Opera for the mobile is fantastic, especially on things like the Pocket PC where it's one big advantage over IE is the ability to open more than one webpage...
On the PC though, Opera's got nothing I want/need over IE and neither has FireFox. Security-wise, I'm cautious, if I don't think a site is safe then I won't be allowing it to run ActiveX controls or download stuff to my PC. Heck, I probably won't have clicked the link to go there in the first place. And I think it's about time that people started to realise that not everyone wants tabs - for most "ordinary" people the two or three open windows fit nicely side-by-side on the taskbar...
ajaxian
· 3 years ago
Hi again,
Very interesting topic this one, I've played around with previous opera versions, but haven't gotten around to trying out Opera 9. I agree with you on the speed of the browser and the bittorrent integration, oh and by the way what are you going to be taping?
Opera's mini is nice for the mobiles, but i think i'll be sticking to Firefox for now, as I don't use I.E. 7 yet (I've tryed it out once, and it's awfully hard to navigate around.) The reason i like Firefox so much is that it's very customisable, and there are many extensions to choose from.
anyway, I think that's enough of my thoughts for now...
Robert Scoble
· 3 years ago
ajaxian: I'm going to work for PodTech.net and I'll be doing a variety of things with video. More to come soon!
It's made by the mozilla foundation so it has the same codebase as Mozilla/Firefox. It's also universal binary. The reason I like it better than Firefox is because it has native MacOS X UI widgets. It also seems to be a bit faster than firefox on my older laptop. Aside from that, you do lose a lot of cool firefox functions like xpi extensions.
On the PC I use firefox, end of story. I pretty much refuse to open IE for any reason.
Jeff
· 3 years ago
I've been using Flock on my Mac since it first appeared and I'm pretty happy. It's built on the Firfox codebase so it is very similar but has some nice built-in features for blogging, Flickr and del.icio.us.
Firefox is the best. I think no need to try another one. In my opinion never leave FIREFOX
Amora
· 3 years ago
Everyone knows that opera is the fastest browser in the world. But I think it's not useful like firefox . Because firefox is too much Userfriendly. Use Firefox
Vivek Jishtu
· 3 years ago
On a mobile Opera Mini http://mini.opera.com rocks. But on a desktop IMHO FireFox is the best. I very rarely use Opera or IE on a desktop.
Matt Campbell
· 3 years ago
Firefox, the possibilites are endless with all the add-on's and other feature's. Firefox. And it's Muti-Platform.
Johnny Hall
· 3 years ago
I'm with Jeff. I've moved to Flock now. I love it, all the advantages of Firefox but with some excellent features.
* Built-in blog publishing * Decent RSS reader * Excellent Flickr integration * Great favourites, integrated with del.icio.us * Good search features (though I wish I could have google or a9 instead of yahoo) * Web snippets (very handy)
If you use FF, then Flock will be very familiar and it's only at v0.7 so there's still quite a bit of innovation and polish to go. I think FF is stagnating a little.
Lars
· 3 years ago
My main browser on Windows XP is Firefox 1.5, because it has great plug-ins and is more secure than Internet Explorer. On Windows Vista I use Internet Explorer 7, but I miss some of the Firefox plugins. The best choice would be Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox plugins...
André
· 3 years ago
Why doesn't anyone mention Safari? I use it all the time in OS X. It is nicely integrated with the rest of the system, fast, and beautiful to look at.
Amit Doshi
· 3 years ago
Been using Opera for years now....Firefox uses too much memory. Some of the machines I use have 256MB Ram and firefox is pretty close to unusable on those. I also love the built in RSS reader on opera, and its got an opml import export feature as well.
gwhiz
· 3 years ago
Robert, Safari's my main squeeze (now that I'm getting what I need out of the RSS side of life). The only thing missing is the torrent integration (imho). Leopard's supposedly going to make that all a matter of the past. I'll use Opera in those increasing instances where I need to snag a torrent. Still, Safari for day to day. Gerald in Tulsa
David Terei
· 3 years ago
Opera (been using it for a few years now).
