped down Opera’s UI to be more like Firefox.”
Why would the superior Opera want to be more like Firefox? Firefox tried to be more like IE, so by your logic Opera tried to be more like IE.
The UI wasn’t stripped down. It was streamlined. All the functionality is still there.
“User Scripts are a direct copy of GreaseMonkey for Firefox”
Wrong. Opera had this concept in years ago, first with user CSS, and then with the BORK version which used User JS to rewrite msn.com.
“though not as widely used as GM, and therefore not as extensible yet”
Actually, Opera’s UJS is far better than GM. Faster, and you can load it for any page, etc. It also has more functions that can do useful things. In fact, Opera can read GM scripts, but not the other way around because GM is too limited.
“The burning edge is Firefox. 50+ million users know that.”
50 million downloads does not equal 50 million users. Heck, it doesn’t even equal 50 million different people downloading Firefox. Quit it with the fanboyism already.
The bottom line: Opera is a tiny, streamlined Interenet application with just about everything you need. Firefox is a bloated, huge, memory-hogging, stripped down browser for which you need to install buggy and untested third party software to get any kind of extra functionality.