FireFox or Opera ?

[d_ralphie]

And with that attitude, Opera may as well stick to 5% of the browser market.

the problem being?

Really?  Then why don't I know about it?  In fact, why doesn't everyone know about it?

who knows? opera has blogs/journals, and people like me have been spreading the word about opera for years.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

And with that attitude, Opera may as well stick to 5% of the browser market.

585281821[/snapback]

I prefer that than Opera having a userbase full of noobies.

[RufioPan]

I prefer that than Opera having a userbase full of noobies.

585281999[/snapback]

Ah yes... fantastic... technological elitism. Real clever stance. Keep all the dummies away from our pure, perfect, god-like application, for the heathens shall make it unclean! :pinch: lol

I hope you don't represent the majority of Opera's userbase! I'm sure it's a fantastic application, and many more can benefit from what it offers.

And with that attitude, Opera may as well stick to 5% of the browser market.

the problem being?

No problem at all, if that's Opera's objective! Their application, their perogative!

who knows? opera has blogs/journals, and people like me have been spreading the word about opera for years.

Well, obviously Mozilla did something different with Firefox. But keep up the preaching with Opera by all means :) I just hope more IE users realize that there are better options out there. It's a free browser market, after all...

Opera, Firefox, and other great "next-generation" browsers are taking the web to a new place.

Peace.

[d_ralphie]

Well, obviously Mozilla did something different with Firefox.

yes, yes they did. they threw more and more of their moral standards out the window, and went for an all out attack to get as much publicity as possible. this is very obvious if you check out the browser comparison from mozilla.org above, and statements by mozilla staff in the media.

firefox's timing was also perfect. the focus on msie's security problems were all over the media as firefox reached 1.0. if opera had released a 1.0 version at the same time, they, too would get a lot more publicity.

i think opera gets less publicity for many reasons, but two important reasons are that they haven't released a new major version for two years, and they also seem to be hesitant to rely on fud and lies against their competitors.

but they have had their share of publicity. remember the bork version of opera? it was all over the place. unfortunately, opera's pr has always come at a time when msie was 'good enough'. and now that everyone's focus is on msie's weaknesses, opera hasn't released a new major version for two years, and firefox happens to reach 1.0.

the bottom line, it says nothing about the quality of either product, or even the marketing. a huge part of it is pure luck and being in the right place at the right time. and the willingness to spread lies about one's competitors, of course.

a combination of luck and corrupted moral values? not exactly something to brag about, unless you are a marketing droid.

(yes, yes, firefox is 'good enough', but that's hardly enough alone.)

[Chode]

People forget that Opera's download manager can pause, stop and resume between different browser sessions as well. Making it a full fledged download manager in it's own right.

[vcv]

Size has nothing to do with effeciency (if that is what you are implying.) In fact, it is often the opposite. Processors like really short commands so it might take 5 lines of code to achieve the same thing as 1 line of code but it will give the compilers more to work with during the optimization/stripping process. It should also be noted that compilers typically have 3 optimization options, two of which will optimize the program as much as possible without increasing filesize and one which will do a trade-off of size for performance (you can try the gcc compiler if you want a real demonstration.)

585281774[/snapback]

NOTHING to do with efficiency? That is simply false.

Let's do some comparisons (all these numbers are using Size on Disk)

Firefox.exe (just the exe, no other files): 6.32 MB (6,635,520 bytes)

Opera 8.0 Beta/ (whole directory): 6.09 MB (6,389,760 bytes)

Now, in the opera directory, we have..

Help files: 640 KB (655,360 bytes)

Uninstall files: 160 KB (163,840 bytes)

Plugin files: 944 KB (966,656 bytes)

License.txt: 16.0 KB (16,384 bytes)

So that makes Opera dir - thse files: 4,587,520 bytes

Firefox.exe: 6,635,520 bytes

This is being VERY very fair to Firefox, as I'm including a lot of the resource files for Opera, and not Firefox.

Now take the sizes AND the feature set together, and I'm simply baffled as to how Firefox.exe is that big. What is all that code for? It's inefficient code (size-wise, not speed-wise neccesarily).

I'm not saying this as some uninformed opera fan. I'm say this as a programmer. Given the above facts, I am concerned that there is a ton of optimizations that are not being done, and a lot of crust in the software that is not neccesay, but remains there.

