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Using Firefox: Surfing the net

I may be crazy, but not only does Firefox parse the documents differently (very netscape/mozilla like obviously) but it *looks* a little bit faster. Maybe it is just perceived speed because of the way things get drawn on the screen. I don't know, but speed is very fast; you won't be disappointed here.Regarding application loading time, Firefox is slower than Opera by a few seconds during the first startup. People will complain about this and even start a flamewar, I don't know, in *my computer* Firefox loading time is higher than Opera's, with or without documents/tabs or whatever. I made some tests freshly booting before each attempt (to prevent dll caching or anything like that). Perhaps on *your computer* this doesn't happen. I've got to say that this is not a *major* issue since loading a browser is not something you're going to do all the time and having to wait one or two seconds more won't kill you.

At first this could be a problem; when my computer boots up the memory usage is about 64/66 MB (I have 512 MB ram). My services list is tweaked and I don't have fancy stuff (apart from Winamp, Damon-tools and F-Prot) loading when the computer boots up.
What I have noticed is that Firefox uses a little bit (sometimes a lot) more of ram when it starts for the first time, but then you start opening tabs the ram usage will remain flat. On the other hand, Opera may use less ram when it starts but as soon as you start opening tabs, the ram usage will grow (sometimes beyond 80 MB).
Here are two screenshots of both browsers' task manager; same amount of tabs and same documents on each page:

The result, far from official, it clearly shows that both use more or less the same amount of memory; after my testing week, I've noticed that Firefox tend to use a few more megabytes; but that's just an impression.

I have to admit that I'm used to Opera's shortcuts, therefore getting used to a new set of shortcuts is not easy; but I've tried hard and the experience has not been too bad. I've noticed that is not that Opera has more, but Firefox has fewer features out of the box. On the other hand some common functions like for example: "jump to the address box" in Opera is F8 but Firefox uses ALT-D. Differences apart both browsers have a set of shortcuts and if you like using them, all you have to do is read the fancy manual.

One thing I got used to do with Opera is type a search query directly in the address box, instead of jumping to the "Search" box on the right –which is available in Firefox too-. In Opera you can type: "g OpenBSD PPPOE" (without quotes) and it will automatically search Google for pages containing OpenBSD PPPOE strings. Now I don't know if this feature is used by a lot of people but I really got used to it and I have never used the Search box. There is no such feature in Firefox or an extension -as far as I can tell-; if you happen to use the Search Box, then I haven't found major differences. In Opera you can use other characters for different search engines; for example "f" will search in the current page, "z" will seach amazon, and so on. I think that you can't change those; on the contrary Firefox doesn't have shortcuts you can use in the address box, but you can select other search engines directly from mozilla's web site. I didn't invest more time with this since I only use Google (default on both) and if for some reason I have to seach somewhere else, I normally do it manually (aka: I visit the website directly and then perform a seach there).

Firefox has a download manager which can either prompt you with a save dialog or save it to a configurable path. A curious bug that I experienced is that when you download mp3's, it automatically executes them, thus adding them to my Winamp's playlist; apparently it executes the file before moving it to the configured directory (my custom download folder). The problem with that is that after it has been added to Winamp's playlist, it cannot be moved to the customized path you've chosen, so it stays in the document and settings\user\bla bla bla temp folder; annoying!
I even selected prompt before downloading but Firefox kept saving my mp3s in the temp folder. When I realized that a new catalyst driver for my ATI was available I went to ATI's web site and downloaded it, but this time it asked, so I guess it was a problem with mp3s and "auto execution" if you have Winamp with the auto-enqueue activated instead of replace playlist. I went to the options and found that ".mp3" extension is supposed to be opened in Winamp automatically, so that's why it is being added to my playlist (I have enqueue in play list by default when I double click on an .MP3). Maybe this is a bug, maybe not, I didn't investigate any further.
All in all, both download managers are ok, Opera's one is integrated as "another tab" which, in my opinion, is more convenient since you don't have to have "another" window floating around; if there's a way to accomplish this in Firefox, I didn't find it.
You can temporary pause any download and auto close the download manager when it finishes its pending downloads in Firefox. It just works and there's nothing else you might need or ask from a download manager (it is, by far much better than Microsoft's I.E. download box). A nice thing about Opera is that when a save dialog box appears, Opera is actually downloading the file in background. Sometimes when you finally find your desired path, the file is either finished or halfway there. I don't know if this happens in Firefox because there's no progress bar until you actually select your location and the Download Manager appears. I have tried with a couple of files and it looked as if it wasn't happening, but I can't be sure.
Finally, I'm satisfied with Firefox download mechanism and that's what I consider important.

There's little I can say about this, I don't use skins, although I've used some Opera ones in the past. Firefox comes with a "Theme" selector. It only has one and if you want more you have to go to firefox website, just like Opera (Opera has one *and* a "windows standard" skin which looks like Win2k and below).

This is one of the most important aspects. I have to confess that even with my precious Opera, some pages were either unusable or had problems; the solution was to use Internet Explorer for that site and problem solved. But we don't like IE!
Well Firefox really rendered fine most of the pages I've worked with. One nice example of this is GameSpot. Opera has troubles with all those layers and renders the page really bad. Firefox, on the other hand did a fine job and the page was really usable. That said, Firefox is a great browser and even my Home Banking, the MS website, and some others worked fine. In summary, I have had a pleasant experience with Firefox during the last week.

Opera has rendered Gamespot badly...

Firefox did a great job with such complex piece of code

1. "Firefox Vs Opera, Page 1/3"
2. "Firefox Vs Opera, Page 2/3"
3. "Firefox Vs Opera, Page 3/3"