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Which is Better, Firefox or Opera?
Roblimo writes "Firefox and Opera are the two most popular cross-platform Web browsers. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Kris Shaffer tested them side-by-side on SUSE Linux 9.1, Mac OS X Panther, and Windows 2000, and decided that your choice may depend more on what you *do* with your browser than anything else, unless (as is the case for many of us) Opera is off the table from the start because it's not open source."
Internet Explorer? It rules! You know if you want to do banking and stuff. ;)
This
I'm an Opera fan (you wanna fight about it?) and I was eager to read this article. Am I the only one who felt it ended pretty abruptly, without actually covering anything? All TFA covered was look-and-feel, RSS, and a couple of little things like ad blocking and Opera's Quick Prefs.
He didn't touch Notes, of the panels, or the hot bar, or the way they each handle tabs, cookies, the Wand, granularity of popup blocking, proxy servers, the Transfers window (and how Opera/Firefox handle downloads in general), the user-customizable CSS and link style in Opera (does Firefox have something comparable? I wish he covered it so I would know!), Opera's Zoom, quick enabling-disabling of images, methods of caching (including Opera's "delete private data" button), Opera's in-line search functionality, saving "sessions", crash recovery, little neat things like making a page printer friendly with one button...I could go on all day!
I mean no offense to Mr. Shaffer, but this article is really lacking in content. I expected something more along the lines of the 30 Days to Becoming an Opera Lover site (which is for version 7) in terms of depth. Very disappointing. I hope that Slashdot's Opera/Firefox lovers can at least turn this into a nice discussion in the comments. I missed a ton of features, but you can use my little rant up there as a starting point.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
If they did, they'd have a cross-platform browser and it could remain closed source.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Each browser has its uses.
Saying one is better then the other is silly.
However saying both are better then IE is truthful
Both have their merits and shortcomings. I believe no objective "better" exists.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
*old fashioned news ticker noise in the background*
;-)
This just in, this just in, in determining on which product in a category is best it depends on what the person/user does with said product...this just in, this just in....
unless (as is the case for many of us) Opera is off the table from the start because it's not open source
People who refuse to use a useful piece of software simply because it isn't open source make about as much sense as an Ethiopian refusing food because it isn't Kosher. It fits your needs, use it.
IS, Opera, Safari are all commercial, so they can't be compared if you're ignoring commercial products.
antipaucity
Am I the only one who gets pissed off at these "head-to-head" comparisons that don't have the guts to announce a winner? I musta read about 20 for the PS3 and Xbox 360, and one of them predicted a winner (PS3). I don't care if they are wrong, I just like an article to be concluded. None of this "well, they are both good" crap.
I don't want ads when I'm browsing let alone built into my browser. Firefox for me!
Bzzzzt. Sorry, it's vi.
... debian ... turbo (bio)diesel ... Firefly!
No, wait, python - no, qmail
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Firefox has gestures, popup blocking, ad blocking, site scripting through GreaseMonkey, tabs, themes, a million other user written extensions that can enhance your web browser, strong community support, fast updates for security fixes. And it's free, free as in beer, free as in speech. What else could you ask for ?
Unlike Opera and Firefox, the IE for Macintosh and the IE for Windows are really completely different browsers with different code, different sets of bugs, and the same name.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
The other side-advantage to using Opera for visiting less-than reputable sites is that chances are the site doesn't know how to exploit Opera, as it's (sadly) not really on the general populus's radar screen. I've waded though stuff that would require hip boots with Opera and came out smelling like a rose.
True, if it were open source it would be that much more wonderful, but as for closed-source programs, IMHO it's an example of a company Doing It Right.
Chris Knight is my hero.
Funny that he chooses FF over Opera because of the AdBlock extension. Especially considering that, not only does Opera not have AdBlock, but it throws in a few banners of its own.
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
it'd make slightly more sense if he'd said halal instead of Kosher (Ethiopia=borderline Islamic, Kosher is the Jewish food guide.. not that its much different), as the Qu'ran says that eating non-Halal food out of necessity to avoid starvation or sickness is no sin in God's eyes.