[vcv]

Psst. 5% of the browser market is MILLIONS of users. TENS of millions of users.

That is pretty farkin' good if you ask me. That is more than enough to keep Opera afloat.

[MeyendTripp]

Firefox for me

[RufioPan]

yes, yes they did. they threw more and more of their moral standards out the window, and went for an all out attack to get as much publicity as possible. this is very obvious if you check out the browser comparison from mozilla.org above, and statements by mozilla staff in the media.

firefox's timing was also perfect. the focus on msie's security problems were all over the media as firefox reached 1.0. if opera had released a 1.0 version at the same time, they, too would get a lot more publicity.

i think opera gets less publicity for many reasons, but two important reasons are that they haven't released a new major version for two years, and they also seem to be hesitant to rely on fud and lies against their competitors.

but they have had their share of publicity. remember the bork version of opera? it was all over the place. unfortunately, opera's pr has always come at a time when msie was 'good enough'. and now that everyone's focus is on msie's weaknesses, opera hasn't released a new major version for two years, and firefox happens to reach 1.0.

the bottom line, it says nothing about the quality of either product, or even the marketing. a huge part of it is pure luck and being in the right place at the right time. and the willingness to spread lies about one's competitors, of course.

a combination of luck and corrupted moral values? not exactly something to brag about, unless you are a marketing droid.

(yes, yes, firefox is 'good enough', but that's hardly enough alone.)

585282372[/snapback]

Good points. In regards to the comparison chart, well I never saw the original, nor have I heard a rebuttal from the author of that chart, so I won't comment. Should we ignore the credit that is due when the chart was eventually corrected?

Secondly, you seem to be thinking that "fud" is what led Firefox to where it is. Are you so certain? You are basically saying that chart, and other lies perpetrated, stole usership from Opera? So all those noob web users were actually headed over to the Opera site to purchase their license, or download their free versoin, and were instead amazed by a chart?

A good portion of Firefox's userbase, if not the vast majority comes post 1.0. I call it good marketing. Yes, unfortunately, you have to market a product to make it successful to the masses. What morals did they throw out the window? You're still referring to the chart that dates back to Firefird 0.7? That stole Opera's and IE's market share?

As I've said, I'm sure Opera is a fantastic product... Opera just needs to try to get the word out. Publicizing on campuses is a great start. Keep at it. But beware... you might take on a lot of those n00b web users you dislike, or people who aren't as educated about their browser, but just want something that works.

Yeah, a browser that's just good enough isn't good for me, nor you, nor for the industry, but if Opera is really the killer app you and others are suggesting, get Opera to prove it... to put some muscle into their marketing.

As for me, and many many other FF users, we like Firefox for what it is... an elegant browser, and a web application platform (for which I have not heard a rebuttal, and which may account for the extra 2MB of size in Firefox's exe... but really, who cares about 2MB of disk space or RAM... you're really reaching if you're criticizing file sizes).

I wish all the success to Opera! Even as a Firefox user, I can only benefit from Opera's successes :)

[RufioPan]

Psst.  5% of the browser market is MILLIONS of users.  TENS of millions of users.

That is pretty farkin' good if you ask me.  That is more than enough to keep Opera afloat.

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Yeah, 5% is phenomenal :) I doubt Opera has a 5% userbase though, but even if its 1%, that's awesome.

Kudos, Opera! :)

[Techno_Funky]

man man man !!!

yesterday i was like surfing the deviantart site

surfed like pages and pages

and then POP!!! comes dad

son we need to go out :angry:

man here i wished i wished i was using opera

atleast i could continue frm where i had stopped

i had found some good things in the back pages

but was looking for some better alternatives

i mean i could go back to those pages i had already done with

if i dint find any better

even though i support FF

wish FF will have this feature in the future browser

:)

[trigger_my_passion]

Techno_Funky, you can use SessionSaver extension to have the tabs restored next time you start FF.

[worbd]

Techno_Funky, use Ctrl+H to hide Opera to the system tray. It's Opera's "boss key".

Secondly, you seem to be thinking that "fud" is what led Firefox to where it is.  Are you so certain?  You are basically saying that chart, and other lies perpetrated, stole usership from Opera?  So all those noob web users were actually headed over to the Opera site to purchase their license, or download their free versoin, and were instead amazed by a chart?

