Opera 8 Final is now released, check the forum post here.
Opera 8 released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Opera 8 Final is now released, check the forum post here.
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Does it pass the Acid2 test?
What Acid Test and where can i test it,i am taking it for a ride now, it is behaving well.
Rendering is faster than Firefox which crawls, i dont of what reason, and yes i have optimized it with all the bla bla tweaks, i am not dumb.
Nothing passes the Acid2 test.
I just visited the Opera website, and it’s not out there. 7.54 is still the current version and v8 is still in beta. (And not on the Mac.)
No. Same as the Opera 8 beta, it’s comparable to FF 1.0.x.
Follow the link above to the forum – the first post has 4 links.
http://www.webstandards.org/act/acid2/
Maybe this means I can get rid of the worlds shittiest browser, Camino on the mac.
For all you zealots, Camino is the proof that not all GPL’d code is good.
Also I am still running OS 10.1 because I have not seen a reason to upgrade. Hence why I’m not running Safari.
You can take the Acid2 test here: http://webstandards.org/act/acid2/test.html
I tried the Acid2 test using Firefox 1.03 and latest IE, Firefox had some problems and IE failed big time.. Have’nt tried Opera yet, but i’m currently downloading Opera 8, and i’ll try to see if it passed the test.
http://bitsofnews.com & http://tech.bitsofnews.com
The best browser in the world just keeps getting better with time. Mozilla.org, start the copiers. I’ll give them a week and the extensions will start showing up hot and heavy. And no, I don’t really have anything against Firefox, I even use it from time to time, but, I just wish that more people knew that the true webbrowser innovaters don’t reside in Redmond or at the Mozilla Foundation.
I think I’ll even pay for version 8! It’s that good!
Zen, I’ve got one reason for you to upgrade from OS 10.1.
SPEED. You will shave a minute off of your boot time and the entire UI is an order of magnatude faster. (OTOH, I know somebody still using 10.1.5, so …)
But, back to the topic at hand, I use both Camino and Opera, Opera 7.54 being my main browser.
Other than the speed of Opera, the thing that keeps me from switching to Camino is the fact that none of the Mozilla browsers has the “open requested popups” feature. Sure, I can go in and edit a list of sites allowed to send me popups, or, I can simply check the option to have the popups that I click on.
The all or nothing of the Mozilla browsers sucks rocks.
I also find it much easier and more straight forward to have Opera look and act the way I want it to.
…how Opera manages to pack so many more features into a download less than 80% the size of Firefox. Certainly Firefox extensions have Opera beaten in the feature department, but Opera remains lean and fast, trading functional features for needless abstraction layers.
Beta 3 didn’t pass the test. It falls behind Firefox rendering side. Hopefully final version will do well.
A button – for cascade. Put your hand up if you think this is the single dumbest idea for a “Feature” you’ve ever seen. You already HAVE a TAB BAR that lists every page you have – – WHY, please do explain to me WHY cascade could ever be useful.
And it’s *still* terrible at rendering, max-height is not working correctly in conjunction with overflow:hidden in order to support IE’s broken box model.
At what point was it decided that having the tabs visible, when you have the windows cascaded, and thus completley detached from their perspective tabs – was a good piece of UI intitive?
When I type an address I get a strange toolbar apear with links to my bookmarks and Amazon.com search, and… what the hell is going on here!? This is a combo-box drop-down, not a freaking toolbar! Why would I want to begin typing an address, then have to stop and retype my text into the TWO search boxes available.
Seriouse UI issues going on here, I’m off back to ‘fox.
Other than the speed of Opera, the thing that keeps me from switching to Camino is the fact that none of the Mozilla browsers has the “open requested popups” feature. Sure, I can go in and edit a list of sites allowed to send me popups, or, I can simply check the option to have the popups that I click on.
Firefox and Camino 0.8.3 have these features thus debunking your argument.
I just took the Acid2 test with Opera 8, it still falls behind Firefox when it comes to rendering, but it’s ultra fast at rendering and the startup time equals zero. Think i’ll actually buy Opera 8 to get rid of those ads.
http://bitsofnews.com & http://tech.bitsofnews.com
Nothing passes the Acid2 test.
Safari will soon enough:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2005_04.html#007973
Another brilliant version as every other Opera release. Lightyears ahead of competition. Good work!
Opera8 and FF1.0.x are about equal at the acid2 test.
Opera8’s default interface doesn’t have the main toolbar shown (which has the cascade button as the previous poster complained out).
Not much different from beta3, but hopefully lots of bug fixes. Waiting for changelog.
Oh, user javascript is great.
“Safari will soon enough:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2005_04.html#007973“
Ah, nice, hopefully that means Konq will…eventually.
Opera8 and FF1.0.x are about equal at the acid2 test.
