Opera 7.5 beta1 Released; Mozilla 1.7 RC 1
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Hi
firefox would get its first stable release from the 1.7 branch marked as stable after 1.4. so we can definitely expect firefox to soar in market share
good work
Firefox rocks the casbah! Plus it’s fast and convenient.
It’s a pitty that Opera totally forgot about BeOS…
From what I see, they would not profit all that much with BeOS: we realize that we are not a significant part of the market share.
But just imagine if they do such a thing… Just then they could say (for sure) that they have the fastest browser on Earth, available for every desktop platform.
For now, they only have Opera for Win, Lnx, Mac and other two or three.
That’s it.
Doca(BR)
great news! i have been using 7.5 for 3 to 4 days & i am totally addicted to it. what the heck i am downloading it now,
Hi
Thats true. thats why firefox can work better. any obscure OS might be supported if enough people volunteer to work on it
Still no way to donwload interrupted/stopped downloads from the download manager…
How long will Opera 6.x be my main browser ?
Is it that difficult to implement it back in Opera ?
Opera has certainly put a lot of polish on 7.50 in this release. The previous beta releases were infuriating, seeming like needless bloat with useless features which could not be disabled. This latest release can be quite easily tamed, and does indeed seem like a marked improvement over 7.23, finally! Congratulations to the Opera team, you’ve done it again.
‘Still no way to DELETE interrupted/stopped downloads from the download manager… among other things.’
Right clicking on the stopped transfer and clicking ‘remove transfer’ or selecting the transfer and pressing delete seems to work for me.
Resuming downloads seems to work quite reliably too, I stopped and resumed the Opera 7.5 beta several times and it still downloaded fine. Although some of the 3rd party download managers do a better job.
I delete interrupted downloads everyday on 7.x without issue. Have you tried a clean install of Opera 7.23 (i.e. throw away your old .opera directory and settings).
While I’m not that concerned myself, most of the poeple I’ve recommended FireFox to has complained about the slow startup. They loved if overall, though.
However, is there or will there be a quick start (or whatever it’s called in mozilla) for firefox or did they ditch that all together?
>I delete interrupted downloads everyday on 7.x without issue. Have you tried a clean install of Opera 7.23 (i.e. throw away your old .opera directory and settings).
From the Opera download manager ? (I mean: the file, not the entry in the download manager)
You have access to explorer menu from the opera download manager as well ?
Hi
how much time does it take. what version?. what configuration. never seems to be slow for me
The goal of the developers is to improve the starting time of Firefox to the point where it doesn’t need an “agent loader.” That kind of solution is seen as a dirty hack, apparently.
The Fire*s seem to get slower for me the more I use them…
Hi
“I use firefox alot and I hate it. the options/features are lacking and it’s ugly”
firefox is meant to be minimalistic. i am pretty sure you have extensions to support whatever feature you require. try the skins
Unfortunately, extensions (which rarely work as well as advertised) slow down FireFox considerably and it’s already lacking in terms of speed (compared to Opera). Themes aren’t a big issue for me (though I don’t care for the default theme in FireFox, there are a couple decent ones).
I, for one, prefer the Opera 7.50 UI to the older 7.23 UI. I’m not a huge fan of the way buttons look in beta 1 (compared to the preview versions), but that’s only a minor annoyance, and the default theme is actually nice looking now (except for the tabs) for the first time in half a decade. I didn’t care for the panels at first, but they really make things a lot better, especially with the keyboard shortcuts they add. 7.50 also turns on the learning e-mail filter, which does a fantastic job — M2’s a lot better in 7.50 than it was in 7.23, and Opera’s a tad faster/more responsive overall.
firefox is meant to be minimalistic. i am pretty sure you have extensions to support whatever feature you require. try the skins
But what difference does this make, when Opera has most of the features of those extensions built into the browser, and it’s *still* smaller than Firefox without any extensions installed
I’ve tried firefox themes and none of them are better. my firefox is loaded with extentsions that makes it more like opera and they don’t work right together,(the right click almost nerver works) and firefox seems worse the longer it’s installed. if firefox is Minimalist than why is it bigger than opera with a whole lot less options/features.
