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It is a little bit unfair, because I am going to mention things I found in Opera that aren't available in Firefox; of course there are many, because Opera is huge, but I'd like to mention only a few that I find useful.

The quick properties menu: In Opera you can enable/disable many options by pressing F12; the following popup menu will appear:

As you can see, you can easily identify as another browser when the website says that the page is "only for IE" or you can enable/disable a proxy server, and the most beautiful, block unwanted pop-ups. I haven't found all these options or their equivalents in Firefox, with the exception of the Pop up blocker (which is per site in Firefox). As you can see all this could be added either as an extension or as a part of the original installer in Firefox. I can live without these, but they'd have been a nice thing to have.

A nice feature in Firefox is the "Page Info" thing (Control-J), it will display a window with some tabs and several information about the current page:

You can actually see all the images, the form query string (if any) and all the links. A nice interesting feature if you are debugging or inspecting an HTML document.
On the Zoom side, there's no such feature in Firefox (so nice when it's late and you can't read anymore) but you have the usual Increase/Decrease font size.

Firefox bookmark handling is adequate, although not as user friendly as others when it is time to Import. I personally don't use bookmarks a lot so I didn't pay much attention; the usual ctrl-d works and it adds a page to the bookmarks, but it will prompt you before doing so.

Where do I start? Here we go. I have to confess that I haven't seen extensions for these but there *may* be somewhere. I'd be glad to hear about these. On the other hand be warned that these are features I use with Opera most of the time. I am not going to suggest that Firefox should include a Chat Client, because I think that's the worst thing Opera has; after all it's a web browser, not a multimedia centre. The features I post here are actually things I've missed when working with Firefox during this week.

- Window Menu: there's no such and therefore you can't minimize, maximize, tile, cascade all your "tabs" or windows, maybe because in Firefox the Tab thing is not 100% natural, it is an extension and the whole thing is Multiple Document. The tab is kind of a Cheat.
- The quick preferences I mentioned above, it's a nice feature you won't be using everyday, but when you get used to it, you miss it.
- Rewind – Fast Forward: When Opera introduced this feature it wasn't clear what the whole idea about it was; until you started using it. Plain simple, suppose you search something on Google, and click on a link and start digging into it, but suddenly you realize that this is not what you were looking for; you'd have to click back many times to reach Google again –sometimes fighting with JavaScript scripts that will try to stop you-. If you click on Rewind, Opera will take you directly to Google. I think you got the point.
- Reload Every...: not a very useful feature but sometimes when you're checking or waiting for a page to change, you can, under Opera, right click on any part of the document and select Reload Every: and a list of choices will appear, ranging from 5 seconds to 30 minutes; you also have a "custom".
- Image Load: It would be nice if it were possible to disable the load of images for a specific website. That speeds up page load a lot and when you're looking for text, you don't need images. A single click can restore the images back. Just like in Opera.
- Tight integration with tabbed navigation; right now the extension is really nice, but it's nothing compared to the native Opera's implementation.

I remember people starting a flamewar because Firefox lovers said that Opera was too complex and needed a lot of tweaking before it was usable or comfortable (all those toolbars and 'things' that appear on a default install), therefore that behaviour was not suitable for newbie's or people coming from I.E who were going to be confused by all the stuff.
On the other side, there were Opera lovers (I wasn't there!), assuring that the Firefox approach was completely the opposite; the default install didn't have anything and you needed to accomplish tasks by downloading and installing complex extensions; that alone was complex enough for a newbie who wouldn't even know what an extension is. And if you didn't download extensions the "browsing experience" was really poor.
And so the war begun, just like an epic Warcraft II battle, Humans vs. Orcs.
I'd like to add my opinion after trying both pieces of software. Your mileage may vary.

The Opera Way: It's true that the first impression you get when you open Opera's default install is a little bit shocking. Loads of things: toolbars, buttons, icons, etc. You will definitely have to spend some time (I do it in 2 minutes, but I know what to do) customizing your browser. The truth is I've seen newbie's using Opera and they didn't touch anything, they liked it the way it was. Perhaps it is just a matter of preference; to be honest if you don't like a toolbar you're likely going to be able to remove it in no time; even if you're a newbie. That said I think that Opera Package is growing a little bit beyond what I'd like to see. The Mail client was ok (although I don't use), but now the latest version has a Chat Client. If they're going in *that* direction, perhaps in the future they may suffer the Netscape Syndrome; that is, a complete package, but too "heavy". This is something that, in my opinion, mozilla suffers. Time will decide.

The Firefox Way: Firefox, on the other hand, offers a very simple and extra-features limited experience in its default install. A newbie will likely appreciate the "looks like explorer" appearance and will go from that. The risk here is that a newbie may never ever discover what an extension is and if it does, chances are it'll take much more time to get used to that. Is not that extensions are bad, but I spent more time browsing the net and looking for the ones I wanted (even when I didn't know them, I knew what functionality I needed) than removing and touching a few toolbars in Opera. NOTE: I am not saying Opera's better here; it's just a matter of preference and opinion. I don't think that neither browser is truly a super-newbie experience. A newbie won't even know what Opera or Firefox is. A friend or an Ad may lead them to one or the other. From there, only time will decide. This flamewar is nonsense. My personal preference is still the Opera Way. I'd rather spend a few minutes removing stuff *I may use* than, looking for "third party" extensions that do not fulfil 100% my requirements. Maybe in the near future, extensions start being more powerful and that could be another history, because you could "build" your browser with those features you need and like. Firefox zealots here could argue: why do I need a Mail Client if I don't use it. I agree. Opera Zealots will respond: If you need mail, you need to download another piece of software, nah, we've got one integrated!
As you can see, there's no winning position, both are good. It just depends.

I'm back at my Opera, but the good thing is I haven't uninstalled Firefox because now, instead of jumping straight to I.E., I'll first give Firefox a try when there's a problem with Opera.
I do recommend Firefox if you don't like Opera (or can't afford it to remove the banner); I understand that there are people out there that hate Opera (nobody is perfect) so Firefox is the natural way to go. If you prefer Opera, don't be afraid to give Firefox a try, it's worth the effort and you will find a very nice web browser package; we don't want to run I.E. because its security flaws, now there's another "layer" in the middle between your and Microsoft Internet Explorer.
I haven't mentioned that both Opera and Firefox are Cross Platform, so you can have your Opera or Firefox for Mac or Unix/Linux. I don't have a unix X box here but I imagine the experience is the same.

This is it, my week with Firefox is over and I've gained a new ally; the story is not over, because Firefox is at version 0.9, and it claims: "0.9 is a Technology Preview. While this software works well enough to be relied upon as your primary browser in most cases, we make no guarantees of its performance or stability. It is a pre-release product and should not be relied upon for mission-critical tasks."
I don't agree with them, it works fantastically.

About the author
I am a Chief Technology Officer and I live in Madrid, Spain. I read OSNews via RSS and tend to read Flamewars more often than I should. I don't know why, I just love them. I work with *BSD/Linux Servers since 1997 and used DOS, Windows and OS/2. I also work with Databases (MS-SQL and MySQL) a lot; but in the end, we, as geeks, would love to have fancy Powerbooks to hang around... ;-)
My desktop has Windows XP Professional because I need Visual Studio .NET and the ability to be defeated by some occasional co-worker in Starcraft BroodWar.