Not quite with this testing result:
http://www.thefinalzone.com/images/acidtest2_result.png
Left is Opera 8 beta 3, right is Firefox 1.0.3. Of course it may unfair to compare beta with final release. Until the latter is available, the result speaks itself.
On a Celeron400 machine IE6 is a lot faster, than opera for example
This applyes to both starting time (ok, i know IE cheats by loading a huge part at login) and rendering pages (operas UI needs more horsepower on a low-end machine, than IEs native windows UI)
Of course, on my other machine (AMD 2000+) this difference is NOT noticable, and i use opera for 2 years.
But if you use it on a daily basis, as history and cache grows, its startup-time grows very well.
try to compare it with reference rendering (http://webstandards.org/act/acid2/reference.html).both aren’t close enough to it.
sigh.
Look at both. FF doesn’t render the eyes, and Opera doesn’t render the bg correctly. Both have a few minor things as well.
http://www.croczilla.com/~alex/fosdem2003/w3c-conformance-suite/moz…
Opera 8.0 passes all the SVG tests that Mozilla fails…
It’s from 2002, and it looks like Opera fails quite a few of them actually. Looks like they have a long way to go.
Newegg.com is broken, unable to properly login (yes, I know there are hacks around it). What good is the “Report a Site” in the beta versions when they don’t follow up on it? Even a thread about it on opera.com itself. They have just lost a paying customer.
On a Celeron400 machine IE6 is a lot faster, than opera for example
This applyes to both starting time (ok, i know IE cheats by loading a huge part at login) and rendering pages (operas UI needs more horsepower on a low-end machine, than IEs native windows UI)
I’m typing this on a 466Mhz Celeron running Opera 8 with a couple of dozen web pages open, it’s still very fast and responsive. A single IE window may open faster, but with a few sites open it slows to a crawl. Overall I find that Opera is the fastest modern browser even on very low end hardware.
A button – for cascade. Put your hand up if you think this is the single dumbest idea for a “Feature” you’ve ever seen. You already HAVE a TAB BAR that lists every page you have – – WHY, please do explain to me WHY cascade could ever be useful.
You’re complaining about an optional button on a toolbar that isn’t even displayed in the default GUI. Not everyone uses the tab bar, cascade can be very useful if you’ve got a number of windows open.
This is like criticising Firefox because there are extensions available that you don’t use.
At what point was it decided that having the tabs visible, when you have the windows cascaded, and thus completley detached from their perspective tabs – was a good piece of UI intitive?
A better question is why you decided to setup Opera like that if that’s not what you want? You don’t have to have cascading windows, the Opera UI can closely mimic Firefox if that’s what you want.
Anyway, having tabs detached from their windows isn’t much different to the way non-maximised application windows are detached from the windows taskbar. You may not like some of Opera’s configuration options, but they may suite the way other people browse. Are you really arguing that Opera should be less customisable?
When I type an address I get a strange toolbar apear with links to my bookmarks and Amazon.com search, and… what the hell is going on here!? This is a combo-box drop-down, not a freaking toolbar! Why would I want to begin typing an address, then have to stop and retype my text into the TWO search boxes available.
The toolbar appears when you click in the address bar, it gives quick access to bookmarks, search and anything else you put in it, without taking up valuable screen space. But if you don’t like it you can turn in off in a few seconds and never have to see it again.
Seriouse UI issues going on here, I’m off back to ‘fox.
It’s ironic that Firefox fans promote extensions as a great feature, yet complain about Opera’s UI when it can be customised so quickly and easily. Even if those UI “issues” were in the default Opera interface, they could be fixed in half the time it takes to download and install a single extension for Firefox.
But if you don’t want to give Opera a real try that’s your loss.
I reported that myself man.. about newegg.
But try www2.newegg.com in the mean time. It worked for me and is better than their current site
Good to see the browser come out of Beta.
JK said:
“It’s ironic that Firefox fans promote extensions as a great feature, yet complain about Opera’s UI when it can be customised so quickly and easily.”
That’s possibly because an additive approach to features, compared to a subtractive approach, strikes some people as more empowering. It’s similar to a web form, where the “We’ll send you service offers via email!” option is checked by defualt rather then unchecked. People generally feel more comfortable opting in then opting out.
http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?s=74d710469bcede226c9326f…
Username ‘jax’.
His blog after reading that post.
http://my.opera.com/jax/journal/20
I know you can change it back, but how?
Also where is the sid/debian download for opera 8?
ftp://ftp.opera.com/pub/opera/linux/800/final/en/i386/
If you already have qt installed pick shared and go for the .deb package.
@Zen Lunatic:
Camino is not GPL’d.