The only time I’ve had an extension work strangely was when I tried to use Tabbrowser Extensions. Other then that, everything’s worked wonderfully on this XP box. The symptoms you’re describing sounds like you might have upgraded without deleting your old Firesomething profile.
Unless you’re on OS X… On that platform, I haven’t managed to get extensions working with Firefox at all.
I am using tabbrowser extenstions on win 2000. emagius what do you think is better in the UI/theme. the aqua look is very hot to me. my beef with the UI is things like preferences not being in the file column and the hotlist change, how is that better. anyway to each his own.
>>I use firefox alot and I hate it. the options/features are lacking and it’s ugly.
Click Tools / Options / Themes / Get New Themes
then download, install and switch to the Mostly Crystal theme. After that Firefox is the most beautiful browser on earth.
I just installed it and it is mostly Crystal but this is a win 2000 comp. I have a kde computer but i think konquorer 3.2 is best. It has better intergration, speed and I think it has more features too. opera’s on there too though.
well i have been running mozilla proper for some time now, i belive all the way back from 1.0 stable. right now im useing 1.7 beta with multizilla for realy nice tabbing(on top of that is googlebox, the mozilla googlebar:), downloadwith for integration with getright, enigmail for encryption and signing of email and linky for grabbing whole pages of links at ones (i do wonder how it interacts with the latest downloadwith tho)…
it fullfills all my need and are plenty of fast on my 466mhz celeron box. sure i have the quick launch loaded but idont have a problem with that as i can then access just the part of mozilla i want with the rightclick of a icon…
opera doesnt perform pretty well in bsds, mainly freebsd
too many bugs, core dumps happen often and some lack of compatability with plugins such as native java and linux based one plus poor performance with flash.
despite that its a pretty well concieved browser, renders x/htmls fast as hell and its really a true combo killer with such neat features as mouse gestures, lots of context menus, mail client, popadd blocker and so on.
On the other hand theres mozilla, sometimes mozilla (suite 1.6 and firefox) can be bloated and annoying, mainly when you have lots of open tabs or you try to open, say 5 in a row. It degradates the user experience and if your puter isnt fast enough, can be tiresome. On the end its a shaped browser, complete in suite version but simple in firefox. Runs native java, flash with the pluginwrapper or the linux versions through linux compatability.
Dont forget to install mplayer-plugin and you end with a trully capable multimedia box, handling java, shockwave/flash, and all sort of video movies mpeg, wmv, avi, asf, rm, etc etc
About 1.7 rc1, Its with such glad and happiness that i see more support for css3, support for smb:// urls and being +-10% faster than the previous version, just shows that stability is this browser middle name. Well i just cant wait for Firefox 0.9 cames out, and already based on gecko form 1.7
So on the end of the road, the crown for the multiplataform browser throne goes to Mozilla Firefox!
Hi
“firefox is meant to be minimalistic. i am pretty sure you have extensions to support whatever feature you require. try the skins
But what difference does this make, when Opera has most of the features of those extensions built into the browser, and it’s *still* smaller than Firefox without any extensions installed”
the difference is firefox is also a xul platform which can be used to design whole desktops or flexible apps through it.
“http://www.infodraft.com/~faser/mab/“
look at that and see whether you have anything to match
Odd that Opera on BSD has crashed a lot for you – it’s been rock-solid stable on FreeBSD-4 and -5 and DragonFly for me.
I agree re plugins and Java and hope to see improvement there.
Mozilla/Firefox was having plugin problems of its own in FreeBSD recently if the -questions mailing list is any indication.
It’s why I am stick to Linux version. Also, it’s not only reason.. It’s more cheaper, because a Linux version license can run on most *BSDs and Linux.
“the difference is firefox is also a xul platform which can be used to design whole desktops or flexible apps through it.
“‘http://www.infodraft.com/~faser/mab/‘
“look at that and see whether you have anything to match”
Nope, nothing to match – I don’t think Opera has ever had the goal of designing desktops or flexible apps other than the extremely flexible Opera itself.
BTW (serious question), has anyone designed such desktops or apps with XUL, and if so, what are they? I’d be curious to see what they’re like.
Hi
“http://adblock.mozdev.org/“
one of the famous extensions
flash and some mem leak issues, im aware of that. but theres counters and a safe policy you can apply.
About opera, as said, it renders x/htmls pretty well, throw him someting more elaborated and problems will arrise.
