Opera: Firefox user figures 'inflated'


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Should I change the browser setting to identify itself as Opera? Is there a reason to? How would I do it?

It is one of the items you can have on the toolbar, but I find some web sites deliver me worse looking content when I switch it to Opera.

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Where's the hating from Firefox?

It seems to me Opera is jealous of all the attention FF gets.

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It's been a constant battle back and forth. The Fx team is just as guilty at taking cheap shots.

One thing that hurts Opera is the UserAgent changer. How many people are forced to use it to report as IE just so some pages work properly? That can only diminish the number of counted users.

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The sad thing about Opera is that it has been out a long time ago. A lot longer than Firefox. But it haven't managed to get more people to use them, most webmasters and developers don't seem to care about it much either :( That's why most Opera users have to identify the browser as another.

Maybe they should hire a new marketing guy.

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just jealousy. simple as that.

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No, it's not. Look into this "feud" deeper and you'll just see two teams that dislike each other.

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who cares. opera is a garbage browser, it has ads, its not free, and its not even that stable. it has crashed quite a few times on me and i wasnt even surfing. i was on google.ca and it was idle.

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And FF doesn't crash o.O Dream on.

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who cares. opera is a garbage browser, it has ads, its not free, and its not even that stable. it has crashed quite a few times on me and i wasnt even surfing. i was on google.ca and it was idle.

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Unstable? Sounds more like your computer. :blink:

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Opera's certainly not jealous of Firefox's success. When Firefox is promoted the end user becomes aware of alternative browsers to Internet Explorer and that opens the door for Opera as well. The only statement that implies jealousy was the "sugar daddy" remark; however, they have the right to be jealous of such a radically different financial situation. Firefox gets millions of dollars put into its bank account for no apparent reason, who wouldn't be jealous? Also, jealousy and mud-slinging are two totally separate ballgames, the "rich sugar daddy" comment was jealousy, not mud-slinging.

For the "better caching mechanism" remark, that's absolutely true. Opera caches the rendered page in memory and automatically displays it when needed. Firefox 1.0x caches the individual files but contacts the server before using the cached content and then has to rerender the page. Firefox 1.1 copied Opera's caching mechanism (because it IS better.)

As for the statements in the article, they're almost all accurate. Opera's caching mechanism does result in Opera being counted less than other browsers (everytime you hit the back button in Internet Explorer 6 or Firefox 1.0x, they get counted as an extra visit because they contact the server.) Firefox also takes advantage of link prefetching which causes Firefox's user percentage to increase amongst several sites (do a search on Google and the top search results are automatically visited, which inflates the firefox-percentages on those sites, and Opera/IE percentages decrease as a result.) The one mistake I did find in the article is the comment about how the user-agent switching functionality in Opera makes Opera get counted less. That's nonsense, the programs identifying user-agents are causing Opera to be counted less! Even under different user-agents, Opera can still be identified accurately ("Opera" is visible in all user-agent strings selectable by the user.)

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I'm greatly amused by the irony behind this.  Opera is trying to claim that Firefox's ability to load websites faster is...somehow a bad thing...

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Opera did not say Firefox loads websites faster. It simply said it uses a technique to preload pages it thinks you are going to. This does not imply sites loading faster.
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Where's the hating from Firefox?

It seems to me Opera is jealous of all the attention FF gets.

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read asa's blog. he's a rabid mozilla employee/troll. and the mozillazine admins and moderators take cheap shots at opera and insult opera users all the time.

I'm greatly amused by the irony behind this.  Opera is trying to claim that Firefox's ability to load websites faster is...somehow a bad thing...

if only you had a clue... he's saying that prefetching could inflate stats since it downloads pages the user won't even visit. geez, firefox zealots...

And take a look at the wording in that article...  Opera's cache is "more efficient", because...it doesn't help the browser load search results faster?  Hmmm...don't you just love marketing?  Remember guys, its not "global warming", its "global...climate change."

no, firefox zealot, opera caches more aggressively than firefox. it keeps images and stuff in its cache instead of downloading it each time as firefox does.

get a clue.

Reeks of desperation, plus, I bet Opera isn't too happy with the whole misunderstanding/misrepresentation of what awards they got (or rather, didn't) from PCWorld.  They're just stung, and are trying to shoot back.

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about time too. mozilla has gotten away with lying about opera for too long.

Opera having a cheap shot at Firefox and Mozilla :sleep: Silly Opera.

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mozilla has had far more cheap shots than opera. read asa's blog. and the difference is that the zdnet article is written in a certain way by the journalist to make it look like a flamewar, while asa is really flaming.

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read asa's blog. he's a rabid mozilla employee/troll. and the mozillazine admins and moderators take cheap shots at opera and insult opera users all the time.

if only you had a clue... he's saying that prefetching could inflate stats since it downloads pages the user won't even visit. geez, firefox zealots...

no, firefox zealot, opera caches more aggressively than firefox. it keeps images and stuff in its cache instead of downloading it each time as firefox does.

get a clue.

about time too. mozilla has gotten away with lying about opera for too long.

mozilla has had far more cheap shots than opera. read asa's blog. and the difference is that the zdnet article is written in a certain way by the journalist to make it look like a flamewar, while asa is really flaming.

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Here is the bottom line: Until Opera is free without any ads it will always be scraping the bottom of the barrel of the browser world.

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Here is the bottom line:  Until Opera is free without any ads it will always be scraping the bottom of the barrel of the browser world.

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That's not happening. They are a self sufficient company. No huge multi million dollar donations coming into them.

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That's not happening. They are a self sufficient company. No huge multi million dollar donations coming into them.

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Which is too bad. Could you imagine the stir it would cause at MS if Opera and Firefox were both free?

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who cares. opera is a garbage browser, it has ads, its not free, and its not even that stable. it has crashed quite a few times on me and i wasnt even surfing. i was on google.ca and it was idle.

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The browser wasn't really idle, it performs background tasks like mail checking. RSS used to crash it alot, its quite ok now.

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