Internet Explorer vs Firefox vs Opera

[Spawnbut]

Most people aren't very savvy computer users and don't even know that there are (or want to use) alternatives that might be wild and wooy.

[Mike Douglas]

I don't believe that people still choose to use IE. (I mean IE6 not MyIE2).

Seriously...you must love trojans and browser hijacking or something...

MyIE2 just embeds IE as widget and is no more safer than IE alone.

[TGD]

I don't believe that people still choose to use IE. (I mean IE6 not MyIE2).

Seriously...you must love trojans and browser hijacking or something...

I have never got a trojan or had my browser hijacked. I've been using the IE core for years. A few simple steps and IE is fine.

[Bearded Kirklander]

MyIE2 just embeds IE as widget and is no more safer than IE alone.

I don't believe that is the case. It's got Ad Hunter built in, for example, pop-up blocking, two click security toggles and more. Plus, if you disable scripting in the default internet zone, you avoid tons of trouble in the first place. I put sites that I think are ok in the Trusted Zone, where scripts are active.

[L3thal Veteran]

I have never got a trojan or had my browser hijacked. I've been using the IE core for years. A few simple steps and IE is fine.

Same here. Though I love IE, I switched to Firefox 2 days ago and I'm loving it. I highly think I may go back to IE once Sp2 roles out. Until then, I'll use Firefox :)

[TheDogsBed]

I can't help but smirk at such an 'unbiased' review. I knew, even before reading, that it was going to be FF as #1 and hey presto, sure enough, there it was.

There are more than a few contradictions and innacuracies. This isn't a review, it's a biased opinion.

Opera Bias #1

"From the first day I experimented with it, it has been full of clutter. 7.0 improved things with new buttons, but they are still big."

Then resize them! Sorry, is it that you don't like the browser, or that you don't have the first clue how to use it?

Opera Bias #2

"Opera's one is quite nice too, although it's in a big big tab. It has the stop and resume buttons, which are the same as Firefox's"

I think you'll find that is the other way around. Firefox's is like Opera's but nice try. Oh and by the way, it's in that 'big tab' because you haven't figured out how to move it yet. (Oooh look my transfer is shown in button size, or shall I dock it, or shall I float it, or shall I.....)

Opera Bias #3

"New users to Opera will either be very happy or very lost. There's a bar by the side, which I took half a minute to figure out how to disable it. Users are spoilt for options, too spoilt that they get lost."

New users of anything will be either happy or lost! Jees.

Opera Bias #4

"Opera has always been well known for supporting many CSS tags. I wanted it to get higher marks than Firefox, but unfortunately, it has to tie with it because of a simple reason. It doesn't like links with a bigger font size than normal text in some cases, on my site, at least. On some websites like mine, a trick is used to generate 1px borders around tables. This is where Opera messes up. Sure, I could have used CSS, but I still prefer the old way."

Erm, what cases are these then? Show me so I can see it for myself with my own W3C standard code. I test with Firefox and Opera every day and it is always Firefox which gives the problems. (Ignoring IE which wouldn't know a standard if it whacked it in the face.)

Images

I also note that you could have moved the tabs down to the bottom of Opera to give even more screenspace but elected not to. Any particular reason, I wonder? And how did FF get 20 but IE only 11? They're practically the same with a few clicks, all but the skinning. Is that it? Because you can skin it? And in your Opera screenshot, you can remove most of what you have showing and still browse with complete ease, thanks to the "native" gestures that work!

I could go on and on but it's far too biased to even consider taking seriously. Please, keep the next one as a review and not just you expatiating your opinion, when you made it blatantly clear at the start:

"Meanwhile, Mozilla Firefox, though new, has been a favourite. I have experimented with Firefox since the days of Phoenix 0.1, Firebird 0.6 and now, Firefox 0.8. The icons have changed from orangey to the more refined theme it has now, breaking away from the look of the Mozilla Suite."

The only thing I can be certain of after that "review" is that you don't know how to use Opera. That doesn't make it a poor browser, just you a poor user.