Originally speed but all the other browsers seem to have caught up.
Now: - UI is very easily customized (I have a lot of web page area now with my changes) - So many nice little features: Mouse Gestures, Voice (text2speach - when im tired of reading), great RSS, great tab control, userJS, block content...
IE ofcourse doesn't have a lot of these and i just find most of them nessecary, and firefox does through extensions, but I prefer the complete package of Opera. (Opera has always been so good to me that Im a little loyal as well).
Also, I use Opera on both Linux and Windows and it works great on both, it also runs on Macs (but havent used) so its just as cross platform as you could probally want.
luc
· 3 years ago
I use opera 9 both on linux and xp, and mini 2.0 on my cell phone. I like firefox with the performancing plugin and flock for blogging, but opera remains my favoirite because of its speed, usability and security.
Ross
· 3 years ago
Does nobody use the OSX version of Opera any more?
O'Marin
· 3 years ago
Firefox. Wonderfull extensions.
Stevechol
· 3 years ago
If you've got multiple computers, especially if you mix platforms (Windows, Linux, OSX) then the only way is Firefox and Google Sync. All my computers, all with the same bookmarks, all with the bookmark bar access to my online task list (toodledo) and my online calendar (google) gotta love it :-)
Matsu
· 3 years ago
I must say, after many years of using Internet Explorer as the browser of choice on both my Mac and PC, I was forced off IE by Microsoft. How? They discontinued support for the Mac version of IE and over time it had problems loading newer pages with new web technology.
So, I've made the switch to Firefox. I will occassionally us Safari on my Mac, but mostly Firefox because of the consistant user interface (between my PC and Mac) and the extensions.
I still try out other browsers on occasion, like Flock, but have not liked them as much.
James
· 3 years ago
I use FireFox. But, due to it not being very responsive in a slow network environment, at work I have to use Opera. I spend my computer life (working and not) on the net, so my browser is practically my OS. And, therefore, I NEED my multiple tabs.
Opera just doesn't feel the same as FireFox. And it doesn't render Google Reader that well yet (bad Google). Of course, on my Phone (iMate K-Jam) I use Opera 8.60 because of the tabs... So, it's becoming a mix and match.
My 2c worth. ;-)
sam
· 3 years ago
I love Camino. Safari is my default browser on my Mac, but I actually prefer Camino -- I use them both interchangeably and simultaneously most of the time. Firefox on the Mac is far from polished, and Camino is the best Mozilla based broswer I've used on any platform.
On Windows and Ubuntu it's Firefox all the way, although I haven't used IE 7 yet. Opera is very cool, but it's UI isn't totally intuitive to me, and so I find myself using it only for testing purposes.
Net
· 3 years ago
I use Maxthon www.maxthon.com all the way. Great features and faster than Firefox. So what that it is based on IE? You can switch to Gecko in one click if you like.
Chris
· 3 years ago
I've been using Opera on my 64mb(ram) Windows ME laptop and it runs amazingly. Firefox takes *FIVE MINUTES* to start up on it.
I still use Firefox on my desktop, but when you need speed and efficiency I think Opera takes the cake.
nurbles
· 3 years ago
Opera has two things that I like better than IE6/7 or FF (though FF is my regular browser):
1. Opera seems to load java pages much, much faster than the others, especially on the initial hit. If you don't believe me, visit http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ridge/radar.php?rid=mlb... (which will load quick) then look at one of the 'loop' (like base or long range) options on the left. Opera will almost immediately begin loading in the frames for the applet, while the others spend quite a bit of time just starting java.
2. Scaling. Opera scales EVERYTHING on a page together, even graphics. FF and IE scale only the text (IE7, might do more, I've not tried that yet). This is very important for a vision impared person, especially on web sites formatted like this one, hard coded to use less than 50% of the available width in my browser window, all the rest wasted white space. In opera I can zoom until the whole window is filled, as it should be.
And Opera has an extra for web site developers who might care about such things: it has a narrow (or cell phone) display mode that shows how many cell phones (which use the Opera engine) will render your web page.