@Bascule:
Opera is cheating concernig the download size. It depends on Motif for plugin support, 3 MB of outdated and obsolete software that must be installed separately and that nobody wants to have today.
But the packager was indeed very clever, he explicitly excluded Motif from the RPM dependency list so that users do not even see it at the beginning, they only see it when they visit the first flash site.
@all:
This release does not fix any of the problems that I really dislike:
– There is still no self-contained package for any other language than English, except for the w32 platform. Mozilla offers them.
– There is still no desktop integration, it does still not even use Qt font settings although it is a real Qt app. Mozilla offers full GTK integration even though it is not a real GTK app.
– There are still unnecessary proprietary self-made widgets that do not appear anywhere else on the desktop so that the app looks weird on every desktop. Other browsers offer better consistency.
Let’s have a closer look at it. This is Firefox together with some native GTK apps on the GNOME desktop:
http://img173.echo.cx/img173/6683/bildschirmfoto4je.png
As you can see, it integrates perfectly. Widgets, fonts, colours: Everything looks perfect. And it’s available in my native language as a single download.
And this is Opera together with two other native Qt apps, YaST and /usr/lib/qt3/bin/qtconfig:
http://img178.echo.cx/img178/5071/bildschirmfoto15mn.png
As you can see, the menu font is not correct, its rendering quality is extremely poor and not even its size is correctly adopted. I selected the qindistrial theme for Qt apps, but Opera does not adhere to it => unacceptable.
Mozilla people are working very hard on integration for both w32 and x11 platforms, and they succeed very well. Do Opera developers really think that users accept “stylish” apps that do not even integrate? No, users do not accept that, and this is why Firefox is so much more successful.
Now I downloaded almost 5 MB, and I have no plugin support because I do not intend to install Motif on my computer (it’s April 2005!) and it is in a foreign language => No, thanks. Perhaps they will understand it in 2007 for Opera 9?
To say it in a quite sarcastic manner: Yes, Opera is the quickest browser. It is the one that gets uninstalled most quickly. Opera makes the best products for mobile devices, they should concentrate on that instead of making a desktop browser that will never succeed.
Camino is not GPL’d.
Right, it’s under the MPL/LGPL/GPL tri-license, no?
http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/
Motif was preinstalled on my ubuntu…and you can change the fonts in preferences. You might want to check whateverthey changes “use system scheme” to in Opera 8..
BTW Firefox still does not look right at all in KDE, not that I care because I don’t hang up on my wall for prettiness…
A little more information (I forgot to attach that to the previous post, sorry):
Of course I downloaded and installed the dynamically linked (“shared”) build. It is clear that the static build cannot integrate, but not even the shared one does even though it easily could.
This seems to be intentional. Why do they do that?
Using “–style plastik” (or whatever) as a command line argument works for me. Makes menus (including context menu) match the system instead of being the ugly unthemed grey.
It is clear that Firefox does not integrate with Qt since it is designed to adopt GTK themes. I have never asked for Opera integrating with GTK at all because it is clear that this is impossible, I only want to know why Opera does not respect the user’s Qt desktop preferences by default.
It’s April 2005 now, we have consistent user interfaces today even on x11 platforms, but Opera developers still think that using TWO toolkits at the same time (Motif + Qt, sounds like a joke but isn’t) instead of using one of them correctly is a good idea. WHY?
“It is clear that Firefox does not integrate with Qt since it is designed to adopt GTK themes. I have never asked for Opera integrating with GTK at all because it is clear that this is impossible”
Atleast for GTK apps adopting QT themes, there is the GTK-QT project at freedesktop.org for that, but where is the same effort to make QT apps adopt GTK themes? AFAIK, there isn’t any, which is a damn shame..
and Opera changed according to my style choisce., (NOTE:: version 7.5 since sid does not appear ot be out yet) does respond to colour changes, my menus are the golden lipstick style for example. I don’t have that qt control application that you did on my system..
I tried:
opera –style plastik
opera –style=plastik
opera –style qindustrial
opera –style=qindustrial
But none of them had any effect, and the “–style” switch is not listed when typing “opera –help”.
And yes, I know that the fonts can be changed but I do not intend to do that since there are alternatives that work well out of the box. Why configuring here and there when you can simply start browsing the web using a nice-looking browser without configuring anything?
@Anonymous (IP: —.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com)
> You might want to check whateverthey
> changes “use system scheme” to in Opera 8..
I did not find any such option, neither in the “Appearance” nor in the “Preferences” dialog. Either it’s not there or it’s too cluttered for me so that I don’t find it.
I really appreciate your help, thank you very much, but I think I’ll stick with what I used before, sorry…
First, look at this screenshot:
http://img163.echo.cx/img163/4034/bildschirmfoto25th.png
You see that the right coloumn is FAR too wide in Opera.
