eWEEK Labs’ tests show that Beta 1 of the open-source Firefox 2.0 includes some welcome new features, catches up a bit with capabilities found in other Web browsers and adds some nice security enhancements. However, while Firefox 2.0 is shaping up to be a good upgrade to Version 1.5 of the popular Web browser, it doesn’t look like it will be the slam-dunk over the forthcoming Internet Explorer 7 that Firefox 1.5 has been to the current IE 6.x. For that matter, unless Firefox 2.0 and IE 7 improve greatly before their respective releases later in 2006, neither will come close to topping the quality of the already shipping Opera 9.
The difference today in how people perceive Firefox compared to, say, one year ago is stunning. Everyone I know of are aware of it some way or another. My colleagues at my new work all use Firefox at home, and they’re not computer geeks. Far from it. Many of the less tech inclined people I’ve talked to say they use Firefox for security reasons. Obviously, the media attention about the IE6 vulnerabilities had an effect to regular people.
Firefox 2.0 doesn’t have to be a slam-dunk in the same way as Firefox 1.0. People are getting aware of the existence of alternative web browsers and alternative software in general. Firefox, Linux, OpenOffice.org. This is just the beginning!
It seems to me that most of the features of Opera 9 they like are already available for Firefox as plugins.
I agree that still not passing the ACID test is embarrassing. Unfortunately, though, as long as IE doesn’t pass it, people aren’t going to use the advanced features that ACID tests, so the real requirement for Firefox is just to be better at standards compliance than IE, so we won’t have the situation of a correct side that works on IE but not Firefox.
ACID2 doesn’t test any “advanced features”; it just tests standard CSS2 features that have been in the spec since 1998 and that most browsers still don’t follow correctly.
It is much harder to implement a broad reaching spec then most think.
What effect does the ACID test have on my day to day use of firefox, will it improve my experience?
I really get sick of this ACID test, i’d rather they fix bugs then this ACID test.
Edited 2006-07-13 21:53
Failures to meet the ACID tests are bugs.
The web, and all forms of communication in human existance, are dependent on standards. Most computer related standards are fairly exacting, and failures to meet them inhibit communication.
In other words: When a browser fails to do something right, it’s much more difficult to make use of that part of communication.
Imagine if you met someone who was unaware of the modern meanings of words and only knew the definitions in Websters 1913. This is sort of how it is developing pages for a browser that doesn’t meet the standards.
In the short term not conforming to public standards doesn’t seem like it effects the end user. However, it does effect developers, and it’s the edge cases that the Acid test tests for that often add many extra hours of development time (and increases costs) that makes writing html/css based websites so hard and expensive.
The way that it would effect end users is that once there are standards, and development costs come time (and time is freed up) you will see more innovation in things like user interface and experience.
Case in point: Google Maps. This kind of application would not have been possible if Netscape and Microsoft were still breaking compatibility on purpose, and would have been much easier and cheaper if Google (and others) didn’t have to figure out ways to emulate the missing features in one browser or the other (for vector lines, and canvas objects, and so on).
“It seems to me that most of the features of Opera 9 they like are already available for Firefox as plugins.”
Yeah, but only as second-thought, bolted on add-ons. Not integrated into a smaller and faster package like Opera.
Yes i’m a happy Firefox user, yes Firefox 2.0 looks cool and has awesome features, but I won’t be upgrading to it for a while, not because I fear stability or features aren’t good enough.
The thing that will be keeping me on 1.5.x.x for a good long time is lack of a stable API for extendsions. When I upgraded from 1.0.x to 1.5.x it was weeks and months before all my plugins got new versions. In fact some I had to replace because they just weren’t being ported/upgraded to the new version. I currently have over 30 extensions and about 25 of them I consider crucial to my daily firefox experience. So untill I’ve verified that all my plugins will have new versions and will work seamlessly I’m not upgrading.
Perhaps they could stabilize there extension API so plugins will be write once, run in all newer versions.
API are the same between 1.5.x.x (Gecko 1.8) and Firefox 2.0 (which will be based on Gecko 1.8.1)
So, the problem is related to theme and extensions developper. If they are enough smart, they will take a beta2 / rc1 version and verify it works with their work.
“Perhaps they could stabilize there extension API so plugins will be write once, run in all newer versions.”
Maybe. But as everytime, there will be lazy coders extensions which will make messy extensions and Mozilla.org coders will be blamed for that !
If Firefox wants to compete with the other browsers, they really need to focus on the following:
1. Fix the runaway memory issue. I know, it’s not technically a memory leak, but I have 4 tabs open right now and Firefox is using 83MB of memory.
2. Make Firefox more responsive. Sometimes when I use the middle mouse button to open a link in a new tab, it “locks up” Firefox for a second or two while the page loads. It’s not a huge issue, but it’s little things like this that detract from the pleasure of web surfing.
1. Sounds very reasonable. Some people have a _real_ issue with this that’s an order of magnitude higher than yours.
2. Something is wrong. Firefox isn’t responsive but I’ve not seen it lock up for a second on any typical pages or use. I’ve found opening tabs to be fairly responsive, it’s opening new windows that is slow.
Firefox does lock up a little bit when it renders complex pages – I’m sure it is worse the slower your cpu is. I’m not sure if there is one thread that is rendering every page or if there is just a giant lock they all have to acquire, but it isn’t just him.