Despite that, a compiled mozilla with XFT enabled gives the perfect final touch. The other plus of mozilla is that you can actually compile it
but im not single views, opera is pretty cool and a good browser, be it on a win$ box, a *nix desktop or a nokia 6600
Well now I have actually gone and looked at http://www.infodraft.com/~faser/mab/ and find that it is indeed an application designed with XUL. It is essentially an Amazon search tool. Yep, Opera has Amazon search in the default install right on the main toolbar, as well as Google, EBay search, Google Groups, Google News, download and price comparison searches, Opera support search, find in page…. Just take your pick from the dropdown menu. You can add your own searches, too.
Hi
“Well now I have actually gone and looked at http://www.infodraft.com/~faser/mab/ and find that it is indeed an application designed with XUL. It is essentially an Amazon search tool. Yep, Opera has Amazon search in the default install right on the main toolbar, as well as Google, EBay search, Google Groups, Google News, download and price comparison searches, Opera support search, find in page…. Just take your pick from the dropdown menu. You can add your own searches, too.
”
this is not just an amazon search tool. its completely different from what opera has. its a cross platform application build on top of mozilla engine.
you need to understand it completely before you talk on it
moz supports popup ads block since long time ago….
if you wanna check cool extensions, here are some
– RadialContext – quick usability pie context menus
http://www.radialthinking.de/radialcontext/
– Tabbrowser extensions – what you always wished TABs could be
http://white.sakura.ne.jp/~piro/xul/_tabextensions.html.en
– Moznotes – simple post-it to take quick notes with integration for mozilla
http://moznotes.mozdev.org/
– Rss reader panel – a RSS feed reader for syndic8.com lovers
http://fls.moo.jp/moz/rssreader.html
…
>From the Opera download manager ? (I mean: the file, not the entry in the download manager)
You have access to explorer menu from the opera download manager as well ?<
Opera 7.23 has an odd behavior here. Clicking the “Delete” key will remove the file from the download manager menu. Right clicking and selecting “Delete” will prompt and delete the file from the system. It is hooked into explorer’s right-click menu, though that’s not particularly obvious. Personally I want an “go to in explorer” option to pop directly to the file, but explorer’s own menus are usually sufficient.
I don’t know how this behaves on Linux or Macintosh. I would assume that the default behaviors are different.
From reading up-thread, it’s easy to see why posting the news of 2 browser releases in the same news item is typically a bad idea… How about some Bush/Kerry news while you’re at it?
Hi
“From reading up-thread, it’s easy to see why posting the news of 2 browser releases in the same news item is typically a bad idea… How about some Bush/Kerry news while you’re at it?”
If people manage to keep the discussion on good points as they have here its not a bad idea
>But what difference does this make, when Opera has most of the
>features of those extensions built into the browser, and it’s
>*still* smaller than Firefox without any extensions installed
Yeah except it has that ad bar.
I dunno, but for some reason I’ve never liked Opera. I just can’t make it the way I want. It’s like Opera is the browser that’s been customized for me by someone else, but in firefox I can select what functions I want to install.
For every Mozilla (Phoenix or original) user, I recommend the awesome linky-plugin. Makes browsing image galleries so much more fun
. And using the “Single Window Mode” from Tabbrowser Extensions makes Firefox rock.
[quote]
Well now I have actually gone and looked at http://www.infodraft.com/~faser/mab/ and find that it is indeed an application designed with XUL. It is essentially an Amazon search tool. Yep, Opera has Amazon search in the default install right on the main toolbar, as well as Google, EBay search, Google Groups, Google News, download and price comparison searches, Opera support search, find in page…. Just take your pick from the dropdown menu. You can add your own searches, too.
[/quote]
You mean like this? http://mycroft.mozdev.org/
Now, if you want something more “extreme” you can have a look at this:
http://www.activestate.com/Products/Komodo/
Other examples are Chatzilla, the DOM inspector and Venkman.
Now, what kind of features Opera has that Firefox doesn’t?
It’s great that the Mozilla team is trying to make a leaner browser cause Mozilla 1.0 felt very slugish (this has improved greatly thru. the various releases).
Anyways, the ‘mom & pops’ of the world are NOT going to download any extensions. When the average ‘joe’ downloads FireFox they are going to see it as lacking in features (again they are not going to install extensions), and resort back to IE.