And now, visit http://telefon-treff.de using Opera.
Place the mouse button over one of the names in the right coloum => They are JUMPING AROUND!
Sorry, no. I know that this site is not valid (X)HTML, but the way Opera renders it is plain unusable.
I am always defending web standards, but having a quirks mode is still important. Opera’s quirks mode does obviously not work at all.
Sorry, a web browser is a tool for gathering information, it MUST work in the real world. The real world is not always standards-compliant, that’s the way it is. A usable web browser must be able to handle that.
And these “paragraphs that are jumping around”-bugs are bugs that remember me of Netscape 6.0 and Internet Explorer. Is Opera now copying their old bugs?
One more statement, did you notice that Opera COPIED Internet Explorer’s coloured scroll bars? Is this supposed to be innovation? It is not! I always hated that when I used w32, and now Opera copies it and brings it to Linux => No, thanks.
rpm -e opera
Jesus you’re a negative bugger.
You don’t like Opera, I’m sure most people who have seen your comments the last few days get that.
Enjoy Firefox. Quietly please.
For those that think Firefox is doing better than Opera or vice versa in the Acid2 test because Firefox doesn’t have a – very obvious – red background, you are missing the point.
The red background is just one failed component. Because it is large does not make it any moreso than the failures in Firefox.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I do not intend to be quiet when people are talking about “innovations” very loudly(!) here and in fact there is not much more than annoying coloured scrollbars that have been copied verbatim from IE.
Good night
Opera is a light year ahead from its competitors (IE + OE, FF + TB, Mozilla).
Still, get ready to see Firefox copy all Opera’s inovative features like it has done so far (session saving, tabs, etc…). But Firefox won’t copy speed, and light-weight eh eh!
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I do not intend to be quiet when people are talking about “innovations” very loudly(!) here and in fact there is not much more than annoying coloured scrollbars that have been copied verbatim from IE.”
You seem to be working with some strange new definition of “innovation”.
You try and say that people are saying the “innovations” of Opera are coloured scrollbars?
You’re nothing but a troll. Thats a ridiculous thing to say.
> You try and say that people are
> saying the “innovations” of Opera
> are coloured scrollbars?
People (like the person that wrote the “Opera rocks” posting in answer to my last one) are complaining about features being “copied” that were in fact not “copied” because the “copier” implemented them “better” than they were implemented before.
Before someone asks what “better” means, let’s make it clear: “better” means more popular and more accepted by the users and *nothing* else. Software is being made for *users* and only their feedback is relevant, not the question of who implemented something first.
If people have the right to complain about this sort of “copying” that is in fact not a verbatim copying, but an implementation that was inspired by an earlier idea, then I *have* the right to complain about *verbatim* copying!
> You’re nothing but a troll.
> Thats a ridiculous thing to say.
No, I am not. Calling people with different opinions “a troll” is just too easy and itself “ridiculous”.
BTW, it is quite interesting that so many people respond to the “copying” stuff and nobody responds to the embarrassing “jumping paragraphs” stuff.
On my last screenshot, you can see three right-aligned names in the right coloumn and one left-aligned name at the bottom. When I loaded the page, all names were left-aligned and when I hovered the above three ones, they jumped to the right!
After I had hovered the last name after making the screenshot, not only the name jumped to the right, but also the border between the right coloumn and its left neighbour, meaning that the far too wide right coloumn became narrower.
I cannot even believe it! *This* is real “copying”. This is copying of a style of bugs that Netscape fixed years ago, in the time between Netscape 6.0 and 6.1. Therefore, I don’t think that this is actually a final release. This bust be a leaked beta version or something like that.
I remember the days of Opera 5 actually. Was the gestures and tabs available back then or with v6? In any case, since v5 many other browsers are released and none came close to Opera as far as browsing experience goes. Yes Firefox is a good browser and it is nice as far as free software goes (now that all browsers have tabs and gestures). But for anyone used to how slick and responsive Opera feels nothing really compares.
I recently was using a quite old Pentium 200 of mine and I was impressed how nice Opera v6 still is. I wish I could download and install Opera v5 for fun onto my newer computers.
Also Adobe Creative Suite 2 now is bundled with Opera. They surely know what is good.
try to compare it with reference rendering (http://webstandards.org/act/acid2/reference.html).both aren’t close enough to it.
I did.
Look at both. FF doesn’t render the eyes, and Opera doesn’t render the bg correctly. Both have a few minor things as well.
That is a part of rendering error that neither browsers did well. My point still stands for overall rendering.
The red background is just one failed component. Because it is large does not make it any moreso than the failures in Firefox
Your argument falls short because you didn’t bother to look at the source code. The red background should be hidden. Opera 8 failed that part of test. That just means the rendering needs improvment.
