FireFox or Opera ?

By murderdoll
in Web Browser Discussion & Support

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578 members have voted

  1. 1. FireFox or Opera ?

    • Firefox
      354
    • Opera
      224

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Grand Master

lav-chan

Posted
Posted

I think Firetruck has the potential to be better than (or as good as, as it were) Opera, but right now it's not, for several reasons:

Everybody always freaks out about how Firetruck has extensions, which is supposed to somehow make it better than Opera because you only use the extensions you need and (theoretically) new extensions will enable you to do things you couldn't do before. Only a few problems with this:

Firstly, the vast majority of the extensions most people use on Firefox are just designed to play catch-up with Opera. You need to download at least a half-dozen extensions (RSS, mouse gestures, tab features, CSS/lay-out features, et cetera) to get the same functionality that Opera offers out of the box. You might say that there's nothing wrong with that because people who don't need all those extensions won't be bogged down by all the extra crap, except....

Secondly, even WITHOUT any extensions Firetruck runs about the same speed as Opera. I don't know, maybe Firetruck is a little slower, maybe it's a little faster, but the point is that either way there isn't THAT big of a difference between the two in speed or memory usage. So there really is no benefit at all if you don't have any extensions, because it still runs just as slow (or fast) as Opera does with all the superfluous crap it supposedly has.

So yeah, maybe some day when Firefox becomes the browser of choice and it has a bajillion neato must-have extensions it'll be fantastic, but as of right now most of the extensions are just things that come with Opera anyway. And there's no performance difference. (In fact, Opera uses less memory on my computer with all the extra junk it has than Firetruck does with no extensions installed. But that doesn't really matter.)

I get the impression that the Mozilla people are a little bit too, um, over-zealous to make Firetruck as good as it really can be. For example, they REFUSE to add a feature to Firefox so that it will use extensions instead of the MIME type. I can't stand that. I don't know exactly why they won't add that feature, but i get the impression that it's because they think using extensions is 'non-standard' or something like that. An attitude like that is going to turn regular users away. My grandma doesn't care that some idiot IIS admin won't add a MIME type for PNG images on his server, she just wants to see the pictures like they're supposed to be displayed.

I can't stand Firefox's interface. I know i'm probably alone in my anal-retentiveness here, but i don't see why. Neowin is kind of well-known for its interface-design people, so i don't understand why this doesn't bother more of you: Firetruck does not look like a real Windows program. It's pretty close, but it's not right. The scroll bars look wrong, the buttons look wrong, the tabs look wrong, the menus look wrong. The preferences for the program don't work like any other preferences ever (except for other Mozilla stuff, of course). I don't know if this is a limitation of XUL or whatever, but it's wrong. I want every program on my computer to look and work exactly the same. To have my Web browser (probably one of the most-used programs on my computer, if not THE most-used) violate that rule is unacceptable.

Even with all the extensions out now, Firetruck has a long way to go before it catches up with Opera in terms of features. For example, last time i checked (i may be wrong now, who knows), Firetruck didn't have anything equivalent to Opera's keyboard-shortcut editor. Basically if you wanted to change any of your keyboard shortcuts you had to go edit a bunch of text files hidden away somewhere in one of the JAR files. Like i said, i don't know if that's the case anymore -- maybe there's an extension for this now. But there are still lots of things like that that need attention in order for Firetruck to be as good as Opera. The one feature that Firetruck does have that i wish Opera had was the little drawing thingie in the mouse-gestures extension. That's rad. <_<

There are some other problems, but those are the big ones for me. And, of course, the fact that a lot of Firetruck people are obnoxiously over-zealous. I have never before seen so much trendy software-whoring in my life. Firetruck is FLOODING THE INTERNET with advertisements. People are putting Firetruck advertisements in their signatures and avatars on places like this, they're putting them in banner ads, they're putting them in news papers, they're putting them in e-mail signatures, they're putting them ON THEIR DESK TOP. When you find yourself using a Firefox wall paper it's time to lay off the evangelisation, Jesus Christ.

As far as criticisms of Opera, i do have a few.

Firstly, Opera has possibly the worst default configuration of all time. Basically some guy thought it would be a good idea to add EVERY SINGLE FEATURE OPERA HAS to the out-of-box interface configuration for the program, which is incredibly annoying. It doesn't take more than like 10 or 15 minutes to delete all the extra tool bars and panels and buttons, but honestly, you really shouldn't have to do that. It should include the main buttons and tool bars and that's about it. The Firefox people had a good idea when they decided to make the default Firefox configuration look like Internet Explorer. It's a familiar interface and it's probably contributing a lot to IE-to-FF migration.