A good portion of Firefox's userbase, if not the vast majority comes post 1.0.  I call it good marketing.  Yes, unfortunately, you have to market a product to make it successful to the masses.  What morals did they throw out the window?  You're still referring to the chart that dates back to Firefird 0.7?  That stole Opera's and IE's market share?

You are missing his point, I think. This is not just about a comparison table. It is about a general trend. There are other things too, such as the story on Minimo reinventing mobile browsing, where you basically get the impression that Minimo is leading the race and innovating, when the fact is that all those things are already done by Opera.

Especially the part where the Mozilla spokesman claims that "we can be ported to many platforms that Opera can't" says a lot. He apparently didn't find any other Minimo advantages over Opera than "um, it's free", and had to come up with something else. Because Opera already does all the things he is talking about, and takes a lot less memory than Minimo too, it seems that he takes advantage of some more or less mainstream media coverage to insert half-truths or even lies about the competition. Because what matters is that he gets to push Minimo, not that Opera gets credit.

How on earth can a Mozilla spokesman make any kind of statement about Opera's portability, especially considering the fact that Opera is available for a helluva lot more mobile operating systems than Minimo?

Do you see a pattern here too, perhaps?

Again, it is not just about a specific thing like a comparison table. These are just examples.

[worbd]

That turned out to be longer than it needed to be.

The point is that these things indicate a willingness to be dishonest in order to get the upper hand.

Mozilla is a non-profit organizations, but does seem to behave like a corporation. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but Mozilla fans should be aware of this, and not let themselves be fooled into thinking that anything Mozilla does is good and right. Lying is not right.

[Malisk]

man man man !!!

yesterday i was like surfing the deviantart site

surfed like pages and pages

and then POP!!! comes dad

son we need to go out  :angry:

585284537[/snapback]

:(

Well, Firefox's browse history usually works well in these cases. Arrange by last browsed, then group by web site and you'll have the last browsed pages on deviantart.com at the top. :)

I think it's still not too late for you to get them back, just check the sites under the "Yesterday" folder. :)

[Techno_Funky]

thanks trigger_my_passion,Jugalator for your suggestions

this is where FF losses a point from my side :p

man you need to keep getting extensions

:)

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Just found this and wanted to point it out:

User demographics

10 Million unique users worldwide.

US - 1,500,000

Germany - 2,000,000

UK - 300,000

Japan - 1,200,000

70% shop online

86% spend more than USD 100 per year online

58% have a college degree or higher

Over 50% work in the IT/computer industry <<<

That's quite a huge amount of IT people. Edited January 13, 2005 by Nebuchadnezzar

[arrrgh]

I ask for lies and all I get is a REMOVED comparison chart, now.. I wonder why it was removed? Of course Opera has never made a mistake on their site.

Second thing I got was an article about Minimo. Suddenly a Minimo project leader becomes the Mozilla Foundation spokesperson and is spreading lies. Of course he promotes his own product, what do you expect? You don't see Opera claiming on their page 'OCCASIONALLY THE FASTEST BROWSER'. They claim they have the fastest browser period. Now, I've tested both Firefox and Opera and Firefox renders pages consistently faster (used stopwatch to time page rendering) for me. This of course means that Opera is lying on their page. They are promoting their product with lies and FUD, one might say. No, it's just a nice marketing phrase. Exactly what the alleged Mozilla Spokesperson was doing, exactly what any Opera exec would say if he/she had the chance. That's how it works. Now the difference is that you don't see Firefox fans go around with 'KILL OPERA' sigs and screaming rape and injustice..

Edit: Couple minutes of browsing on Opera's site and I came up with more blatant lies, this time about IE:

http://www.opera.com/products/desktop/opera-ie/

Now how many of the features they claim are Opera only can be found in IE too? I counted at least 3.

Here are couple more links to show what the Opera fans are really about

http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=78664

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.ph...page=15&start=0

Too bad that he doesn't even get flamed by the inferior Firefox users, they actually give him good arguments back. And behold, most of them are either using or have used Opera. So much for that theory.