Firefox does lock up a little bit when it renders complex pages – I’m sure it is worse the slower your cpu is. I’m not sure if there is one thread that is rendering every page or if there is just a giant lock they all have to acquire, but it isn’t just him.
Yeah, this is actually what drove me to start using Opera, although in fairness I found the problem much more pronounced on linux than Win.
I liked Firefox, was using it since 0.7. But around 1.5 it just seemed to become too heavy.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a lightweight interface wrapped around the Gecko engine, without the XUL baggage or the extension interface et al. I know there was some talk about it being used as an engine in Konq, which would have achieved that, but now it looks like they’re sticking with khtml/webkit, which should be interesting in itself.
Opera, Firefox, Safari, even IE7, whatever. It’s just nice to have options again in the browser front without having to sacrifice functionality. Makes me nostalgic for the old days of the browser wars.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a lightweight interface wrapped around the Gecko engine, without the XUL baggage or the extension interface et al. I know there was some talk about it being used as an engine in Konq, which would have achieved that, but now it looks like they’re sticking with khtml/webkit, which should be interesting in itself.
There is
http://www.gnome.org/projects/epiphany/
I usually find that my mem usage steadies around 80M. If this is a problem, it’s separate from the one where mem usage keeps rising. Still, I suppose halving that number would be cool.
On a side note, AFAICT Opera’s mem usage isn’t necessarily better (I tried browsing an image board I frequent to compare the two). If anything, it might actually be higher. This might depend on what sites you frequent, though.
Adding support with the two previous posters. ACID 2 test is not a good way to show standard compliances because it already broke css rules (test with with CSS Validator) which probably explain why Mozilla developers did not focus on it.
Browsers like Safari and Konqueror still have background rendering issues despite their success on ACID 2 test.
For web developers, ACID 2 is just marketing.
The rationale is that ACID isn’t intended to be CSS compliant. It deliberately breaks from the standard to expose aspects related to user agent handling.
Google for it, I can’t be bothered.
In any case my Opera 9.0 shows it correctly, and the rest of the browser kicks ass. (Faster and more responsive than firefox, sad on the plugins but atleast it has built in adblock.)
I don’t think opera vs firefox is easy to do. I will say why.
I don’t like opera. I think it distracts from surfing web pages. It has widgets; intergrated bittorrent; a damn trash can. In fact I don’t really like anything that distract me from getting getting to the content *I* want.
I like firefox because it has perhaps the most dull interface I have ever seen, but it does its job at looking at content very efficently. In fact my extentions I have are about getting rid of stuff I don’t want on a webpage. I’m not the only one, people are actually worried that new features will spoil what is elegant about it. Throw in a little open source goodness on a program I *need* to trust and its a winner.
I prefer optional features vs feature packed from a web browser.
and
I prefer open-source vs closed source from any application.
…but I can easily see how you wouldn’t think like me.
Edited 2006-07-14 01:40
“And I personally refuse to use inferior tools because of ideology. In fact, I will go as far as saying that making excuses for bad tools due to ideology is _stupid_, and people who do that think with their gonads, not their brains.” — Linus Torvalds
LOL I do hope thats a quote about how Linus got shafted over a propriatry piece of software, and had to create git in a day.
You should re-read my post its not any fancy flag flying for open-source quite the reverce. I say Firefox is better. I say why its better for me. If Opera and firefox were both binary I would chose firefox. I actually try and say they go about being a tool differently, and why some would be attracted to one over the other.
What I do say in regards to open and closed source is trust. Why should I trust a company that used to be advertising driven. Its installed on my computer and attached to the internet, I need to trust it. I don’t trust Opera. Or maybe your right I’ll just put this sony cd in my computer.
“LOL I do hope thats a quote about how Linus got shafted over a propriatry piece of software, and had to create git in a day. “
IIRC, that quote is from the BitKeeper controversey.
It was. Linus was so busy judging BK on technical merits, he completely lost sight of the fact that it was a hopeless fit for his development team as a whole. All’s well that ends well, I guess.
Its installed on my computer and attached to the internet, I need to trust it. I don’t trust Opera. Or maybe your right I’ll just put this sony cd in my computer.
Conspiracy everywhere. Why should you trust a company, which is giving the best browser on for free (satisfied with their business model – revenue from mobile telephony operators) ? They MUST hiding sth. right.
Conspiracy everywhere. Why should you trust a company, which is giving the best browser on for free (satisfied with their business model – revenue from mobile telephony operators) ? They MUST hiding sth. right
Opera satified you are joking! I’m sure Microsoft was happy with the 12 billion profit too when it pulled WGA. I’m also pretty sure that when they integrated IE into windows they did so out of love of mankind.
I find it absurd that you would suggest, it gives its browser away for free becuase it makes soo much money.
I suspect it plans on making money in much the way Firefox is doing so, through advertising. We have seen with firefox that even having a small propotion of the market is worth millions.
I’m also pretty sure that when they integrated IE into windows they did so out of love of mankind.
Irrelevant.
I find it absurd that you would suggest, it gives its browser away for free becuase it makes soo much money.
Where did I state this ? I only say, that money for them are elsewhere.
I suspect it plans on making money in much the way Firefox is doing so, through advertising.
The answer is in the very my post, which you quoted.
I don’t like Opera either. While I realize that some people love it, and presumably they have good reasons, it always feels like a UI train wreck to me.