“Your argument falls short because you didn’t bother to look at the source code. The red background should be hidden. Opera 8 failed that part of test. That just means the rendering needs improvment.”
I didn’t say it was a pass. What I said was that Opera very obviously fails on one of the aspects of the test – which shows the red background.
However it is one part of the test, just like not showing eyes or whatever else. Because it looks more apparent does not mean that it is a “bigger” fail than other failures.
There isn’t going to be any rational argument here.
Because it has no red background, it is “better” in Firefox.
Arguing with F/OSS fans is at times worse than banging your head on a brick wall; eventually with the wall you’ll end up unconscious and not have to suffer the pain of it anymore.
Be sure to bookmark this site:
http://nontroppo.org/wiki/Opera
It lists probably everything you need to know about Opera — tips, guides, adding custom features, tuning performance, advanced features, etc.
I use Opera because of its “Create linked” function. Place a web page with web links in the left side, click “Create linked”, tile vertically and a blank page shows to the right of it. With that, links clicked in the page to the left open in the page to right. Much easier than open/close, back/forward or mouse dragging of links. I don’t know why Konqueror won’t implement that function.
There’s a new feature in the help menu “Report a site problem”. If a page doesn’t work we can use that to report the problem to Opera. There is also complete user agent spoofing that can be set for certain domains in the new version of Opera.
Look for a file named ua.ini in your profile folder. There are already some entries in the file, and here are the IDs:
1 = Opera
2 = Mozilla 5
3 = Internet Explorer 6
http://my.opera.com/haavard/journal/36
Actually, these are the correct ids for the ua.ini file
1 = Opera
2 = Netscape 4 + Opera
3 = MSIE6 + Opera
4 = Netscape 4 + Mozilla 1.7.5
5 = MSIE6
Before someone asks what “better” means, let’s make it clear: “better” means more popular and more accepted by the users and *nothing* else. Software is being made for *users* and only their feedback is relevant, not the question of who implemented something first.
So IE is the best browser out there then eh?
Calm down. You just made a silly generalization when you make that statement:
“Arguing with F/OSS fans is at times worse than banging your head on a brick wall;”. What you need is relax, be out of computer and come back with good post. I am not perfect when I post as it happens to make mistake.
My comment wasn’t directed entirely at you, but was directed at something which is very much the case with a large amount – if not the majority – of F/OSS likers.
If it isn’t free, if it isn’t open, it must not be good. That seems to be a large part of the argument.
Then that gets used as a basis for irrational and unthought out comments about the inferiority of another products feature set, its innovation, its security… it goes on.
In this instance, Opera isn’t innovative apparently because coloured scrollbars were in IE first, it isn’t better because more people use Firefox and it does worse in the Acid2 test because of a red background.
I like reasoned argument (Even someone saying they prefer Firefox’s interface is fine by me. Them saying “But Operas is more cluttered” isn’t. One is a personal choice the other is soemthing that requires proof) and when I get “Nah I like this so anything else sucks” back it shows just what a pointless exercising trying to actually discuss things online can be.
“Calm down. You just made a silly generalization when you make that statement:
“Arguing with F/OSS fans is at times worse than banging your head on a brick wall;””
I didn’t make a generalisation. I said it is “at times” as I pointed out which is true. It is.
I didn’t say all the time or with all F/OSS folks. If I had just said “Arguing with F/OSS fans is worse than banging your head on a brick wall” then yes, that would have been a generalisation.
So there.
That’s possibly because an additive approach to features, compared to a subtractive approach, strikes some people as more empowering. It’s similar to a web form, where the “We’ll send you service offers via email!” option is checked by defualt rather then unchecked. People generally feel more comfortable opting in then opting out.
That isn’t the argument that’s being made. Firefox trolls make it sound like tweaking Opera is a time consuming nightmare, so they have to suffer UI “clutter” or go back to Firefox. If tweaking Firefox with extensions is acceptable, they’re not being fair to Opera when complaining about toolbar buttons that can be removed with a single right-click.
Make sense. =)
<em>”Firefox trolls make it sound like tweaking Opera is a time consuming nightmare, so they have to suffer UI “clutter” or go back to Firefox.”</em>
Not “clutter”, the Opera UI has moved on since version 6/7. What I was originally referring to is UI sillyness. Having *two* search boxes inside the dropdown for the address bar, that you have to type in to see, is – for want of a better word – dumb. This is not “innotive” or “initative” UI, this is the stuff that confuses the heck of n00bs, and angers me because I don’t want this in my face.
Out of the box, Firefox is perfectly usuable without UI sillyness. I prefer to add-on what I need because I actively want to, rather than remove things in a “pissed-off” fashion. Remember that people remove things because they annoy them, and therefore they are not happy about having to do *any* removing at all. If I want to add something, I do so because I want to, and i am therefore in a happier mood. This is the reason why something so trival as ticking a box to remove something is so flamed.