Edited July 4, 2004 by SniperX

[Michael1406]

100% true SniperX, good analysis of review.

After 10 minutes of downloading Opera I thought "Right, this is going". However, I went into the Opera chat room (which btw is full to the brim of people who can help you), and spoke to a few people in there for a while. I was still going to get rid of it, but then I thought to myself "I haven't given myself or the browser a chance to customize it". So I did. And now I'm very happy with Opera.

I would still have Firefox, but instead of everything opening in one browser, it was always 45/45/5 between Opera, Firefox and MyIE2. So I decided the 2 I liked least had to go. Which left me with Opera.

http://free.managefootball.com/imagehostin...me_21_28_25.jpg

Slightly poor quality screenshot IMO (blurry), but this is what my Opera looks like for me. Yes, the ad is gone. Because I have the full Opera. The sidebar on the right can be removed completely, but I like it - it's useful. Firefox has nothing comparable to it.

Taking the time to make Opera your browser instead of what it comes as, can change your whole outlook on the program.

[TheDogsBed]

After 10 minutes of downloading Opera I thought "Right, this is going". However, I went into the Opera chat room (which btw is full to the brim of people who can help you), and spoke to a few people in there for a while. I was still going to get rid of it, but then I thought to myself "I haven't given myself or the browser a chance to customize it". So I did. And now I'm very happy with Opera.

Believe it or not, I detested Opera up until the point when 7 came out. I'd tried 6 but I didn't like the MDI way of working so ditched it.

When Opera 7 came out, I decided to revisit it again. Like you, I sort of sat there thinking "Ok... so what now." After a day, I was returning to work banginf my mouse in frustration in IE because I couldn't use the oh so brilliant and responsive mouse-gestures from Opera.

Now with 7.50 we have M2 with anti-spam, IRC Chat client, newsreader, notes, customisable views with stylesheets, zoom, small-screen mode, etc.. more customisation than you could shake a stick at, and like you said, a very active and buzzing community forum where there's always an answer to any problem you may encounter.

What more is there to ask for? Like many say in the Opera forums, everyone hates it intil they try it for more than a day. Aftet that, there's just no browsing without it.

P.S. I don't get the clutter-free browsing anyway. I like everything around me, at hand as I work. Ironically, I think its then that Opera shows its full potential - just everything you could ever need right there.

[jack_canada]

MyIE2 just embeds IE as widget and is no more safer than IE alone.

U can set myie to use gecko engine/.

[slax]

one word : Firefox :

the rest browsers can argue among themselfs..for the second place :D

[DOGglee]

one word : Firefox :

the rest browsers can argue among themselfs..for the second place :D

yeah i agree :D

[trenzterra]

I can't help but smirk at such an 'unbiased' review. I knew, even before reading, that it was going to be FF as #1 and hey presto, sure enough, there it was.

There are more than a few contradictions and innacuracies. This isn't a review, it's a biased opinion.

Opera Bias #1

"From the first day I experimented with it, it has been full of clutter. 7.0 improved things with new buttons, but they are still big."

Then resize them! Sorry, is it that you don't like the browser, or that you don't have the first clue how to use it?

Opera Bias #2

"Opera's one is quite nice too, although it's in a big big tab. It has the stop and resume buttons, which are the same as Firefox's"

I think you'll find that is the other way around. Firefox's is like Opera's but nice try. Oh and by the way, it's in that 'big tab' because you haven't figured out how to move it yet. (Oooh look my transfer is shown in button size, or shall I dock it, or shall I float it, or shall I.....)

Opera Bias #3

"New users to Opera will either be very happy or very lost. There's a bar by the side, which I took half a minute to figure out how to disable it. Users are spoilt for options, too spoilt that they get lost."

New users of anything will be either happy or lost! Jees.

Opera Bias #4

"Opera has always been well known for supporting many CSS tags. I wanted it to get higher marks than Firefox, but unfortunately, it has to tie with it because of a simple reason. It doesn't like links with a bigger font size than normal text in some cases, on my site, at least. On some websites like mine, a trick is used to generate 1px borders around tables. This is where Opera messes up. Sure, I could have used CSS, but I still prefer the old way."