Too many panes, icons, bars, panels, icons on bars, panes on panels, etc. Plus a popup confirmation for every trivial thing you tell it to do. (Yeah, they always ask if you don’t want to see them again, but there seems to be an endless stream of new ones until I get tired of it and go back to my browser of choice.)
I’m sure all of this is marvelously configurable… but why bother when another browser comes just like I want it and runs on all the platforms I use?
“Too many panes, icons, bars, panels, icons on bars, panes on panels, etc.”
Have you actually tried Opera? It has one more button than Firefox by default. It has two visible toolbars by default. The panels are disabled by default.
In fact, just about all additional features are hidden and/or disabled by default in Opera. They don’t appear until you start using them.
At least TRY Opera before you comment on it!
“Plus a popup confirmation for every trivial thing you tell it to do.”
Such as? Please mention some of these “endless streams” of confirmation popups.
One has to wonder: Did you actually TRY Opera at all?!
Too many panes, icons, bars, panels, icons on bars, panes on panels, etc.
Holy lord! (would say if I were American) – do you have right button mouse ? Can you click on a toolbar ? Do I have to say anything more ?
Plus a popup confirmation for every trivial thing you tell it to do.
I don’t know what you are talking about, but you obviously don’t know either.
I’m sure all of this is marvelously configurable… but why bother when another browser comes just like I want it
Yeah. Why bother ? Let’s go find and download 20+ extensions and then we will be able to do some decent browsing. Upgrade you say ? Tough luck I guess.
To both of the preceding posts:
Yes. Not only have I tried Opera, but since there are IE only sites that load with FF and not Opera or vice versa, I have a number of my users using it, so I get to support it for other, less experienced users as well.
I find that my users do not use plugins. Or if they do, no more than 1… 2 tops. I personally use the adblock and webdeveloper plugins.
How you even tried FF? Doesn’t sound like it.
How would you say this:
http://blog.nicholasstuart.com/opera_standard.png
is bloated and confusing?
This is a standard, default, no setup done install of opera. download, install and poof, this is what I get. Ya, I get confused by all those ‘extra’ toolbars and panels and widgets too.
“I don’t like opera. I think it distracts from surfing web pages. It has widgets; intergrated bittorrent; a damn trash can.”
That’s a silly excuse. BitTorrent doesn’t even have a UI until you start using it, and the same goes for just about all other features as well.
Widgets only have a menu, nothing else until you start using it. Opera now has as many top level menus as Firefox. Do you complain about top level menus in Firefox too?
I don’t think opera vs firefox is easy to do. I will say why.
fallowed by :
I don’t like opera.
So this opera vs firefox isn’t that difficult afterall ?
I think it distracts from surfing web pages. It has widgets; intergrated bittorrent; a damn trash can
Nonsense. For widgets there is only menu, if you don’t want to use it. A trash can ? Isn’t firefox 2 incorporating similar feature (with history of closed tabs) ? Will you bitch firefox for this too ? And I LOVE this feature and use it ALL the time.
I like firefox because it has perhaps the most dull interface I have ever seen, but it does its job at looking at content very efficently.
Yaaawn. Done. Right click -> ‘Block content’/’Edit site preferences’ – you can customize the way you want.
In fact my extentions I have are about getting rid of stuff I don’t want on a webpage.
And I focus myself on the actual content of site. If I visit a site it’s what I want afterall and that’s what the browsers are for.
I’m not the only one
There are more than 6 bln people on Earth – I am sure there is someona LIKE you
Throw in a little open source goodness on a program I *need* to trust and its a winner.
Just becouse sth is Open Source doesn’t make it good (look at your post for example – it’s “open source”, but … ;} – you get the idead). And judging which browser is better based on technical merits you had to resort to ideological (religious) factor ? While I agree Open Source is usually better development paradigm (in longer term), I don’t know how does it make Firefox better than Opera. And you don’t trust a company from Norway (not us – sorry guys :] ), which is giving it’s browser for FREE (as in beer) ? It REALLY is hard to please you.
I prefer optional features vs feature packed from a web browser.
Yeap Opera (win/linux) : 4.6/5 MB Firefox: 5/8.2 MB. With Opera I have mail client (which I don’t use BTW, but many do), Bit Torrent cient (which I don’t use, but someone finds it usufull), mouse gestures, godlike customizability with themes/buttons/panels/toolbars (one word to make it happan … actually you don’t even have to say anything), widgets (which I don’t use ,…), RSS feeds, chat client…etc. etc. What do you have with Firefox in a package of bigger size ? A browser. That’s it. Not even gestures (although they might go in Firefox2 – about time).
I prefer open-source vs closed source from any application.
And some people find pleasure in pain. I am not one of them.
Someone posted here that is using 25 extensions/plugins. Good luck upgrading it
(In Opera it takes about 15 seconds to upgrade to newer version). And you do what ? Look what features Opera have and then look for extension mimicing this functionality. You know what would save you time ? Installing Opera!
Sorry is I didn’t make myself clear. I think that opera and firefox are designed differently, because they have different goals.
If all they did was serve web pages, then speed, reliability, standards complement, memory footprint, bug detection, bug fixes, security is all we would be interested in. The fact is these are difficult to benchmark, but I suspect most would trouble to actually detect the difference.
The big difference IMO comes down to features, and how they are implimented. It is what I think really seperates Opera Users and Firefox Users. Magazines used to, and some still do, judge a product on the amount of features it has. The more the better. Recently we often hear the term feature bloat. The reality is software design is tricky.
