Internet Explorer vs Firefox vs Opera

[PseudoRandomDragon]

Browser wars are ****ing dumb, along with all the other type of fanboism. Do you really gain anything from sounding like an idiot and trying to support the browser you use? Now STFU.

Cool, someone is making sense!

[d_ralphie]

Crap according to who ? Lets review this whole thread and see how many people said "good work" than "You are a frickin liar".

of course firefox fans are going to love this review, even though it is biased and misleading.

Like I said before, the reviewer was trying to say that he didnt make up his mind before he did all those tests. Everybody is biased, I think you forgot that yourself. And if you point out one error doesnt mean the whole review is false. It is not Boolean AND gates that you are working with. The reviewer is just human and errors are part of everything humans are involved with. Maybe you are new to all this.

exactly, and his review has a lot of errors and bias, even though he claims to be unbiased.

I dont think you are troll because you dont agree with me but because of your comments like these

"sorry, but firefox is too buggy, bloated and slow and doesn't have any cool features (you need to download unusable extensions), and it isn't a professional, commercial product, but a kid's hobby. so it can't quite measure up to the real professional browsers."

this comment is about the same as the review itself.

Looks like YOU are the person who cant handle differing opinions. Just look back at how many people disagreed with you and obviously you got irritated leading to a statement like this: 

"if you are going to be an ass and start off biased against something, stating nonsense like that, don't pretend to be unbiased!"

so people pretending to be unbiased when they actually are, and don't know what they are talking about annoy me. the problem is?

Then why do you have a problem with the reviewer ? Its his opinion, not fact. So let it go and stop whining.

he should not claim to be unbiased when he isn't.

and opera uses system resources more efficiently than both seamonkey and firebird. remember, presto works on embedded devices, unlike gecko. they are trying to slim down gecko with minimo, but having a hard time reaching the same level of performance on low memory systems as opera.

Then again its your opinion, not a fact. I dont care what you think. Stop accusing and putting down others if you dont agree with them.

what i stated is a fact. minimo devs are saying that they hope to squeeze it down to 64 mb. opera works on 32 mb embedded systems already.

[d_ralphie]

I think they mean bloated in the sense that it hogs more resources, not on the size of its download.

i have just shown you that opera is more efficient with system resources. remember the embedded devices discussion?

Plus, Opera does eat up bandwidth which eventually doesnt make it the fastest browser on earth.

excuse me? 'opera does eat up bandwidth'? what is that supposed to mean? that you don't need bandwidth to browse the web with firefox?

[jerry]

what i stated is a fact. minimo devs are saying that they hope to squeeze it down to 64 mb. opera works on 32 mb embedded systems already.

of course firefox fans are going to love this review, even though it is biased and misleading.

You mean to say that everybody who has praised the reviewer's effort are Firefox fanboys ? Wrong like most of your other arguments. Most of the people appreciate his time & effort that he put in for readers here at Neowin.

so people pretending to be unbiased when they actually are, and don't know what they are talking about annoy me. the problem is?

Problem is this: You cant handle differing opinions.

I've already wasted a lot of time arguing here when its going nowhere. If you want to argue with the reviewer then dont resort to 'Troll behavior' and get upset when people call you a Troll. In your opinion Opera is the best, good for you. In the reviewer's opinion Firefox is the best, good for him. Why dont you write up a lengthier review (albiet without a fanboy tone) and people will appreciate your effort even though they may not agree with your opinion.

[jerry]

have just shown you that opera is more efficient with system resources. remember the embedded devices discussion?

Yes but what about the PC version ? It comes with all such extra features by default that it ends up eating more resources than Firefox.

excuse me? 'opera does eat up bandwidth'? what is that supposed to mean? that you don't need bandwidth to browse the web with firefox?

Yes. The Free version displays ads and it needs extra bandwidth just for that. Firefox thankfully doesnt feature such junk.

[d_ralphie]

have just shown you that opera is more efficient with system resources. remember the embedded devices discussion?

Yes but what about the PC version ? It comes with all such extra features by default that it ends up eating more resources than Firefox.

actually, no. it doesn't use more memory if you don't use those features. if you do use them, remember that firefox uses more resources than opera by default, and installing extensions to match opera's feature set even more so.

excuse me? 'opera does eat up bandwidth'? what is that supposed to mean? that you don't need bandwidth to browse the web with firefox?

Yes. The Free version displays ads and it needs extra bandwidth just for that. Firefox thankfully doesnt feature such junk.

bandwidth for ads, which for most people is plain text, is not 'eating up bandwidth'. opera's ads are a probably a thousand times smaller than the average web page. the bandwidth used for ads isn't noticeable at all.

this is a strawman argument you are using in lack of something better. solid evidence that you are on thin ice.