Edited January 13, 2005 by Elendil

[RufioPan]

Techno_Funky, use Ctrl+H to hide Opera to the system tray. It's Opera's "boss key".

You are missing his point, I think. This is not just about a comparison table. It is about a general trend. There are other things too, such as the story on Minimo reinventing mobile browsing, where you basically get the impression that Minimo is leading the race and innovating, when the fact is that all those things are already done by Opera.

Especially the part where the Mozilla spokesman claims that "we can be ported to many platforms that Opera can't" says a lot. He apparently didn't find any other Minimo advantages over Opera than "um, it's free", and had to come up with something else. Because Opera already does all the things he is talking about, and takes a lot less memory than Minimo too, it seems that he takes advantage of some more or less mainstream media coverage to insert half-truths or even lies about the competition. Because what matters is that he gets to push Minimo, not that Opera gets credit.

How on earth can a Mozilla spokesman make any kind of statement about Opera's portability, especially considering the fact that Opera is available for a helluva lot more mobile operating systems than Minimo?

Do you see a pattern here too, perhaps?

Again, it is not just about a specific thing like a comparison table. These are just examples.

585285209[/snapback]

I understand your gripes. Again, I'm not inclined to comment on accusations against ppl when they or their view are not being represented in some manner (not to mention, I hardly put any weight in mass media reports. The only thing they are good for is telling you what kind of publicity something is generating). Despite that though, I do undstand your gripes, however I don't think it's that big a problem.

Minimo is obviously targetting a completely different market than Opera's minimal browser. The Minimo spec talks about targetting systems with, what, 64MB memory? That puts it outside even the range of most PDA devices. I think Mozilla is targetting those devices in particular for a purpose.. again, because those devices will all be on the internet in this generation of connectivity, and because Mozilla's integrated web application model can allow app developers to develop for those platforms in a very simple and RAD-like manner (not quite RAD, but getting there). I don't think this is Opera's goal at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I also think Mozilla will offer Opera some competition with the plain Jane portable browser audience as well, but again, only on 64MB devices and up.

I see two different markets there, distinctions that were not made obvious by a mass media news report, but which in the details, is all there. Mozilla poses very little threat to Opera's mobile market, at the moment. Opera will scarcely lose any business in the cell phone and handheld browser market.

However, it may be that Minimo presents a bigger challenge in the coming generations of portable devices.

Returning to the comments in mass media, and just for a moment playing devil's advocate to try and justify the article. I read the article, and the response on the Opera site. I agree that it may be an unfair assessment when saying that Mozilla is more portable than Opera, but aside from that, I don't see any insinuation that Mozilla is inventing the portable browsing market. It may seem like that because the author of the article makes no mention of Opera till the very end. The Mozilla rep is only quoted as detailing the features of Mozilla, not saying that Opera does not possess those features. By all rights, you can complain the author didn't put the picture into perspective, but the Minimo rep is just doing PR, telling of the advantages of their product. Even regarding Minimo's standards compliance, it's just stated as an advantage (in comparison to what?), not as an advantage over Opera. Again though, it's evident that Minimo is targetting a different market... mainly set-top boxes, or I assume, larger PDA devices.

Perhaps you were expecting the Minimo dev to start expounding on Opera's advantages? I'm afraid that's the author's job, not the Minimo project leader's job.

[arrrgh]

Awesome post RufioPan, very eloquently put. I wish I had the braincells to do the same. :(

[worbd]

You don't see Opera claiming on their page 'OCCASIONALLY THE FASTEST BROWSER'. They claim they have the fastest browser period. Now, I've tested both Firefox and Opera and Firefox renders pages consistently faster (used stopwatch to time page rendering) for me. This of course means that Opera is lying on their page. They are promoting their product with lies and FUD, one might say. No, it's just a nice marketing phrase. Exactly what the alleged Mozilla Spokesperson was doing, exactly what any Opera exec would say if he/she had the chance.

This comparison doesn't quite hold water. For one, Opera has never said anything like that, even with lots and lots of chances, having been in the media for ten years. Also, there is a difference between a slogan and claiming that a specific competitor is inferior because it does not have capabilities it actually has.

That's how it works. Now the difference is that you don't see Firefox fans go around with 'KILL OPERA' sigs and screaming rape and injustice..