So, all-in-all, I use FF mostly, just because it is simple and I'm very familiar with its keyboard interface (I'm not a grabby/clicky kinda guy). But Opera 9 is giving me a serious reason to consider a change. Of course, I'll keep IE around just to visit the lazy sites that only work with one browser, and to visit MS, of course.
CC
· 3 years ago
I use Firefox because with it I can use Windows Live sites (Live Mail in particular) on both my Mac and my Winbox.
zmarties
· 3 years ago
Although Opera is a more than competant browser, famed for its standards support, it's actually because of its non-support of standards that makes it a non-starter for me.
Prior to Opera 9, there was no support for XSLT (the way to view XML pages in the browser). Even in Opera 9, the support misses out vital parts of the XSLT 1.0 spec (notably support for the document() function), which makes it useless for my needs. (Both IE 6 and the Mozilla family have long fully supported XSLT 1.0).
My preferred browser is Mozilla - more powerful than Firefox, without the annoying tabs, and just a single entry box that combines searching and url entry.
Drew Olanoff
· 3 years ago
It's important to remember that most of Firefox's "cool features" are user and community created, whereas Opera's features are built and tested by developers of the browser. This isn't a knock on FF developers, but when FF moves to 2.0, whose to say that all extensions will continue to work? I say Opera, it's stable and fast, and it looked and performed fantastic on the Nintendo DS as well.
Paul Worthington
· 3 years ago
I use Safari for 99.9% of my browsing. As others have said, it's fast, stable, easy to use... but best of all is the system integration and how good it looks. For the few web sites with extras I need that are only available for Firefox, I have used Deer Park (a G4-optimized Firefox), but mostly I use Camino.
On my work laptop, which is Windows XP, I use Firefox for anything that's not on my company's intranet. Unfortunately, most things on the intranet are actually built to only work in IE, so I use it when I must. Otherwise, it's all Firefox.
zhonghuarising
· 3 years ago
It took a lot for me to switch over to Firefox about a year and a half ago, but now I'm glad I did. I've never had a problem with it, and don't think I'll ever change again -- unless something truly spectacular comes along.
Hylic
· 3 years ago
@cc
there is a user-script to get live.com to work on opera, you just download the script to your "user Java Script" folder, and set opera to use that folder (under tools>preferences>advanced>Java Script options). Get the script here. http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?...
Damon
· 3 years ago
I was using FF, and still do at work. But since moving my laptop up to Vista Beta 2, I find myself using IE7. It has a very nice feel. I love the RSS integration. Also, I installed Office 2007 Beta and now I use Outlook instead of Thunderbird. The fact that IE7 can add the RSS to Outlook with a single click ROCKS! I think MS is on their way to something here!
But Wellsfargo.com won't work on it, so I still have FF on here.
Andrei
· 3 years ago
I'm using Safari for my Mac OS X browsing and Firefox when I jump into Windows.
As far as I can see, the whole interface difference is purely crap (as long as the UI is usable). You'd have to be either dumb or have no computer experience to need the same interface to get things done while browsing the net. Actually, I find switching interfaces once in a while.
razib
· 3 years ago
I am from South Asia and I love Opera simplye because of its speed. I have to work with 5-6 KBPS bandwidth and that is why Opera is so cool to me. It gives me the best speed. So, I use 99% of the time Opera and it helps me to increase my productivity by saving me some valuable browsing time.
Limulus
· 3 years ago
"One other thing I care about: I'm going to be using both Mac and Windows OS's in my new job and I want a browser that's as close to the same on both OS's as possible. That leaves me with Firefox."
Er... Opera is available for Mac too (as well as several other platforms; see http://www.opera.com/download/index.dml?custom=yes) as David Terei mentioned. AFAIK, it should be nearly identical on all platforms, just as Firefox is.
"Anyway, which browser do you like best, and why?"
I run Ubuntu Linux and have Firefox, Opera and Konqueror installed. I like Firefox the best :)
Being a cross-platform browser made transitioning from Windows that much easier, though even if I had started out on Linux I would still be using Firefox because of its extensions :) (Opera Widgets are cute and all, but they don't let you customize your browser)
I'm glad to hear that Opera has ad... er... "content" blocking now ;) though I still prefer the more automated process of using Filterset.G (via updater extension) with Adblock in Firefox.