[jerry]

bandwidth for ads, which for most people is plain text, is not 'eating up bandwidth'. opera's ads are a probably a thousand times smaller than the average web page. the bandwidth used for ads isn't noticeable at all.

this is a strawman argument you are using in lack of something better. solid evidence that you are on thin ice.

Again you cant look at it apart from your own perspective. You may be on broadband, but not the rest of the world. So yes it may not be noticeable to you or me but it will impact the rest of the 56k'ers. A large % of Internet users are still stuck on 56k. Who is on thin ice now ? Oh wait, its me cause you cant understand.

[d_ralphie]

hint: you haven't a clue what kind of connection i'm on. but hey, don't let that prevent you from using strawman arguments.

it is not noticeable, i know for certain. don't make silly assumptions like that or you will end up looking.. well, not very clever.

[Bearded Kirklander]

This thread is dying an ugly death... :(

[cork1958]

Awesome job!! Personally, I still prefer Opera. I still wonder how many people would choose Opera over Firefiox or Mozilla if it was free though. Be willing to be at least half would switch.

[Bearded Kirklander]

Awesome job!! Personally, I still prefer Opera. I still wonder how many people would choose Opera over Firefiox or Mozilla if it was free though. Be willing to be at least half would switch.

I guess that is one point - Opera is not "free" in the true sense of the word. Not like Mozilla and FireFox and My IE 2/IE. No adware in those. In comparison, Opera just looks like an also-ran piece of nagware. :(

[vcv]

First, let me start off by saying I have been using Opera since 3.x, so I am definately a bit biased, but I will try not to be.

I would definately take points away from Opera on it's default interface. It appears cluttered and confusing. Most people do not realize that you can simply right click a toolbar/panel and select "remove".. and it's gone until you ask for it back. I really think the first time Opera is started, it should begin a quick interactive tutorial explaining this, and how else to configure the interface to your liking.

I would give opera more points for it's mouse gestures. They are native and work much better, IMHO. Add to that, the fact that they can be used onmore than just the browser window. You can use them on the tabs, on panels, etc.

I would also give opera more points for it's unbeliavable customization capabilities. You can drag and drop almost everything, right click to customize. You can remove any unwanted menu items, add new ones, etc. Although, the more in-depth customizations are definately left to the advanced user.

Another thing is the way Opera cache's pages. I think it works MUCH better than any other browser. If I'm viewing a forum at neowin.. I can click a thread, read it, then go back.. and it won't reload the thread list page. In fact, it redisplays it pretty much instantly. How? Opera caches GDI objects (at least in windows) and not just images like other browsers. This adds to the "fastest browser on earth". Opera does jsut feel "faster" to me.. but I am a bit biased, so take that as you will.

More great features of Opera:

- Wand (ie and firefox have password saving too, but i like how wand does it)

- RSS Reader

- Fast Forward and Rewind (God how I love being able to treat a bare directory of images like a slide show with mouse gestures..)

- Author mode: With the press of a key, you can change the css file a page uses to a default one.. which is really helpful if you can't read certain text for some reason. Also, opera can display how a page looks in other devices (like a PDA or cell phone).. show outlines of structural elements, etc. AWESOME for a web designer.

- ZOOM!

- If the browser crashes, you can restart it and have it automatically reopen the pages you had open when it crashed.

Shall I go on?

Don't get me wrong, Firefox is a GREAT browser, but it still has a ways to go I think. And for IE, I still use it daily, but only because I have to.

[scoult01]

Hey vcv long time no see ;)

What happened to your IRC client?

[vcv]

Hey vcv long time no see ;)

What happened to your IRC client?

Hm.. where would I know you from? Here? I have a terrible memory, sorry!

IRC Client.. well.. right now I am developing one in C++ with 2 other guys. It's coming along pretty nicely so far. If you want more info, PM me or something. vip, from this forum, is [or will be] my beta-testing bitch :)

edit: I just went to your site.. well, the url gave it away How's it going mav?

sIRC died a while ago, but a new client was born, one that is going to be much much better. I have great plans for it.

[habtro]

nice review. Now i've a clearer view on what to choose for my explorer :D

[arrrgh]

On program size Opera will probably always beat Firefox, but to be fair one would have to pack Firefox with aspack (or unpack Opera) before comparing sizes. The difference narrows down quite a bit.

What comes to features, I don't think there's a single feature in Opera that wouldn't have a matching Firefox extension. With extension approach you also get another advantage, if you don't like the way some extension works, you can try another extension that does the same thing in a different manner. With extensions you don't have to deal with something you don't really like.

As for customization, in Opera it's limited to what the devs choose to make moddable, in Firefox on the other hand.. with userChrome.css, userContent.css and user.js tweaks you can change almost everything, and if that's not enough you can manually edit the .jar files that make Firefox.