Disclaimer, IANAM - I just read the book out of curiosity
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
...unless (as is the case for many of us) Opera is off the table from the start because it's not open source."
So, you're not willing to consider software because it's not open source? Even when it might be (*gasp*)... better?
I love Opera. It's a sleek, fast, well designed browser with a terrific user interface. I'm also a full-time Linux user; while i like and support the open source "movement", i do it because it's simply a better OS (for me) than the alternatives. The price is right, of course, but that's not the main reason i chose it. At all. Just chose what's best for your needs. Then see if it's worth it's price. Opera is, for me.
I also like Firefox a lot. It's Mozilla sans-the-bloat, and renders pages very well. Still, it's much slower than Opera and the user interfase still needs polish. It does have some perks i'd love to see in Opera though (like AdBlock), but overall i keep gravitating to Opera. Specially because of the memory footprint and interfase (yes, i know FF supports things like mouse gestures via plugins, and that's why they are no good. Opera was built with that stuff in mind and integrates them perfectly).
My company makes me use IE, you insensitve clod.
Notice that as Firefox and Opera compete for the lead, and Safari, Camino, Mozilla, and Konqueror speed behind, IE is not even in the race. It's been lapped five times while it was in the pit, and the driver just woke up.
I really like Opera, except for adblock of course, and mostly because of its weak client certificate handling. On my work I have to use 3 or 4 different client certificates for the Intranet and 2 more for external sites. Most browsers select a client certificate to present to the server automatically, and only offer a selection box if there is more than 1 possibility.
:).
Opera however insists of me having to select from all 6 certificates, often they are presented such that I cannot distinguish between them. Also after that the cancel button is selected by default.
I am very sure that Opera developers never use client certificates or they would not put up with this horrible handling. Change requests have been ignored under the pretence of security, which is absolutely nonsense (I deal with client certificates professionally, I know at least in this area what I'm talking about
I believe there is an option in Firefox to make it always open in tabs.
"open tabs instead of windows" or some such.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As tongue-in-cheek as this sounds, you are right to some degree. If a certain browser has significant market share, web designers will test it for compatibility with their sites, and won't bother for browsers with too few users. The only exception to this rule is if the browser developers deliberately have bug-for-bug compatibility (vs. standards compliance) as one of its goals.
Last I tried IE for Mac It was hopelessly broken, rendered pages as strung out messes, and crashed frequently. It looked like a truly halfhearted (assed?) attempt at a Mac port. Also, it has been discontinued by Microsoft
To throw that into the ring with real browsers would just be a pointless exercise in Microsoft bashing.
Web Developers: Celebrate to our roots! Animated Gifs and Tiled Backgrounds, dont let our history die!
Since Safari was launched I have not looked back. When my bank did not support Safari... I changed banks. Go... Bank of America!
Your logic is so flawed in so many ways. By that rationale MSIE is the best broswer ever, Budweiser is the best beer, MacDonalds is the best restaurant in the world, etc.
Seriously, think about what you've written before you hit the "Submit" button next time. You're either trolling or very, very stupid. I'll leave it to others to decide which of the two applies.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Opera costs are USD 39 for the desktop and USD 29 for mobile.
I still don't understand why someone will choose pay for a browser.
There are good free/opensource options. I think Firefox is the best choice. Why will I pay for a browser?
ajf
My biggest problem trying to use Opera was simply the overwhelming amount of stuff it does. All that stuff you mentioned- Notes, Transfers, etc, I wasn't even aware of.
Opera seems to have a lot of bang for the (big) buck, which is good, I just wish there was an easy way to use it all.
R(k)
From my experience, speed, memory usage and user interface.
/. that said one it's and aqquired taste. Once you get used to it, you just can't get back, and other browsers feel.. mm... clumsy, if i may use that word.
Opera renders pages much faster than FF in my system - not only that, it feels more responsive. Why, it escapes me, but it just does. Even scrolling a page is smoother on Opera.
It's memory footprint is way lower than FF. It might not be important to many in these days of +512MB systems, but i use my machine for more than browsing, and being able to have over 50 pages at the time with a minimal performance hit is a plus to me.