Firefox impliments extra functionality mainly for web browsing, through extensions so you can customise if you so desire, your web experience. Opera offers not just a Web browser but an intergrated web portal, with all the functionality you can imagine. I’m not sure how you compare the two, when both tailor to different tastes; markets; personal preferance. In reality I think they are quite complementery by filling different niches in the market, thats why I think its a little strange.
The other point which I made, is about open source. The reality is people focus on open souce as a development model. You try and turn my choice into an ideology. The reality is in this instance I talk about open-source as a user.
There are many advantages of open source over propriatry solutions. In this instance I talk only about trust. For a web browser I think its extra important. Companies are out to make money, I struggle to trust a company that made money from adware?
If WGA or the Sony fiasco taught you nothing. Look in your favorite search engine for “Mattel Rootkit” and see how frightening buisness is.
…you STFU? Seriously?
I used to use Opera back in the version 5.0 days until I was introduced to Firefox and its adblocking capabilities. It changed my world, and as the stupid ads say, gave me back the web again. I know there were a few attempts to get this functionality in Opera some time ago but the developers made quite clear they could care less and in a few cases actively seemed to push an added on commercial application to do this while also actively opposing the guy working on a freeware utility to do same. Go look through some of the Opera forums and do a few searches on ‘adblocking’ and you’ll see what I mean.
Oh and before someone suggests turning off images, why should I reduce the quality of my browsing experience when I can have adblock refuse to download the damn ads and their assorted spyware malware cookies etc and format the page so the ads never existed?
Of course none of that addresses the ability to block flash, to add on a spell checker, to integrate bugmenot.com and much misc extensions many of us would not choose to live without given a choice.
–bornagainpenguin
Why not actually try the browser before posting?
Opera 9 has integrated content blocking and per site preferences, and there’s been a spell checking add on available in Opera for quite a while.
It’s true that there are useful extensions available for Firefox, but there are also useful features in Opera that aren’t available as Firefox extensions. Which you choose not to live without just comes down to personal preference. Personally I value Opera’s advanced window management features too much to use a simplistic tabbed browser like Firefox for heavy browsing.
>>integrated content blocking
This was actually the reason I upgraded to Opera 9; and I still find the adblocking of Firefox to be superior.
I keep a copy of Opera around for those few sites that hiccup on Firefox, I’d never use IE given a choice!
As for the Spellcheck add on I’m shocked that this isn’t built into the application! I’d never even thought to look for an ‘add on’ for Opera as that would mean trying to use an external program which cannot integrate with the browser fully. That’s one of biggest benefits of Firefox–the extensions become a seamless part of the browser…
–bornagainpenguin (sure….mod me down because you dislike my opinion)
<a>As for the Spellcheck add on I’m shocked that this isn’t built into the application! I’d never even thought to look for an ‘add on’ for Opera as that would mean trying to use an external program which cannot integrate with the browser fully. That’s one of biggest benefits of Firefox–the extensions become a seamless part of the browser…[/i]
I’m amazed that you can have used Opera for any length of time and not found this, it’s mentioned in the Opera documentation and on their web site, as well as in the browser itself.
Opera uses GNU Aspell and it’s dictionaries, that’s why it isn’t included in the download. If you’d actually bothered to try it before posting, you’d know that it does integrate fully into the browser and email client. Try right clicking in a text field to access it.
As for Firefox extensions becoming a seamless part of the browser, that hasn’t been my experience with some of them. I’ve experienced problems with running certain extensions simultaneously, others have caused stability issues, you have to be quite careful about which you use if you want to avoid problems. Personally I’d rather have the features built in and tested together, that way they’re really integrated.
…is tough. Both are reaching an apex in features. There isn’t much more that can be done to make them truly different – at least until browsers start becoming even “thicker” clients and start actually becoming “the desktop” for you.
FF has taken a slight leap in their own design and it might take a little bit for all the plugins and peripheral components to catch back up. I haven’t tried FF 2 but on Windows I have used FF before it was 1.0. I just prefer it over IE. It has some great plugins for development as well.
Sorry for my ignorance, but I use FFx 1.5 daily, is there a comparison between the two?
Fix the infuriating clipboard problems, cut and pasting is hit and miss with firefox. And if no one believes me, search for clipboard problems with firefox on google.
Instead of whining like a child, go to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/, open an account and report the bug.
It will be more efficient than crying here !
1. Complaining about bugs is hardly “whining like a child.”
2. There are tons of already-open copy/paste issues reported in Bugzilla.
3. Firefox, as a security measure, tends to forbid scripts from accessing the system clipboard. Thus, some percentage of users are likely to always encounter problems.
1. If you do on OSNews, it does looks like it !
2. So, search for one which is like yours and get yourself on CC: list.
3. Problems are related to life in general.
Firefox is like Opera a very good way not to use IE for browsing. I wonder why Opera is not having much marketshare points, anyway.
opera this and opera that … get over it! Opera might be nice but it also has rough corners and unlike Firefox ( and even IE 7 ) has no real extention support. I don’t mean that you cannot install extentions ( you can although it is really not the same as with Firefox and IE7 ) but what I mean is that there are hardly any extentions available. So with Opera you pretty much get what you get and that’s it. Plus RSS feeds are handled as if they are emails and this is just plain stupid. SO before everybody starts preaching about how nice Opera is and how much better it is compared to everything else you might as well consider facts OTHER than the rendering engine. And as far as Firefox goes the team is really behind on some of the improvements that they should have added in 2.0 rather than 3.0 but it is what it is. Version 2.0 is not supposed to be this huge upgrade and it is only supposed to add several security features and lots of fixes for previously existing features. On the contrast 3.0 which is comming in 2007 is quite an upgrade pretty much the way FIrefox was to Mozilla.