[vcv]

As for customization, in Opera it's limited to what the devs choose to make moddable, in Firefox on the other hand.. with userChrome.css, userContent.css and user.js tweaks you can change almost everything, and if that's not enough you can manually edit the .jar files that make Firefox.

... And the devs make just about everything moddable. Keyboard shortcuts, mouse gestures, toolbars and buttons within them, panels, menus.. ALL completely customizable.

[d_ralphie]

I guess that is one point - Opera is not "free" in the true sense of the word. Not like Mozilla and FireFox and My IE 2/IE. No adware in those. In comparison, Opera just looks like an also-ran piece of nagware. :(

that's a lie. opera doesn't nag you. it has a narrow ad strip and it doesn't intercept your browsing to show you ads. it leaves it up to you to look at the ads if you want to.

[d_ralphie]

What comes to features, I don't think there's a single feature in Opera that wouldn't have a matching Firefox extension.

except for one thing: the overall experience will never 'match' opera, because opera is developed with a common goal in mind, whereas firefox extensions are created by different people with different goals. so they'll never have the tight integration and polish opera has.

[arrrgh]

except for one thing: the overall experience will never 'match' opera, because opera is developed with a common goal in mind, whereas firefox extensions are created by different people with different goals. so they'll never have the tight integration and polish opera has.

Like in the latest version, when you hide the email client it takes the irc client with it. Really smooth Opera.

[+M2Ys4U Subscriber¹]

Nice review.

I use FireFox as my default browser now, and i don't regret it, i have used IE and Opera, but still love FF :happy:

[Toxicfume Veteran]

Like in the latest version, when you hide the email client it takes the irc client with it. Really smooth Opera.

Could you be more specific as to what you mean by "hide the email client"?

An alright review, not in-dept enough, but good enough, though it seems very very opinionated to me, which is again in my opinion.(hope you got confused :p).

People, wake up, Opera is SHAREWARE. You don't pay pay for it, you get the ads. deal with it or don't use it, but don't flame it for that reason. That would be just like saying msn messenger sucks cause it has ads.

Quality wise, Opera feels just more smooth, intuitive and fast to use, while firefox does feel fast to use, but the entire experience itself is just flakky and brittle. So firefox has no comparison with Opera, general usage wise in my opinion.(Biased or unbiased? You decide, but would you believe if I said it is unbiased just like the reviewer?)

Opera also have lots of features that firefox won't have without use of extensions(which indeed gets quite cluttered after a while of adding new extensions). If you think Opera is limited to the feature that the company makes and it forces down the thing as they come with the browser, then you are dead wrong. Just go to this page and see what Opera is really capable of ;) http://nontroppo.org/wiki/Opera7 If you talk about how customizable Firefox is, just look at the amount of customizations that can be applied to Opera (check this link for the custom buttons made for opera: http://nontroppo.org/wiki/CustomButtons).

Again, it's to each their own, you shouldn't fool yourself to like something just because others like it, you should try out each of them extensively and see what suits you best.

For me, Opera is 20/20, Firefox is 14/20, and IE around 12/20 :)

[sting3r]

L0L... i havn't used FF in a couple of months...

[aaroniekins]

firefox is slower, i can see the difference(with tweaking id say they're equal)

Opera...has everything you need in one install, no ext hunting etc etc

As for interface, its an opinion thing, i LOVE opera's interface for its easy access to all the features...browsing space? get a good video card and monitor and use a good res, and opera's interface is VERY tweakable, and comes with everythin you need to tweak it included(in less space wow)

I also LOVE firefox's interface, my one gripe is in 0.9 the bookmark toolbar doesnt wrap...

I think trying to compare these browsers in STUPID, and anyone who tries is just being a fanboy of somethin(look at all the firefox fanboys here...if the reviewer said Opera was best i gaurantee theyd be saying the same things the opera fanboys are sayin right now)

Whats my point

Dont compare browsers, opera doesnt aim to be firefox and vice versa

Firefox is for the tweaking nerds(i love it)...opera is hassle free

quit doin stupid reviews and let people decide on their own, these reviews cause people to get a biased opinion of one and people who havent tried opera wont give it a very good chance

[andi_kam]

one final note on firefox and opera and other none ie browsers is well, in truth they dont work...

hell, i select text here then press B to make it bold and it adds it to the end of the forum post?

Or I log onto to loads of websites that have a rich text editor and cannot view the rich text editor and loose out on advanced features.

So at the end of the day based on this Internet Exlporer is the best browser until the other two become more widely supported by web developers, on sites such as yahoo or neowin forums!

And before u starting posting me ways of actually getting around the problem on the neowin forums of using "guided mode" or other I know about them :p im just saying the normal way doesnt work.