You apparently haven't read the MozillaZine forums then ;)

Edit: Couple minutes of browsing on Opera's site and I came up with more blatant lies, this time about IE:

http://www.opera.com/products/desktop/opera-ie/

Now how many of the features they claim are Opera only can be found in IE too? I counted at least 3.

Where do they claim that they are Opera only, and what specific features are you referring to?

Here are couple more links to show what the Opera fans are really about

http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=78664

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.ph...page=15&start=0

Opera fans? You conveniently ignore the fact that everyone else is telling him not to do that, and that includes an Opera employee. Now you are just being dishonest.

Too bad that he doesn't even get flamed by the inferior Firefox users, they actually give him good arguments back. And behold, most of them are either using or have used Opera. So much for that theory.

No, that theory still holds water. If you actually pay attention to Firefox users, especially many of the one slagging Opera in this thread, it becomes apparent that they haven't even bothered to try Opera.

That thread in the MZ forums is just one of many, and if you look at this very thread, the one we are discussing in right now, it should speak for itself.

[EduardValencia]

hmmm opera is a very good browser,but this interface is bloated somehow, don't feel comfortable with it,id rather use firefox for it's simplicity and speed.

cheers

[GloryFieldzi]

I dont understand why people say Firefox = free but opera isn't.

OPERA IS FREE!

BUT, if you don't want that less than 1 inch bar of ads (text adds so doesnt have pictures), then you have to pay. I've been using opera for 3 years and I've never payed.

so people, stfu about OMGZORZ OPERA COSTS LOTS MONEY GO FIREFOX!!!!

You aren't FORCED to pay for opera, you get FULL functionallity with NO time limit even if you don't pay a dime, but if that less than an inch of text ads bother you so much then you gotta pay. Personally, it doesnt bother me at all. It uses same space as default IE even with the text ads. (small icons)

[arrrgh]

This comparison doesn't quite hold water. For one, Opera has never said anything like that, even with lots and lots of chances, having been in the media for ten years. Also, there is a difference between a slogan and claiming that a specific competitor is inferior because it does not have capabilities it actually has.

What do you mean has never said it? The fastest browser slogans are all over opera.com. It was just an example of Opera's false advertising. If you had read futher the same paragraph I said that exact same thing you say, it's just a catchy marketing phrase. I don't see how you can realise that as marketing talk but then fail to see that the link you pasted (about Minimo) is nothing but similar marketing talk. If you adamantly want to bash something over it, bash the reporter as RufioPan suggested.

Opera fans? You conveniently ignore the fact that everyone else is telling him not to do that, and that includes an Opera employee. Now you are just being dishonest.

Yes, he is a Opera fan. That's what I said, he decides to try to start a flame war on mozillazine even after being repeatedly told to not to do it. I don't see how I was dishonest? I was just pointing out the fact that people are same, no matter if they are Opera or Firefox fans. The bad Firefox fans just are sadly more dominant since Firefox's market share is larger.

from Opera.com: Tired of Internet Explorer and its limited functionality? Switch to Opera for the best Internet Experience. Find out why Opera is more than just a browser. Here are some features that set us apart from Internet Explorer:

You can find things like popup blocker, password saving and integrated search function from the list. Maybe they are better in Opera but that's a matter of taste and shouldn't be said as a fact.

You apparently haven't read the MozillaZine forums then

Apparently you do, I visit there daily. I see way more Opera fans trying to flame Firefox users than the other way around.

[Bhav]

man man man !!!

yesterday i was like surfing the deviantart site

surfed like pages and pages

and then POP!!! comes dad

son we need to go out  :angry:

man here i wished i wished i was using opera

atleast i could continue frm where i had stopped

i had found some good things in the back pages

but was looking for some better alternatives

i mean i could go back to those pages i had already done with

if i dint find any better

even though i support FF

wish FF will have this feature in the future browser

:)

585284537[/snapback]

an extension called session saver would be perfect for what you want.

see, it's better that it doesn't come with ff by default. if they decided to include loads of extensions they thought people may use as part of the browser, then the download and install will become big and long. also, not everyone wants all the features, so by having them as an extension you can allow people to have a clean, simple browser, or one customised to your own needs.

opera, on the other hand, forces you to download loads of crap against your will.