“So with Opera you pretty much get what you get and that’s it.”
That’s simply false. At least inform yourself before making comments.
“Plus RSS feeds are handled as if they are emails and this is just plain stupid.”
Why is it “plain stupid”? It’s a lot more flexible than the way Firefox does it.
“SO before everybody starts preaching about how nice Opera is and how much better it is compared to everything else you might as well consider facts OTHER than the rendering engine.”
You mean the fact that it’s smaller, faster, uses less memory, has features nicely integrated (yet hidden by default), rather than bolted on as second-thought add-ons?
opera this and opera that … get over it! Opera might be nice but it also has rough corners and unlike Firefox ( and even IE 7 ) has no real extention support.
A friend of mine has this to say about Opera and extensions:
“Pre-Opera 9, I’d agree with you. Since Opera 9, I’ve run across MAYBE 2 sites that I can’t get into with Opera. And of those, both of them have been LEGITIMATE sites that using IE wouldn’t have posed any sort of risk (my bank was one – now that I can mask as mozilla, I’m totally fine).
As for Firefox, the more I bounce my sites off of Firefox using perfectly legal code (and having it botch it up) the less enthused about “anything but IE” I am. Now that Opera 9 is free and 99.9% compatible, I recommend it soley to my family and friends. I try Firefox about once a year to make sure I’m not missing anything, and I’m STILL on Opera.
I’ll be straight – not to piss off the Firefox lovers out there (and probably get this post moved to Flames and Fanboys) but I consider extensions really no better than ActiveX on Internet Explorer. You’re introducing third party product into an environment where the sum of all pieces are not properly tested with the others. ANYTIME that happens, be it for mal-intentions or not, problems will (and apparently DO) come up. How many people have I heard scream about Firefox memory leaks? Probably as many as I’ve heard scream about maligned pages in Opera. The difference is – with Opera, it isn’t the software’s fault. It’s poor coding. When you drive on a bumpy road with holes all over it, do you scream at the car maker for the car riding bumpy? Or do you scream at the Dept of Highways for not keeping the roads up? Opera isn’t the problem – poor coders are. The NATURE of an open source browser and third party extensions are Firefox’s problem. It is inevitable to have problems. And don’t cite open source success projects like PHP and mySQL to counter – this isn’t the same thing. I’d be happy to go into details why if it isn’t blatently obvious. From what I understand, if you use Firefox without ANY extensions it’s HELLA stable and works great. But point out someone that can use Firefox without extensions to make it competitive … shrug. Extensions appear to be like new and improved Smilex products the joker sent out in Batman. You don’t know WHAT combination of extensions is going to kill your browser. Me? I’ll take 1 in 1000 pages not quite rendering right of the need to mask as Mozilla from time to time.”
I just don’t see why people like you (mostly Opera Lovers) think everyone needs every bell, whistle, horn attached to the kitchen sink in a web browser. I use plain out-of-the-box FireFox with not a single extension installed and I am doing just fine. Why should I bother to use Opera ? why should I even think Opera is “better” than firefox ?
Lemme see… I tested Opera 9 when it came out, just to find out that it would take a lot of tweaking to make it feel like firefox. … Did I complain about Opera not being “As good” as firefox ? Hmmm No!
Opera is Opera, Firefox is Firefox. I like Firefox, don’t like Opera and we’re all happy.
Gee… get something better to do than to discuss about these “my-browser-is-better-than-yours”.
By the way, sorry for the parent comment, it was not DIRECTLY targeted at him, but to all Firefox Zealots and Opera Zealots that just can’t live with the fact that the products are different, and that people like them both the way they are.
Waiting for the mod down for hurting both Firefox and Opera fanboys.
You’re right .. I usually don’t like when these discussions show up in Firefox/Opera articles, but this article was about Firefox compared to other browsers, so I think this kind of discussion is on topic here. In other words, some articles are just made for Firefox/Opera fanboys to spar, and this is one of them
The point he makes badly, which is a shame, because I out of all the Opera browser comments most of which are just lashing out at firefox, its actually a really good one.
An intergrated solution of providing additional functionality in a browser, by one company, allows a more seemless intergration, 100% compatability, and hopefully more quality control. You don’t have search; download extra’s and only have to trust one party not several…and he’s right.
But using add-ins, allows for marginal functionality, to be added, tailored to personal use. Allows innovation. It should restrict most feature bloat. Identifies common needs, that perhaps should added. I’m sure theres more but its friday.
I prefer the firefox approach
Downloaded it; copied it to my Applications folder, loaded it, promptly quited it, and deleted it off my hard disk – total time on my hard disk, less than 5 minutes.
Why? because they STILL can’t get Mac integration done properly; use the damn aqua widgets for forms for starters, use Quartz for the rendering for christ sake, its been 5 years since MacOS X has been released, and the STILL insist on using Quickdraw?!
Sorry, I’m now using Opera; Firefox had its chance; instead of doing something, the Firefox developers have literally chucked a brown-eye at all MacOS X users by their lack of any attempt to correct these glaring issues; the problems were promised to be corrected in 1.0.x, then pushed back to 1.5.x then pushed back to 2.0.x and now they’re pushed further back to 3.0.x.