Erm, what cases are these then? Show me so I can see it for myself with my own W3C standard code. I test with Firefox and Opera every day and it is always Firefox which gives the problems. (Ignoring IE which wouldn't know a standard if it whacked it in the face.)

Images

I also note that you could have moved the tabs down to the bottom of Opera to give even more screenspace but elected not to. Any particular reason, I wonder? And how did FF get 20 but IE only 11? They're practically the same with a few clicks, all but the skinning. Is that it? Because you can skin it? And in your Opera screenshot, you can remove most of what you have showing and still browse with complete ease, thanks to the "native" gestures that work!

I could go on and on but it's far too biased to even consider taking seriously. Please, keep the next one as a review and not just you expatiating your opinion, when you made it blatantly clear at the start:

"Meanwhile, Mozilla Firefox, though new, has been a favourite. I have experimented with Firefox since the days of Phoenix 0.1, Firebird 0.6 and now, Firefox 0.8. The icons have changed from orangey to the more refined theme it has now, breaking away from the look of the Mozilla Suite."

The only thing I can be certain of after that "review" is that you don't know how to use Opera. That doesn't make it a poor browser, just you a poor user.

FYI I quite liked Opera7 before Firefox came. I'm going to write a new review sometime today or soon.

[Samoa]

I like IE. I am able to do what I need to do with it. In many cases it has repeatedly out performed Firefox. I get tired of the security holes. But I believe most browsers will have their flaws.

Firefox is the only other browser I would use. It is cluttered with "unhelpful" crap, doesn' t do MSstyles I believe, and hasn't completely convinced me. I am more prone to not use it just for the fact of the Damn annoying Fanboyism that exists.

Tell me how to get Firefox to display Japanese webpages correctly, and how to do skinning/themes with MSstyles and I would likely use it.

Basically tell me how it will work with a Japanese version of XP?

[trenzterra]

Redone the whole review.

[zenman]

Hello all!

I have an XP running on 1.33GHz with a 512 kbps broadband.

I just ran a test for the various browsers & these are the results I got:

http://www.numion.com/YourSpeed/

(I selected Singapore websites)

IE 6

1 Monday, July 05, 2004 9:48:11 PM 21538 Bps 172 kbps

2 Monday, July 05, 2004 9:46:24 PM 26284 Bps 210 kbps

myie2

1 Monday, July 05, 2004 9:45:06 PM 21837 Bps 175 kbps

2 Monday, July 05, 2004 9:38:54 PM 22696 Bps 182 kbps

opera 7.51

1 7/5/2004 9:43:42 PM 18083 Bps 145 kbps

2 7/5/2004 9:40:01 PM 18562 Bps 148 kbps

firefox 0.9.1

1 Monday, July 05, 2004 21:42:45 15898 Bps 127 kbps

2 Monday, July 05, 2004 21:41:16 15185 Bps 121 kbps

Though I have read so much bad news on IE6, nevertheless, the results speak for itself.

[Slimy]

first off,

u forgot ie sp2

pop up blocker features

ie is smaller than both of the browsers

u can make it have a larger screen space, just make the icons small version

ie can open almost any page while the other 2 still have problems

[zenman]

-------------------------------

Speed

-------------------------------

What's the point of surfing the net with slow speed? Here, we take the browsers to the speed test. You have to render pages quickly to keep up.

Test:

I used estimation, and in some cases, accurate timing.

Results:

Firefox took 3 seconds, Opera took 5 seconds and Internet Explorer took 10 seconds.

Internet Explorer: 1

Firefox: 3

Opera: 2

Hello again!

Based on the simple test I done thru http://www.numion.com/YourSpeed/, it seems that IE6's throughput is far superior than Opera or Firefox.

You can easily verify this yourself!

Cheerio!

[seifer_seph]

Hello again!

Based on the simple test I done thru http://www.numion.com/YourSpeed/, it seems that IE6's throughput is far superior than Opera or Firefox.