James
· 3 years ago
I love both of them, though Firefox is several magnitudes slower and heavier. One thing that article didn't mention was that Opera's memory usage scales with how much ram you have. Sure, there's a limit and you can tweak how it works, but it's very adaptable.
Opera is pretty much the only full featured, modern, reasonably fast browser that a sane person would consider using on old Linux boxes. I've got it on my Mom's 64mb ram, 300MHz Debian laptop, and it doesn't use much more then 30mb ram most of the time, extremely reasonable for a browser these days.
Sunny
· 3 years ago
Latest WebKit builds of Safari and Camino. Firefox when I have to suffer Windows. Firefox for the Mac is fugly.
Tomas
· 3 years ago
I've been using Opera for years, and like it's advanced features coupled with easy customization. I can change anything, and I'm no programmer.
But I let others use what they want without without feeling an urge to convert them. However, what REALLY bugs me is that MS once again decides to deliberately lock out Opera users. No wonder people who casually test Opera feel its less compatible...
Basically, it comes down to getting standards support - and DECENT standards support, availability on multiple platforms (and, having the same experience on all of those platforms), etc.
Mike Drips
· 3 years ago
1. Opera (I liked 8 better than 9)
2. IE 7 (although it is buggy, the Internet being kind of a new thing there at Microsoft I guess or wasn't FIVE YEARS enough time to "update" IE6?)
3. FoxFire (only when I read something about it in blogs and fire it up to see what people are talking about. Otherwise for a browser it lacks security, hogs memory and UI-wise is duller than dirt.)
Jorge
· 3 years ago
I use both Mac OS X and Windows. Based on this, I have a preference for different browsers.
Personally, I am a strong Netscape user in Windows having worked with 7.2 most of the time and now currently having 8.1 as my default browser. I moved from IE early on and was never attracted by Firefox. To me, it served no particular purpose or had anything that would put it over Netscape.
What I like the best about Netscape 8.0 and 8.1 is the control that I have over the websites based on Netscape's 'ratings' and the ability to erase all tracks whenever I exit the browser. In addition, the two rendering engines (IE and Gecko), which allow me to be able to view any website with basically no problems whatsoever; I must say though, I wasn't a fan of this when 8 first came out.
In OS X, I use either Safari or Camino; although I use Camino as my default browser. I do no think that Firefox will get any attention from my part on OS X since Camino integrates so well into the OS. With Safari and Camino I get the option to 'reset' the browser which does the same thing as Netscape's erase tracks. Here, I have found that Camino has an excellent speed - which was a big advantage when I first got my computer since it only had 256MB Ram.
I have not used Opera extensively on either platform, although I think that the Windows version is better suited as an everyday browser.
Tom
· 3 years ago
I have an old WIN98 system I got for free back in 1999 from www.freepc.com and am still using it (I have upgraded to a 550mhz chip). I discovered Firefox in Nov. 2004 and used it until about March 2006. I found various extensions significantly impacted my system performance and got tired of trying to figure out the right permutations to keep my broadband acting like broadband. I switched to Opera 9.0 (beta at the time) and found my speeds increased but things still were not “lightning fast” as various people make references of their browsers. I recently made the switch to K-meleon 1.01, a mozilla based browser designed for Windows. My load speeds are finally “lightning fast” (as much as a 550 mzh chip can be). I am very pleased. Configuring the broswer is a bit awkward and the themes for the new version are a bit limited (older themes for the pre-1.0 release seem to make it crash) but once it is set up it has much of the basic functionality of Firefox and/or Opera. I think I’ll stick with K-Meleon for a while.
All Comments
On the PC though, Opera's got nothing I want/need over IE and neither has FireFox. Security-wise, I'm cautious, if I don't think a site is safe then I won't be allowing it to run ActiveX controls or download stuff to my PC. Heck, I probably won't have clicked the link to go there in the first place. And I think it's about time that people started to realise that not everyone wants tabs - for most "ordinary" people the two or three open windows fit nicely side-by-side on the taskbar...