Sorry, but this is becoming a bigger joke than Duke Nukem Forever; the constant promises with the failure to deliver.
“Downloaded it; copied it to my Applications folder, loaded it, promptly quited it, and deleted it off my hard disk – total time on my hard disk, less than 5 minutes.”
What a long-run test ! :p
“Why? because they STILL can’t get Mac integration done properly; use the damn aqua widgets for forms for starters, use Quartz for the rendering for christ sake, its been 5 years since MacOS X has been released, and the STILL insist on using Quickdraw?!”
If you’re so good on comments, why not try to help them doing a better integration to MacOS-X, instead spitting on this software ?
Did you ever heard of Camino ?!
“Sorry, I’m now using Opera; Firefox had its chance; instead of doing something, the Firefox developers have literally chucked a brown-eye at all MacOS X users by their lack of any attempt to correct these glaring issues; the problems were promised to be corrected in 1.0.x, then pushed back to 1.5.x then pushed back to 2.0.x and now they’re pushed further back to 3.0.x.”
Do you know what amount of work it will be to move all drawing code from QuickDraw -> Quartz ? How many patches for using MacOS-X widgets ?
For christ sake, why don’t you try to help them ?
“Sorry, but this is becoming a bigger joke than Duke Nukem Forever; the constant promises with the failure to deliver.”
Oh, shit ! I stepped on a Mac extremist troll !!!
This is surely why I left MacOS-X world for linux one after a year on MacOS-X : extremists fanboy !
What a long-run test ! :p
Why should I test something that doesn’t even do the most basic things in the first 5 minutes of use? I certainly didn’t need to use it for more than 5 minutes to realise it is the same crap over again – if it compiles, ship it!
If you’re so good on comments, why not try to help them doing a better integration to MacOS-X, instead spitting on this software
I don’t get paid to do the job of the Mozilla Foundation – they hired a so-called “Mac guru” over 6 months ago, and not a damn thing has actually sprung from it; there were lofty promises that the Quartz rendering code from Camino would be merged into the Firefox for Mac, but it hasn’t been done yet.
I’ve pointed out in bug reports where they need to be corrected and all that happens, they either get closed with me being labelled as a ‘whiner’ and a ‘whinger’ or some person being a smart ass putting, ‘you should move to Linux!’ – so why even go to any effort offering advice on how things can be corrected?!
Did you ever heard of Camino ?!
Which lacks spellchecking in forms – amazing how Opera can offer such a feature and yet for the last 2 releases of Firefox there has been a constant promise of it, but never delivered.
Do you know what amount of work it will be to move all drawing code from QuickDraw -> Quartz ? How many patches for using MacOS-X widgets ?
For christ sake, why don’t you try to help them ?
Its already in the Camino tree; it isn’t my fault that the Firefox maintainers have an anti-Mac agenda – if they didn’t spend as much time on interviews, hypes and writing down promises, then maybe the MacOS X version wouldn’t suck so royally.
Edited 2006-07-14 22:18
Maybe they label you a ‘whiner’ and a ‘whinger’ because that’s really what you sound like. They have an anti-Mac agenda? Then how come, as you said, they hired a Mac guru 6 months ago? How come they even let Firefox run on Macs at all?
Your posts make it sound like you would be ecstatic if Firefox was killed off tomorrow and never returned, and then all the developers were shot for treason. Maybe you’d have better luck if your bug reports sounded like you wanted Firefox to succeed, and that you like the browser but need to see it integrated better into OSX before you can use it.
Just a thought.
Edited 2006-07-14 22:28
Look through bugzilla for my first request for Aqua widgets for Mozilla.
Can someone post the exact User Agent ID String of the beta (Linux & Windows)?
I have to say that i enjoy these comparisons. I have been using Opera for a few months now, and i am liking it. There are still some issues (i am having massive flash 8 and 9 issues….go to http://www.gamevideos.com or even youtube screws up more often then i’d like) other than that, its nice. I do like the per-site settings that you can edit on the fly (pop-ups, browser masking, javascript security, etc all site specific and quickly/easily accessible)
The reason why i enjoy these VS matches is because i learn alot! I didnt even notice the darn trash can on the right of the tab menu until someone mentioned it as a “problem”, its actually pretty darn nice. Though when it turns into a religious war, it becomes less informative.
I don’t like Opera because it feels like wearing someone else’s clothes.
The buttons aren’t where I expect them to be, so I have to slow down and find them (same with IE7, and Netscape 8). Keyboard shortcuts (which I use very often) aren’t the same, try pressing CTRL+T on a default install of Opera, it’s not for a new tab, it bookmarks a page (which has been CTRL+D for years).
Furthermore, I like the development tools I can get for Firefox. Try the Web developer extension, Measureit, Color Picker, IETabs, View In Opera, Nuke Anything, User Agent Switcher the Excellent Javascript debugger… the list goes on and on. Opera just doesn’t cut it when your building Web pages. Even IE has a few developer tools (WebDev toolbar, Accessibility Toolbar).
What does Opera offer… FADS.. Bittorrent.. RSS…Widgets..built in E-Mail. I’m not impressed. If I use Bittorrent, install the client, it’s a better tool for the job anyway, If I want E-Mail, Thunderbird usually does the trick nicely, and handles RSS better.
That’s all there is to it, the only reason I have Opera installed is to test my web pages in it…
Oh brother here we go again.