You can easily verify this yourself!

Cheerio!

that is only your computer, not anyone elses. everyone gets different results. i got both IE and firefox to be within 5 kb/s .

[Andre]

Firefox is all the way. I started with Mozilla more than 2 years ago and ended up with Firefox and I love it. The new version is absolutely great. I first had some issues with it when upgrading from 0.8, but after starting with pretty much a fresh install/profile it worked out very well.

Internet Explorer is obsolete until Longhorn is released.

Opera is trying but in my eyes it's stone dead. I've tried it way too many times and can't be bothered with it anymore no matter what it has to offer, as everytime it tends to fux0r everything and anything. It takes ages to load and while it does so it make csrss.exe to use 100% of CPU. Then it uses wrong font on websites; apparently because I have a huge amount of fonts installed, but that's no excuse to fux0r the pages. And yes, I've tried everything in the settings.

All in all, Firefox beats them all.

[couture]

I think I.E is a good browser aside from the security holes. I've switched between opera, firefox, and I.E all the time. ALL of them have their flaws. One thing I don't like about firefox is it freezes for like a split second when I click a link it does not do this in any other browser. I've yet to see all the hype about firefox, it's just a browser. I use opera the most and i don't see why people are saying how cluttered and slow it is. I have customized opera fully and it isn't cluttered at all. One thing I really love about Opera is if you accidentally close it or have to restart you can restart Opera and it will have all the tabs and pages you were viewing before it closed.

I still don't understand why people are complaining about opera being cluttered. :blink:

[Jelly2003]

I love FireFox, but Opera is ok, Ive never been bothered spending any time with it because in the past it was pretty underpowered. Today it is a pretty capable browser but so is FireFox and I can use FF for free without advertisements.

I could love IE if MS added tabbed browsing, a download manager, ad-blocking, security, alpha channels support for PNG files, skins, decent standards compliance and still keep a small memory footprint (one thing Opera and FF have achieved).

I think that IE is holding back the web, because it has half ass'ed support for CSS. You can make an absolutley beautifull site, that looks stunning in FireFox, then when you test it on IE you find that IE isn't rendering the page effects properly, etc, so you have to scale back the site so that it looks good in IE too.

These days I think that any "good" (not hobbiest) web developer could tell you that FF and Opera are more capable then IE. But since there are heaps of IE users, unfortunatley everything is optiomised for IE, so web sites arent built to the potential that CSS, and other web standards allow.

[chacho]

whats this about firefox being cluttered? looks thinner than opera to me :yes:

(i know, you are using the default GUI right after install :D )

the only reason i use firefox over opera is because i do not need a built-in email client (use outlook 2003 -- much better than M2), i dont need an IRC client (mIRC is better), etc. there are many features in opera that i would never use. i like having the "skeleton" and adding just what i want/will use to it.

[zephiK]

great review but you can always pirate opera if you wanted lol

[couture]

whats this about firefox being cluttered? looks thinner than opera to me :yes:

(i know, you are using the default GUI right after install :D )

the only reason i use firefox over opera is because i do not need a built-in email client (use outlook 2003 -- much better than M2), i dont need an IRC client (mIRC is better), etc. there are many features in opera that i would never use. i like having the "skeleton" and adding just what i want/will use to it.

I don't think anyone said firefox was cluttered and you're screen shot is without tabs ;), it just appears like you have more space because you have a white google page. :p ...but I like firefox and I use it, but I like opera better for some of the obvious reasons...some pages dont render correctly in opera and do in firefox and vice versa. I don't think either one of them are all that great because they still have a lot of flaws and have a lot of potential to be better. The only thing about opera that people complain about is you have to pay for it. All good things aren't free, and opera is a very good browser and I think he did a good review aside from not including features opera has over ie and firefox and saying that opera is cluttered and hard for new users :rolleyes:. All you do is right click and choose customize.

[trenzterra]

IESP2 review will come after final Windows XP SP2 has been released.

Oh, I forgot, right click is easy for new users. Should be geek users instead ;)

I hate to do lots of mouse action.