Out of the box, Firefox is perfectly usuable without UI sillyness
Take time to understand why Opera’s interface is the way it is, with little effort you can make it work the way you want.
When it comes to UI experience nothing beats Opera, it is simply brilliant. But of course you have to spend some time learning how to use it… hmm this argument sounds familiar.
> Opera’s quirks mode does obviously not work at all.
Well gee. Just because it doesn’t seem to be working on one single site, it isn’t working at all? Great logic there.
> Opera COPIED Internet Explorer’s coloured scroll bars?
> Is this supposed to be innovation? It is not!
So what? You are the ONLY ONE claiming that this is an “innovation”. No one else in this entire discussion has even brought up colored scrollbars!
If I were a zealous fanboy like yourself I could pick a random feature from Firefox and slam it, pretending that Firefox supporters claim that it is an innovation:
“Firefox COPIED Internet Explorer’s HTML support? Is this supposed to be innovation? It is not!”
Seriously, how many lies are you going to spread about Opera? How much crap are you going to try and make a point of where there is none?
You are a perfect example of a fanboy who makes up arguments as he goes along, just to bash a competing program.
Just to clear up any misimpressions:
1. Yeah, when you start typing in the address bar, the default Opera UI is to give you a dropdown with search fields, etc. You don’t have to stop typing; Opera will happily let you continue to enter the address and go to the site you want. (In fact, with its “paste and go” and autocompletion capabilities, you can probably get wherever you want to go faster with Opera.) I personally don’t use the search functions in the dropdown – I use the search field at the right of the address bar instead (another Opera innovation). With a couple of clicks I remove the search fields from the dropdown and insert the UA spoofing menu instead, so I can quickly switch at sites with obnoxious sniffers or quirky javascript.
2. What’s so cool about user JS? If you know how to use it, you can likely quell the jumping menus at the page GW talks about. Even if you don’t know how to use it, just as there are downloadable UI setups for Opera on the Web now, I’m sure there will be downloadable user JS files specifically for that site you want to make work in Opera. So no more need to sit back and complain Opera can’t handle a site (if JS or CSS, also configurable in Opera, are involved). Opera has essentially “open sourced” problematic web pages, enabling the community to come up with solutions.
Opera site seems to be hitted hard from surfers….80% qualify as time outs or server busy.
Good sign for Opera
, and they deserve it. Currently nothing compares to Opera in browser market.
The coloured scrollbars can of course be turned off, just as they can be turned off in Konqueror. Yep, Konqueror beat Opera to that ‘innovation’
I wish Opera integrated better. I’m never a fan of using your own unique widgets. I enjoy using Opera and dislike mismatched apps so much that I took the time to make a skin for it to let it better match my environment http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=13174 . Unfortunately if I ever switch to another QT style, or change my colours it will no longer match
Please give us a native skin for KDE or go back to using QT (not likely
)
Seamonkey(Moz_1.7.6) seems to render more sites properly than anything else, including Firefox, or so I’ve found. Moz & Firefox seem to be a bit better at blocking popups/popunders, although the fact that everything renders in one window on Opera olmost makes up for that. And maybe I’m just used to it, but I do find Moz’s chat & email clients a wee bit more intuitive than Opera’s. But for speed, especially on an older machine, nothing comes close to Opera (on Linux or EvilOS) which is why I bought it.
I haven’t used Opera for several years. Yesterday I decided to try it out – now I’m thinking about replacing Firefox with Opera. I fired it up just to test it out, and ended up spending two hours surfing the web with it instead of switching back to Firefox like I originally intended. Definatly good.
Ah, Opera, the browser Firefox fanboys hate. Because to like Firefox, you must hate every other browser.
Meanwhile, Opera is way faster, has less of a filesize, and takes up half the memory. And its new features always end up in Firefox a year later.
Firefox sucks…buggy, slow, and with half the response time as Opera. It also doesn’t have as good CSS support.
http://tinyurl.com/at8yg
Konqueror *does* have coloured scrollbars feature, and i like it.
So no need to complain on opera :p
Also on firefox’s integration on x11. Does FireFox support XSESSION session management? I really want to know.
Looks like TB don’t.
And BTW, does opera linux support it?
Konq does :p
I am always defending web standards, but having a quirks mode is still important. Opera’s quirks mode does obviously not work at all.
You found a site that Opera doesn’t render properly, and from that you conclude that its quirks mode “does obviously not work at all”? The singular of data is not “anecdote”.
In my experience, FF does do a better job at rendering those pages. And I used Opera(7) exclusively for almost a month, before switching to FF, so I don’t think I’m trolling here. I haven’t used version 8 too much, though, so maybe there’s a big improvement?