“I don’t like Opera because it feels like wearing someone else’s clothes.”
So you don’t like the browser because its not what you’re used to. Thats not really a valid comparison in the wider scheme of things. Perfectly valid for you personally, but irrelevant to everyone else.
“Keyboard shortcuts (which I use very often) aren’t the same, try pressing CTRL+T on a default install of Opera, it’s not for a new tab, it bookmarks a page (which has been CTRL+D for years).”
I see that you’ve obviously not even tried the browser being referred to tangentially in the article (Opera 9) since it’s shortcuts have changed to those crap IE/FF ones.
Also, if you had wanted to get your comfortable (non-scary and familiar) shortcuts, it is trivially easy to do in Opera.
First thing I did after installing Opera 9 was to take the minute or so to change a few shortcuts back to what I prefer.
“FADS.. Bittorrent.. RSS…Widgets..built in E-Mail”
Bittorrent called a FAD? I’m sure plenty of ISPs would love for your comment to be true but given the volume or percentage of all internet traffic that is BT, you’re wrong there.
RSS can hardly be called a fad nor can built in E-Mail. I’m wondering if you know what fad means because you are just using it to mean anything that is out of your comfort zone or that you *personally* don’t like.
I will give you that widgets can seem faddish but given their origin as part of the Opera web application (built to allow embedded/portable devices to use Opera as the entire GUI) it makes sense to follow that work through to the desktop, and hey, if you don’t like them… yes, its that old thing again; *don’t use them*.
I’m sure its off topic.
Wigets I do think will be a fad. I don’t like them, but I think everyone can see that they are here to stay, and some will even find them useful. I may even find them useful.
I’m sure its going to be one of the more sucessful features of Opera.
…then I might be tempted to give up FF. Until then, oh well. All its great technical superiority matters little if I can’t use it efficiently.
/me places his cursor, in FF, at th screen edge, and scrolls–when will Opera have this simple thing?
I can understand why that bothers you, but it’s hardly surprising that the Opera devs have ignored it when the scroll bars in most Windows apps work exactly the same, and I doubt it’s an important feature to many people.
In my experience most people these days use the mouse’s scroll wheel rather than scroll bars. Even if someone prefers the scroll bar, Firefox only has that Fitts’ Law advantage if you’re using it in Windows and if you maximise the browser window to fill the screen. I can’t see many people doing that with the large monitors that are standard today. If you aren’t using the browser in a very specific way then Firefox doesn’t have any advantage here.
That’s a problem of default Gnome’s and KDE’s themes, and crappy KDE defaults (like keeping the window border when maximized). PCLinuxOS does it right by default, and I’m sure at least some other distros do, too.
Large monitors are only standard if you want to spend lots of money on your PC. Most new ones do not come with larger than 17″, and most folks aren’t using new PCs. In fact, I only know one person with larger than a 19″ monitor (21″, typically at 1280×964).
As far as using it in a specific way, everyone who tries something other than their default is trying to use it in a specific way; else there’d be no purpose in having so many browsers. Safari, Camino, Firefox, Seamonkey, Galeon, Konqueror, Opera, and others less know, are all good; and you won’t find 20 computer geeks at random that will agree on any single one being best
, because everyone has their prefered UI, killer features, and major hangups.
That’s a problem of default Gnome’s and KDE’s themes, and crappy KDE defaults (like keeping the window border when maximized). PCLinuxOS does it right by default, and I’m sure at least some other distros do, too.
Personally I think that leaving a (usable) window border is doing it right, I generally hate the unmovable/resizeable maximised windows in Windows.
Large monitors are only standard if you want to spend lots of money on your PC. Most new ones do not come with larger than 17″, and most folks aren’t using new PCs.
Actually I’d class anything over 14″/15″ @ 800×600 as large. It seems like a waste of screen real estate to maximise a single browser window on the 17″/19″ @ 1280×1024 monitors that are very common today. Personally I hardly ever maximise windows (other than MDI parent windows), not even on the 13″ screen on my laptop.
As far as using it in a specific way, everyone who tries something other than their default is trying to use it in a specific way; else there’d be no purpose in having so many browsers.
I can see your point, like I said, I can understand why this bothers you. The point I was trying to make is that there are probably very few people who use scroll bars in the way you’re describing, so it’s understandable that Opera devs would ignore this.
With 17″+ screens and the heavy use of scroll wheels (I hardly ever see people move the mouse to the scroll bar when browsing), I can’t see many other users noticing this Firefox advantage. Rather than being ignorant of Fitts’ law, I imagine the Opera developers simply haven’t considered this issue, probably because they haven’t seen any demand for it. After all, just about every other Windows app has the same border around maximised windows, and this isn’t a complaint I’ve heard before.
The Opera scrollbars work just like those of standard Windows applications work. If Fx does what you say, it’s very different from native Windows applications in doing so.
“1. Fix the runaway memory issue. I know, it’s not technically a memory leak, but I have 4 tabs open right now and Firefox is using 83MB of memory.
2. Make Firefox more responsive. Sometimes when I use the middle mouse button to open a link in a new tab, it “locks up” Firefox for a second or two while the page loads. It’s not a huge issue, but it’s little things like this that detract from the pleasure of web surfing.”
Yep..the “pause” kills me. Even if I outfit Firefox to be exactly like Opera with all it’s extensions (which is really annoying, I’d rather them builtin but not bloated) it pauses and forces me to use Opera.