I BeLIEve the Mozilla Dev. team should ask for votes from the community for what extensions they would like to see config. in Mozilla FireFox by default. Alternatively, FireFox can rip of an idea form WS-FTP where ‘FireFox Light’ will remain as is, and have no extensions by default, and ‘FireFox Full’ will come preconfig. with some of the most popular extensions config.
“You mean like this? http://mycroft.mozdev.org/“
Yes, very much like that, except you don’t have to install anything, just configure an ini file or download a GUI available in the newsgroups that does the config for you.
“Now, if you want something more ‘extreme’ you can have a look at this:
“http://www.activestate.com/Products/Komodo/“
I am fairly certain no one’s ever made an IDE out of Opera.
“Other examples are Chatzilla, the DOM inspector and Venkman.
“Now, what kind of features Opera has that Firefox doesn’t?”
Re Chatzilla: Opera has built-in chat. It’s just a (tabbed) window like any other. Very simple and works beautifully.
Re DOM inspector and Venkman: While Opera does have a rudimentary facility to show a dialog pointing out javascript errors, it’s got nothing like DOM inspector or Venkman.
Since Firefox lifted mouse gestures (by way of an extension I couldn’t get to work correctly) and tabbed browsing, there are a couple fewer features Opera has that Firefox doesn’t.
I dunno, does Moz/Firefox have a choice of SDI or MDI windows? Also (when you can get it to work right), how configurable are mouse gestures in Moz/Firefox? I set mine up in less than a minute’s worth of playing with the mouse/keyboard preferences to dump cache and show/hide various UI elements (panels – including mail, links, chat, downloads, contacts, history, etc. – and toolbars). That’s besides the built-in mouse gestures including ‘fast forward’ and ‘rewind’ that can turn a directory of pictures into a slideshow with just a flick of the wrist. Speaking of slideshows, there is OperaShow, where you can utilize CSS to turn ordinary HTML pages into a PowerPoint-like presentation just by hitting the F11 key. I’m sure there’s plenty more I’ve forgotten. 
And for the future there is the work with IBM on the ‘multimodal browser,’ where navigation, filling out forms, etc., will be available by voice.
So it seems like each of these browsers has many interesting and useful features to offer.
Mozilla is becoming really nice. Now if they only fixed the stupid 3-or-something-years-old bug with the QuickLaunch when it disappears from system tray after closing last window and then reappears in a few seconds, consuming tons of resources and not allowing to launch any of Mozilla applications for a few seconds more… This is what I really hate about SeaMonkey. On the other hand, it’s anyway quicker than waiting for Thunderbird to appear
For me there are too main killer features that make Opera by far my favourite browser:
Windows saving: When I exit Opera (or if it crashes), the windows I had open are saved and will reload next time I open Opera. Opera preserves their position on screen, if they are minimised/maximised and even their scrollbar position. You can also save groups of windows and insert them into your browser session. There are extensions that try to do a similar task in other browsers, but none of them work half as well as Opera IME.
MDI: Tabbed browsing is better than having every web page in it’s own window, but has major limitations. Tabbed web pages all have to be the same size as the window that contains them. As not all web pages are designed to use the same amount of space, I find that I have to constantly resize my main browser window.
With Opera I can have a maximised MDI window with tabs, to that all my browser windows are contained. But still have individual web pages in differently sized MDI windows. It means that I can have web pages side by side, or cascade and tile web pages, without having to mess around moving tabs into new windows. Overall I fnd Opera’s window management to be much more elegant than any conventional tabbed browser.
Mouse gestures, the hotlist and numerous other features are also better than any other browser’s features IMO. But they’re just the icing on the cake for me.
For me, Opera is the favourite due to two things that others may consider bad.
Previous page hotkey ‘z’, next page hotkey ‘x’. Okay, it blocks the “type ahead find” possibility. But it’s smooth.
Back/forward browsing without checking anything on the internet, which reduces loading time to zero. It confuses the hell out of pages that have been created as a result of post messages, but that’s a small price to pay.