Very interesting topic this one, I've played around with previous opera versions, but haven't gotten around to trying out Opera 9.
I agree with you on the speed of the browser and the bittorrent integration, oh and by the way what are you going to be taping?
Opera's mini is nice for the mobiles, but i think i'll be sticking to Firefox for now, as I don't use I.E. 7 yet (I've tryed it out once, and it's awfully hard to navigate around.)
The reason i like Firefox so much is that it's very customisable, and there are many extensions to choose from.
anyway, I think that's enough of my thoughts for now...
It's made by the mozilla foundation so it has the same codebase as Mozilla/Firefox. It's also universal binary. The reason I like it better than Firefox is because it has native MacOS X UI widgets. It also seems to be a bit faster than firefox on my older laptop. Aside from that, you do lose a lot of cool firefox functions like xpi extensions.
On the PC I use firefox, end of story. I pretty much refuse to open IE for any reason.
http://www.flock.com/
* Built-in blog publishing
* Decent RSS reader
* Excellent Flickr integration
* Great favourites, integrated with del.icio.us
* Good search features (though I wish I could have google or a9 instead of yahoo)
* Web snippets (very handy)
If you use FF, then Flock will be very familiar and it's only at v0.7 so there's still quite a bit of innovation and polish to go. I think FF is stagnating a little.
Originally speed but all the other browsers seem to have caught up.
Now:
- UI is very easily customized (I have a lot of web page area now with my changes)
- So many nice little features: Mouse Gestures, Voice (text2speach - when im tired of reading), great RSS, great tab control, userJS, block content...
IE ofcourse doesn't have a lot of these and i just find most of them nessecary, and firefox does through extensions, but I prefer the complete package of Opera. (Opera has always been so good to me that Im a little loyal as well).
Also, I use Opera on both Linux and Windows and it works great on both, it also runs on Macs (but havent used) so its just as cross platform as you could probally want.
So, I've made the switch to Firefox. I will occassionally us Safari on my Mac, but mostly Firefox because of the consistant user interface (between my PC and Mac) and the extensions.
I still try out other browsers on occasion, like Flock, but have not liked them as much.
Opera just doesn't feel the same as FireFox. And it doesn't render Google Reader that well yet (bad Google). Of course, on my Phone (iMate K-Jam) I use Opera 8.60 because of the tabs... So, it's becoming a mix and match.
My 2c worth. ;-)
On Windows and Ubuntu it's Firefox all the way, although I haven't used IE 7 yet. Opera is very cool, but it's UI isn't totally intuitive to me, and so I find myself using it only for testing purposes.
I still use Firefox on my desktop, but when you need speed and efficiency I think Opera takes the cake.
1. Opera seems to load java pages much, much faster than the others, especially on the initial hit. If you don't believe me, visit http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ridge/radar.php?rid=mlb... (which will load quick) then look at one of the 'loop' (like base or long range) options on the left. Opera will almost immediately begin loading in the frames for the applet, while the others spend quite a bit of time just starting java.
2. Scaling. Opera scales EVERYTHING on a page together, even graphics. FF and IE scale only the text (IE7, might do more, I've not tried that yet). This is very important for a vision impared person, especially on web sites formatted like this one, hard coded to use less than 50% of the available width in my browser window, all the rest wasted white space. In opera I can zoom until the whole window is filled, as it should be.
And Opera has an extra for web site developers who might care about such things: it has a narrow (or cell phone) display mode that shows how many cell phones (which use the Opera engine) will render your web page.
So, all-in-all, I use FF mostly, just because it is simple and I'm very familiar with its keyboard interface (I'm not a grabby/clicky kinda guy). But Opera 9 is giving me a serious reason to consider a change. Of course, I'll keep IE around just to visit the lazy sites that only work with one browser, and to visit MS, of course.