I certainly recognize the value and quality of Opera. That said. I have had this new computer for the last few weeks, and I haven’t installed it yet. There are a number of reasons I use Firefox, and most of them have nothing to do with it being a better browser.
1) Firefox is open source (yes, it’s gotten more important over the years).
2) Extensions, this is critical.
3) Simplified user interface.
Some comments on 2 and 3. I value browser safety. Opera is a safe browser, with a company that fixes security flaws quickly. Their record is possibly better than Mozilla’s. Yet the way I have Firefox configured makes it the safer browser. For example, both let you turn off Javascript, but Firefox can use the Noscript extension. It works like this: On OSNews, you get Javascripts served up by OSNews and Falk. Falk is an adserver company that has had its servers compromised to serve malware in the past, and it has too many associations with spyware vendors for me ever to consider allowing it to run on my system. With Noscript, I can allow javascripts from OSNews while blocking Falk.
There are many such instances of an extension going beyond what Opera offers, but I’ll cite ImgLikeOpera, which gives Firefox one of those “bolted on” features that Opera had all along. Opera has a fast, three way toggle button that allows you turn on images, turn them off, or load them from cache. ImgLikeOpera offers a fourth, loading images from the originating Web site (which may vanish with the Firefox 2.0 release). In addition, the extension offers advanced filtering. For example, I can specify which images from which third party locations I want to view on a Web page.
Examples like that abound for feature after feature. In short, “bolted on” works well with Firefox, better than other companies’ “built in.”
I echo other people’s comments regarding Opera’s user interface. It’s a mess that can and should be beaten into shape using Opera’s many customization features. Let’s just say that Firefox’s interface for modifying user interfaces is better thought out than the tangled mess that is Opera’s.
Currently in Firefox, I have no toolbars open. That’s because I can place buttons on the menu bar, along with the location information, and search input. At the bottom of the page is the status bar, with lots of extensions chiming in, along with load progress information. The potential to customize Opera is even greater, but I still haven’t found the same combination of information and space that Firefox offers.
Finally, many people have quite rightly commented on Opera’s speed. Opera has the edge, but the lead has dropped somewhat since Firefox 1.5. Speed isn’t that big a deal for me, anyway. Why? One of the buttons up top in Firefox is a proxy toggle. It switches Privoxy/Tor in and out. I leave it engaged except when streaming video, and the like. If you use Tor, browser speed is irrelevant.
I echo other people’s comments regarding Opera’s user interface. It’s a mess that can and should be beaten into shape using Opera’s many customization features.
Several people have made this claim about Opera’s UI, but nobody seems able to back it up with any specific problems. It just seems like a cliche that became accepted wisdom back in the days of Opera 5/6, that still gets blindly repeated now that it’s no longer true.
Apart from “it’s different to Firefox so it isn’t any good”, the worst complaint seems to be that it has a few buttons on the toolbar that some people don’t use, like the trashcan for opening closed tabs and blocked pop-ups. Is that really an issue when they can be removed from the toolbar with a single right click?
How is this default UI a mess?
http://www.opera.com/img/products/desktop/screenshots/createsearch….
Let’s just say that Firefox’s interface for modifying user interfaces is better thought out than the tangled mess that is Opera’s.
I can’t see how Opera’s cusomisation could be made much easier. You right click on buttons to remove them, right click on toolbars to customise them, drag and drop buttons to add them to toolbars, etc. I find it pretty intuitive, it only takes me a minute or two to go from Opera’s default UI to the heavily modified version I use, much less time than it takes to download a couple of Firefox extensions.
Currently in Firefox, I have no toolbars open. That’s because I can place buttons on the menu bar, along with the location information, and search input. At the bottom of the page is the status bar, with lots of extensions chiming in, along with load progress information. The potential to customize Opera is even greater, but I still haven’t found the same combination of information and space that Firefox offers.
It’s funny, one of the reasons I prefer Opera is that I find my Opera UI configuration much more space efficient than anything possible in other browsers. That’s mainly because of it’s MDI window management, I can have a single combined toolbar/menubar/statusbar at the top of the main window and keep the individual pages clean. I find that allows me to fit a lot more on my laptop’s 13″ screen and makes it easy to deal with loads of open pages on my desktop PC.
From the sound of your Firfox configuration, something similar should be possible in Opera. But of course there are some Firefox features and configurations that aren’t possible in Opera, just like there are some Opera features that are unavailable to Firefox users. I do get that Opera isn’t for everyone and that Firefox suites some people better, I just feel that some Firefox users aren’t giving Opera a chance and make inaccurate comments about it.
Finally, many people have quite rightly commented on Opera’s speed. Opera has the edge, but the lead has dropped somewhat since Firefox 1.5. Speed isn’t that big a deal for me, anyway. Why? One of the buttons up top in Firefox is a proxy toggle. It switches Privoxy/Tor in and out. I leave it engaged except when streaming video, and the like. If you use Tor, browser speed is irrelevant.
Rather than rendering speed, the thing I love about Opera is its light use of resources. Unlike when using other browsers I don’t have to restrict my web browsing when using my old 400Mhz Celeron laptop. On my main desktop I can open a huge number of pages and leave Opera in the background while doing other things, without it slowing the PC to a crawl.
I have a system font setting of 72 dpi. Firefox Beta is using a different resolution and it appears they removed the setting to change it. It looks stupid with Firefox having huge fonts and all other apps looking normal.