Those who say Firefox are slow, must be using a very old computer! *lol*
Firefox starts incredibly fast on my computer!
i must admit that by shipping it opera does a well job, on promoting their use. Probably many dont know that mozilla does gestures too, just install the right plugin http://optimoz.mozdev.org/gestures/
but for the ones that make that the most important feature i just want to add that nowadays, its normal to have a combo mouse with at least more than 5 buttons.
I find it more usabile and normal that once setuped (imwhell for X/nix or the severall windows apps for that), it will increase your user experience more than a well trained mouse gestures set.
Some already talked about the komodo’s mozilla integration,
yesterday i tryed to search for a known project that used mozilla suite, xul, to promote a WEB Desktop. Since you had all web features (mail, calendar, agenda, browser, irc chat, even games, etc) and you couldnt make your way out of that shell theres wasnt the risk of breaking things. It was very nice to kiosks, netcafes, schools, eldery ppl etc.
It ran like a windows manager on top of a linux distribution (on that time they requested Redhat) i tryed to recall the name, almost 2 years went by, made my search but couldnt end with companys name or website. I knew it was canadian and its name was ressambled with “eono” or something. Anyone knows what im talking about? What happend to them?
Please please tell me just what the hell XUL has to do with Firefox being a better browser than Opera.
That XUL can be used to create Amazon browsers or IDEs… so what? It’s the reason why the lean and lightweight (and feature light) Firefox is over twice the size of the hugely more featured Opera.
Jack of all trades and master of none springs to mind.
No one is mentioning the inbuilt Chat client, it is amazing that they packed even an IRC client on Opera.
Try it, it is worth it, I’m looking forward to the promissed Jabber plugin
Sorry guys but Opera currently has the lead and moving forward fast.
But… this doesn’t mean Firefox or Mozilla are bad, nothing more far from reality, Firefox and Mozilla problems are of maturity neither of both are mature enough, I’m not talking about features but of focus.
>Please please tell me just what the hell XUL has to do with Firefox being a better browser than Opera.
Among other things, XUL gives extensibility to Firefox via xul extensions, there are already about 200 extensions available, in a couple of years it will probably be thousands.
My favourite features of Opera are these, which I cannot leave for anything :
Load/Do not load images on web sites – since I am on dial-up this is a big time (and money) saver.
Author mode – I added a custom CSS and I read all site in my own design and color sets.
Zoom – do I need to say more ? Just press + or -. And while zooming on bigger pages the page does not scrool down as it does with Firefox.
Auto saving windows within sessions – This way I can open all the previous windows that were opened before I exit opera.
Ability to re-arrange tabs – I can drag them just like I want and chabge their position.
A real fullscreen – no toolbars and adress bars on my way.
Reload every – I set Osnews to reload every 15 mins
RSS reader – it’s very very fast and usable
And finally, Notes with find and send – whoever invented this is the MAN!
The only thing I dislike is that zomming also zooms images and they look awful
And I miss a spellcheck while typing feature…
Hi
All of which firefox can do
If you’d been watching you might have noticed that the firefox developers have incorporated most of opera’s innovative features.
e.g. mouse gestures, tabbed browsing etc, etc.
Wake up and smell the coffee.
Opera Rules.
amiroff: For spell check, the latest Opera intergrates with Aspell and gives you spell check in both email and online forms and fields! It is very slick, and although aspell is a seprate program, it is free & open source.
“Among other things, XUL gives extensibility to Firefox via xul extensions, there are already about 200 extensions available, in a couple of years it will probably be thousands.”
This could be one of the problems Firefox is facing. With thousands of extensions, new users will have to wade through an enormous sea of crap to get to the crop.
While I am sure there are solutions to this, such as a very few selected officially approved extensions, some people may want something which just works without the need to add several extensions.
As you can see, Opera and Firefox are really aiming for two different markets. Whether you choose Firefox or Opera depends on your needs, really. Both approaches (basic program by default with lots of extensions, or everything in one, but no extensions) have their strengths and weaknesses.
200 extensions… wow. Great. Super. All those potential conflicts to screw up the experience. All that bloat.
Compared to the functionality already being in the 3.5MB application, and just working.
Sorry, XUL is absolutely not a selling point. Who cares that the application can be extended in a bloatware fashion. Existing functionality and usefullness and robustness are what count and when one of the biggest extensions (TBE) *STILL* has problems with some javascript… why bother.