Prior to Opera 9, there was no support for XSLT (the way to view XML pages in the browser). Even in Opera 9, the support misses out vital parts of the XSLT 1.0 spec (notably support for the document() function), which makes it useless for my needs. (Both IE 6 and the Mozilla family have long fully supported XSLT 1.0).
My preferred browser is Mozilla - more powerful than Firefox, without the annoying tabs, and just a single entry box that combines searching and url entry.
On my work laptop, which is Windows XP, I use Firefox for anything that's not on my company's intranet. Unfortunately, most things on the intranet are actually built to only work in IE, so I use it when I must. Otherwise, it's all Firefox.
there is a user-script to get live.com to work on opera, you just download the script to your "user Java Script" folder, and set opera to use that folder
(under tools>preferences>advanced>Java Script options).
Get the script here.
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?...
Also, I installed Office 2007 Beta and now I use Outlook instead of Thunderbird. The fact that IE7 can add the RSS to Outlook with a single click ROCKS! I think MS is on their way to something here!
But Wellsfargo.com won't work on it, so I still have FF on here.
As far as I can see, the whole interface difference is purely crap (as long as the UI is usable). You'd have to be either dumb or have no computer experience to need the same interface to get things done while browsing the net. Actually, I find switching interfaces once in a while.
Er... Opera is available for Mac too (as well as several other platforms; see http://www.opera.com/download/index.dml?custom=yes) as David Terei mentioned. AFAIK, it should be nearly identical on all platforms, just as Firefox is.
"Anyway, which browser do you like best, and why?"
I run Ubuntu Linux and have Firefox, Opera and Konqueror installed. I like Firefox the best :)
Being a cross-platform browser made transitioning from Windows that much easier, though even if I had started out on Linux I would still be using Firefox because of its extensions :) (Opera Widgets are cute and all, but they don't let you customize your browser)
I'm glad to hear that Opera has ad... er... "content" blocking now ;) though I still prefer the more automated process of using Filterset.G (via updater extension) with Adblock in Firefox.
Opera is pretty much the only full featured, modern, reasonably fast browser that a sane person would consider using on old Linux boxes. I've got it on my Mom's 64mb ram, 300MHz Debian laptop, and it doesn't use much more then 30mb ram most of the time, extremely reasonable for a browser these days.
But I let others use what they want without without feeling an urge to convert them. However, what REALLY bugs me is that MS once again decides to deliberately lock out Opera users. No wonder people who casually test Opera feel its less compatible...
http://my.opera.com/hallvors/blog/show.dml/243931
I guess it's time for another Bork, Bork Edition (I loved the last one!)
http://poetshome.com/development/?p=20
http://poetshome.com/development/?p=19
Basically, it comes down to getting standards support - and DECENT standards support, availability on multiple platforms (and, having the same experience on all of those platforms), etc.
2. IE 7 (although it is buggy, the Internet being kind of a new thing there at Microsoft I guess or wasn't FIVE YEARS enough time to "update" IE6?)
3. FoxFire (only when I read something about it in blogs and fire it up to see what people are talking about. Otherwise for a browser it lacks security, hogs memory and UI-wise is duller than dirt.)
Personally, I am a strong Netscape user in Windows having worked with 7.2 most of the time and now currently having 8.1 as my default browser. I moved from IE early on and was never attracted by Firefox. To me, it served no particular purpose or had anything that would put it over Netscape.
What I like the best about Netscape 8.0 and 8.1 is the control that I have over the websites based on Netscape's 'ratings' and the ability to erase all tracks whenever I exit the browser. In addition, the two rendering engines (IE and Gecko), which allow me to be able to view any website with basically no problems whatsoever; I must say though, I wasn't a fan of this when 8 first came out.
In OS X, I use either Safari or Camino; although I use Camino as my default browser. I do no think that Firefox will get any attention from my part on OS X since Camino integrates so well into the OS. With Safari and Camino I get the option to 'reset' the browser which does the same thing as Netscape's erase tracks. Here, I have found that Camino has an excellent speed - which was a big advantage when I first got my computer since it only had 256MB Ram.
I have not used Opera extensively on either platform, although I think that the Windows version is better suited as an everyday browser.