Secondly, Opera's cookie manager needs some work. It's both better than and worse than Firefox's, depending on how important cookie settings are to you. For example, one of the main things that Opera needs is a 'Treat as specified in Server Manager' setting for third-party cookies. There are some other things, but cookies are boring so i won't get into them. :/

Thirdly, Opera could probably benefit from lowering their prices a little. I'm not going to bitch about the price, because i believe Opera is an awesome program and the developers deserve the $39 they ask for, but that isn't going to get people switching very fast. Lower it by $10 or $20 and they'll probably see a lot more people buying it.

Mentor

TmasterT

Posted
Posted
I am sorry if I am repeating something as this thread is into 15th pg and I can't go through all those pages.I have only seen the first page.

My choice is OPERA

1.It loads pages faster.

2.It has a lot lot lot more features than any other browsers.

a)Allows you to resume sessions and start from where u left last time.I luv this feature.

b)Excellent e-mail client(called Revolutionary M2)

c)Allows you to zoom in and out of the pages.Zooming in is something dat I just love in those porn sites.And da zoom out feature may come handy to tackle annoying horizontal scrolling in some pages.

d)Has a form filler.Though basic.

e)Magic Wand-The wonderfull password manager.Very very handy tool.

f)The search engine tab.It is better than that of FF's.Using a small freeware tool u can even add your own search engines.

g)Has IRC client.Chat feature.Allows you to recieve RSS feeds.

h)VOICE BROWSING

i)Nice intereface and a lot of skins available.

j)Can hide the browsers original identity and pretend as a Mozilla or an IE.

k)Mouse gestures.Yes there r extensions available to enable dat feature in ff but it is there by default and da opera one is beter.

l)Small download size.

+All the common features FF has like pop-up blocker,download manager etc.

I hope I have been able to clear your doubt about which browser is better. :)

585045015[/snapback]

see, thats all true, but you can customize teh crap out of FX...but its still damn slower....so i use Opera!

Proficient

GeeZuZz

Posted
Posted

What really makes Opera a lot faster than Firefox, espesially on slow connection, is the awesome caching function. When you hit back, it actually goes straight back, as fast as you sometimes even won't notice.

On Firefox and IE, the page is redrawn, and often pictures etc. is downloaded/checked for updates. If the server is slow, or down it's not always possible to go back! Opera just loads the cached, rendered page, which is great when browsing forward/back a lot like i do (with the excelent mouse gesture).

Grand Master

Chode

Posted
Posted
What really makes Opera a lot faster than Firefox, espesially on slow connection, is the awesome caching function. When you hit back, it actually goes straight back, as fast as you sometimes even won't notice.

On Firefox and IE, the page is redrawn, and often pictures etc. is downloaded/checked for updates. If the server is slow, or down it's not always possible to go back! Opera just loads the cached, rendered page, which is great when browsing forward/back a lot like i do (with the excelent mouse gesture).

585049115[/snapback]

Exactly!!!!

Opera is a godsend for those on slower connections :happy:

Grand Master

x-byte

Posted
Posted

Opera for me. Tried Firefox for a day, didn't like it.

Opera have feateres which beats all other browsers:

- very good tabbed browsing , also fast. You can also move them wherever you like etc.

- saves session if Opera crashes, restores all sites perfectly. You can also make it open the sites you where on last time you closed it.

- Fast Forward, Fast Back feature. If you browse through a site countless times and want to go back to the main page, just press fast back and it's there... Also if your browsing a gallery and want from page 1 -> 2, push fast forward and it goes there automaticly without you needing to push a link.

With Opera 7.6 it will get even better with Voice support and faster browsing with a new feature which I don't remember the name of now.

Mentor

TmasterT

Posted
Posted
What really makes Opera a lot faster than Firefox, espesially on slow connection, is the awesome caching function. When you hit back, it actually goes straight back, as fast as you sometimes even won't notice.

On Firefox and IE, the page is redrawn, and often pictures etc. is downloaded/checked for updates. If the server is slow, or down it's not always possible to go back! Opera just loads the cached, rendered page, which is great when browsing forward/back a lot like i do (with the excelent mouse gesture).

585049115[/snapback]

Exactly! that makes meSOOOOO mad on FX

Mentor

qinwarrior

Posted
Posted
What do you think guys, i need prefromance comments, i know that opera costs money and ff is free but i need some comments on the prefromance ( ex: mem usage, speed ) ... many thanks in advance :)

584793263[/snapback]

Definitely FireFox. Some sites won't display properly with Opera. Both applications run respectively performance.