Meanwhile, Opera is way faster, has less of a filesize, and takes up half the memory. And its new features always end up in Firefox a year later.
Firefox sucks…buggy, slow, and with half the response time as Opera. It also doesn’t have as good CSS support.
Twice the memory? Buggy? I think you haven’t really tried FF (since 1.0 anyway), because those are huge exaggerations. And so what if FF copies Opera’s features? Isn’t that the sincerest form of flattery? Can you tell me what features are in Opera8 that will soon show up in FF? Because I’m pretty happy with what’s there now. The voice stuff is pretty cool, but other than that, I can’t really think of anything.
Sorry if this post was a bit rushed, but I’ve gotta go and wanted to post before I left.
Not “clutter”, the Opera UI has moved on since version 6/7. What I was originally referring to is UI sillyness. Having *two* search boxes inside the dropdown for the address bar, that you have to type in to see, is – for want of a better word – dumb. This is not “innotive” or “initative” UI, this is the stuff that confuses the heck of n00bs, and angers me because I don’t want this in my face.
You don’t have to type in the address bar to see the dropdown, all you have to do is click in it and the toolbar appears. Did you actually bother to use this feature before reacting against it?
I don’t think that you’re in a position to speak for “n00bs” or anyone else other than yourself. Other people may find quick access to bookmarks and multiple search fields to be very useful and not “dumb” at all.
Anyone who really doesn’t like it can get rid of it in a few seconds. I can’t believe that people are complaining about something that’s so trivial to remove.
Out of the box, Firefox is perfectly usuable without UI sillyness.
I disagree. I find Firefox extremely frustrating and unpleasant to use out of the box, I miss dozens of useful Opera features that it lacks without extensions. Even with a load of extensions I still find it pretty unpleasant as there are still plenty of great features that are unique to Opera.
I prefer to add-on what I need because I actively want to, rather than remove things in a “pissed-off” fashion.
If you get “pissed off” because you have to spend seconds turning off a few features then that’s your problem, not Opera’s. Do you get so angry when you change the default font in a word processor, or switch to a different tool in a graphics package?
Remember that people remove things because they annoy them, and therefore they are not happy about having to do *any* removing at all. If I want to add something, I do so because I want to, and i am therefore in a happier mood. This is the reason why something so trival as ticking a box to remove something is so flamed.
I think you’re projecting your personal problems onto other people, I don’t know anyone else who gets so worked up about a few mouse clicks. I find adding features to Firefox much more annoying, simply because it takes much longer.
But in either case it’s something you only have to do once so it’s totally trivial compared with how well the browser works in everyday use. IMO Opera is a much better browser than Firefox out of the box, with a few tweaks it’s nearly perfect.
Opera servers are heavily loaded, they have put a minimal page in the meantime
They deserve the overwelming success.
You don’t have to type in the address bar to see the dropdown, all you have to do is click in it and the toolbar appears. Did you actually bother to use this feature before reacting against it?
That is a disavantage because it brings more confusion to users than developers might think. Adding two extras search bars engine below the address bar is rediculous as web designer point of view.
I find adding features to Firefox much more annoying, simply because it takes much longer.
That is an exaggeration when you claim it takes much to download extensions.
It does take more time to download extensions than to just start using the feature in Opera
That is a disavantage because it brings more confusion to users than developers might think. Adding two extras search bars engine below the address bar is rediculous as web designer point of view.
Do you have any evidence for this, or are you just trying to make your personal opinion sound like fact?
Why is this ridiculous and confusing? The search bars are clearly labeled, it’s completely obvious what they do. Anyone who’s confused by something that simple isn’t going to get very far with Firefox either.
The start toolbar doesn’t take up any space in the UI as it’s only displayed when the address bar is clicked. If you don’t use it and a couple of mouse clicks is too much work then surely it’s easy to ignore?
But why complain about something that’s so easy to remove? In the time it takes you to post a message complaining about it you could have disabled it 100 times over. Do you complain about all apps that have a toolbar or button you don’t use?
If tiny little nitpicks like this are the worst thing you can find to say about Opera, I don’t think it’s developers have much to worry about.
That is an exaggeration when you claim it takes much to download extensions.
Turning off most features in Opera takes a couple of mouse clicks, a toolbar or button can be disabled in a few seconds. Are you really saying that you can download and configure multiple extensions in the same amount of time?
does opera use the QT library for its interface? at least for linux, solaris and freebsd?
Why is this ridiculous and confusing? The search bars are clearly labeled, it’s completely obvious what they do. Anyone who’s confused by something that simple isn’t going to get very far with Firefox either.
That is not jusfity the use of several search bars. Don’t you think this is an overkill? Even browsers developers from Konqueror, Safari and Internet Explorer won’t dare to implement that.
The start toolbar doesn’t take up any space in the UI as it’s only displayed when the address bar is clicked. If you don’t use it and a couple of mouse clicks is too much work then surely it’s easy to ignore?
Why not disable it by default before final release?
But why complain about something that’s so easy to remove? In the time it takes you to post a message complaining about it you could have disabled it 100 times over. Do you complain about all apps that have a toolbar or button you don’t use?
We talk about browsers not other applications.
Turning off most features in Opera takes a couple of mouse clicks, a toolbar or button can be disabled in a few seconds. Are you really saying that you can download and configure multiple extensions in the same amount of time?
Basically, you spend more clicks to remove features user don’t need just for basic browsing. You complained about lack of simultanous download and configure extensions yet you don’t mention that you may also download some “plugins” (lack of better thme) such as voice recognition if you want to try it out.
This is madness, all you did was argue and not agree. You act like women in the “Bachelor”. Ok I agree, Opera is the best IMO, now I shut up.
That is not jusfity the use of several search bars. Don’t you think this is an overkill?
No, I think it’s very useful and apart from you I haven’t found anyone who’s confused by it. I’m sure that you can find someone who’s confused by having more than one web page open, do you think that tabbed browsing should be removed too?
Even browsers developers from Konqueror, Safari and Internet Explorer won’t dare to implement that.
I think that explains why Opera is a much better browser. It’s developers aren’t afraid to take risks and try new things, that’s probably why it’s so much more innovative and feature rich.
Why not disable it by default before final release?
Because many people find it a useful feature. If they disabled every feature that someone somewhere doesn’t like then there wouldn’t be anything left in the UI.
I think it’s better to put new features on display so that new users can easily find them. If they don’t like them then they can quickly and easily turn them off. But if they were disabled by default then some users might not find them at all.
We talk about browsers not other applications.
Why not? There’s no big difference between browsers and any other applications. If you use software like OO.org or MS Office and there’s a toolbar displayed that you don’t use, do you:
A) Ignore it
b) Turn it off
c) Complain about it constantly as if it’s a huge UI problem
Why expect Opera to have a UI perfectly suited to you by default? That’s never going to happen unless you hire people to write software specifically for you, or you write it yourself. The important thing is that it’s easy to customise the UI to fit your needs.
Basically, you spend more clicks to remove features user don’t need just for basic browsing.
So all a browser should have is features you need for basic browsing? Why aren’t you complaining about things like tabbed browsing in Firefox. That isn’t necessary to browse the web, so maybe it should be a separate extension too.
You’re really desperate to come up with something to complain about if this is all you can find.
You complained about lack of simultanous download and configure extensions yet you don’t mention that you may also download some “plugins” (lack of better thme) such as voice recognition if you want to try it out.
The only things that require a separate download in Opera are large files that most people don’t use. If voice recognition support was included by default then people like you would be complaining about the size of the download.
This doesn’t change the fact that turning off features with a couple of mouse clicks is much, much faster than downloading extensions to add those features.
I can run IE6 and FF (1.0.2) “out of the box” on my system by setting the “proxy options” appropriately. Opera 8 throws a wobbly saying that the “Authentication Method” is not supported because I am talking to an ISA proxy. SO the suggestion is that I go talk to my proxy admin. Not good
The Gecko engine has severe rendering quirks as well Anyone besides me who has tried writing RTL web pages?
FF sometimes locks it´s UI: It´s not responding for a second or two, especially when opening a new page or on pages with excessive CSS / JS. Opera is simply “more responsive” for me (on Wxp).
I bought O8 yesterday, it cost me 8 €(~11$) thanks to a special upgrade offer from Opera for C´t (http://www.heise.de/ct) readers.
Opera has an will always have quirks, but it is improving all the time (and, IMHO, it´s the fastest evolving browser on this planet). Opera 8 has quite some bugs (which I already stumbled on), but I have high hopes that they will be fixed quickly (as Opera´s bugs mostly have in the last years).
I love Opera´s search.ini customizations, and it offers me the most screen real estate outside of fullscreen mode (with the “Breeze Simplified V4.14” skin).
It’s always funny to see how browser discussions really brings out the zealot in folks.
Nevertheless, I’ll only say this;
The possibility to style scrollbars introduced by Microsoft with Internet Explorer 6 is a feature Opera has had for years (atleast since sometime in the 7 tree). It has only now been enabled by default, to make new users just transitioning from Internet Explorer feel more like ‘home’. Rather than whinging about it here, people should take 3 seconds to turn off.
Ofcourse, I know that wasn’t the point. Anything worth a tinyest shred of complaint is an obvious attack point for a Mozilla zealot who doesn’t have anything bigger to gripe about…..