Mentor

TmasterT

Posted
Posted
Wait. You hate that Firefox actually throughly checks if the page changed? Okie dokie then... :blink:

585049550[/snapback]

um no that makes no sense....cuz you are going back....firefox doesnt even show a new page. so like if i was in firefox and was typing this, ahit accept, and pressed back twice, it would show the thrad, however without my post. and it would take like 1-2 seconds. Opera does the same without any loss of time. Firefox is stupid and checks for connections even tho its loading from cache

Grand Master

lav-chan

Posted
Posted

It seems to me that 90% of the sites that don't display properly in Opera but do display properly in Firetruck are sites that use poor browser detection. They use some sort of JavaScript and their detection scripts operate on the mistaken assumption that Opera 7's JavaScript support is as horrible as Opera 6's (and earlier), or they just aren't aware of Opera 7 at all. Beyond that, as far as i'm aware (some expert can correct me if i'm wrong here, but last i checked this was right), Firetruck's quirks mode is designed (understandably) to emulate some older version of Netscape, while Opera's quirks mode goes to great lengths to emulate Internet Explorer. Since most pages are designed for Internet Explorer... it kind of makes sense that Opera's quirks mode would display these pages 'properly' where Firetruck wouldn't, yes? ('Properly' in this case means 'the way they were designed to look in Internet Explorer'.)

Other than that, most of the sites that don't work in Opera are sites that use Mozilla's extensions to JavaScript and CSS (like XMLHttpRequest and -moz-* CSS properties), which are not included in the W3C's recommendations.

Grand Master

Chode

Posted
Posted
Wait. You hate that Firefox actually throughly checks if the page changed? Okie dokie then... :blink:

585049550[/snapback]

Opera checks if the page elements have changed, but doesn't sit there and redownload everything from scratch. It's the smartest Cache management I have ever seen. Plus, if it isn't right when the page loads, you just have to hit refresh or <<insert favourite keyboard shortcut/mouse gesture/menu here>> and it will check again if the page has changed.

Grand Master

ZZOOzzoo

Posted
Posted (edited)
Definitely FireFox. Some sites won't display properly with Opera. Both applications run respectively performance.

585049569[/snapback]

As I remember, FX displays websites worse than Opera does.

edit/ Sorry, I took the wrong word out of my mouth.

I meant I've seen more website displayed incorrectly with FX, not that FX is worse as a browser.

Edited by joseph0324
Experienced

StuRReaL

Posted
Posted

I've used opera/mozilla and IE for a long time, in the early version of firefox i hated it once 0.8 came out i was hooked,

1) Full CSS2 standards compilance which for me is a god send opera still follows too much in IE's fading footsteps most notably nested float elements are contained which is incorrect, plus you can't override Operas form styles especially buttons which again is very anoying.

2) I have to pay for a browser, I've already paid for IE6 i don't want to pay for another (comes with WinXP so i've bought it).

3) Firefox and KHTML (aka Konquerer/Safari) are the best and their open source

4) Simplicity, i dislike going into a browser and seeing a mass of buttons and options, I use Maya when i want masses of menus and options, but then maya is a 3D gfx program and is massively more complex.

5) Alias use gecko as their embedded browser in maya and that wins my vote.

6) If a page is designed to be laid out correctly in IE and doesn't work in my browser of choise it isn't worth my time ;) and that generally turns out to be true.

Collaborator

Sputnik.RU

Posted
Posted

After being on the internet for a several years now, choosing a browser is more difficult then ever. In the old days it was simple Netscape v4.7 was my browser of choice...

When the "revolution" started I used Mozilla Suite, a great browser/e-mail... But then I swiched to Firefox.... In some way it dissapointed me, it's not that fast as anyone hoped, and a real recource hog... Also Thunderbird is so slow... So the new Firefox/Thunderbird combination make me think of swiching back to good old Mozilla Suite...

I used Opera once and a while, but didn't like the last releases... But after downloading the 7.6 Preview I was very very impressed...

It's so fast, and the M2 e-mail is sooo good, just fast, no non-sence... And it's worth the money in every way I think... I didn't bought it yet, I see how good the 7.6 final is, but till now I'm very positive...

It's true that Mozilla/Firefox has more compatibity with some websites then Opera. But who cares, 99% of the websites I visit work just fine, and with a greater speed then Firefox offers...

Collaborator

worbd

Posted
Posted
Firstly, Opera has possibly the worst default configuration of all time. Basically some guy thought it would be a good idea to add EVERY SINGLE FEATURE OPERA HAS to the out-of-box interface configuration for the program, which is incredibly annoying. It doesn't take more than like 10 or 15 minutes to delete all the extra tool bars and panels and buttons, but honestly, you really shouldn't have to do that.

It has never included every single feature in the default UI, dude. And have you tried 7.5 or even the 7.6 previews?

As for spending 10-15 minutes to customize Opera - how on earth do you manage that? Use the View menu to show/hide toolbars, and just right-click and remove the buttons you don't want. You'll spend 30 seconds changing things, at most.

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