And Opera's UI... well, i have to agree with someone here at
There's a lot of other stuff that makes it very useable for me; for example, being able to change the browser ID, disable popups or plugins on the fly ("Quick preferences"), or to load pages without images with a single click. The search system is incredibly useful - f.ex., you type "g query" and it does a search for 'query' in Opera. "x" does the proper for GoogleLinux, "z" for Amazon, and so.
No doubt. When I saw that it had been modded down, I thought; "Maybe Opera doesn't use ads for the free version of their browser anymore". So I downloaded and installed it. It does have ads. They still annoy me. I then uninstalled Opera. Huh.
If these walls could talk they'd probly still ignore me. --MF DOOM
Firefox isnt at its best out of the box, it just has the potential to be; Its all of the many plugins that makes it the best, so each user can pick and choose what they want to see in their "best" web browser.
Web Developers: Celebrate to our roots! Animated Gifs and Tiled Backgrounds, dont let our history die!
Nice logical fallacy you got there. Dazzle us with another one, Socrates.
"He does look a bit Oompa like, even if his Loompa is a bit off-kilter."
The reason there are so many extensions is the basic design of firefox supports extensions. Firefox is build using XUL, Javascript and XPCOM. This makes features easy to add. The Firefox Architecure is great. Watch it grow.
Opera was my primary browser for quite a while, and it is faster/slicker with a better features set (especially MDI tabbing).
But once you escape the comparison on pages that work, the stark reality is that many pages don't work.
I switched to firefox a few months back and while not as slick as Opera, it is good enough, and for the pages I visit gives me the better experience. So I can do my banking for instance.
Since switching to Firefox, I seldom have to call up an IE session anymore.
Also plugins offer fucntionality I can't live without, like selective flash blocking.
Pre-empting those who say it is the fault of poor web coding and not Opera, in that some pages block or serve poor code to Opera.
Yes that is correct, But it just doesn't matter! It doesn't matter where you point the finger, the result is an inferior browsing experience.
I'll try Opera again (if ever) when they get better spoofing modes, better flash blocking.
Unlike Opera and Firefox, the IE for Macintosh and the IE for Windows are really completely different browsers with different code, different sets of bugs, and the same name.
The situation must be the same with Windows Media Player for the Mac as well. Although it recently got updated to play the WMV9 format, its a horrible application. With some WMVs that I double click on it asks me to "Check the filename" or some crap and does not play. You can't play more than one movie at a time or queue them or put them in a playlist or anything. Its amusing that when you launch multiple WMVs from the command line 'open' command or by selecting multiple ones in the finder and launching them Windows Media Player will decide to only play the last one for you.
The thing that bothers me the most is that I'm finding WMVs becoming more and more popular on the web for some reason or another and its gotten to the point that I won't download one unless I'm morbidly curios about the movie, but I only expect it to work 50% of the time with a horrible user interface 100% of the time.
I'm not sure what MS actually gains from having their own video codec, but I can say that I definitely don't gain anything from it. MPEGs are fine. While I'm on the subject, Apple's Quicktime Player is almost as bad as the Windows Media player, with the exception that Quicktime player is also nagware.
Its not a browser, its an add-on for IE.
From their website "Based on the IE engine"
The Anti-Blog
Turn on the page-fitting in Opera 8 (Ctrl-F11). It fits any page to the width of the window, text/box/spacing sizes are adjusted, images are resized, no more scrolling left-right. Moreover, it moves around the blocks to a more vertical fashion as the page gets more narrow. It's amazing when you take a bloated page and go from width 1280px to width 80px. Now that's formatting!
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
And to add, back when IE was able for Solaris/Unix, mac IE5 != win IE5 != unix IE5. I remember using all 3 and seeing that even Microsoft's homepage looked different in each. Even though that was a long time ago, it still seems like IE browsers don't have much in common with their counterparts on other OS's.
IE for Unix disappeared and I wonder if IE for Mac would be around had it not been for the anti-trust allegations. Even then I wouldn't be surprised if MS wanted to stop supported it also.
Linux Resources
Here's the HTML:
<HTML>
<BODY>
<IMG SRC="./imagecrash.jpg" width="9999999" height="9999999">
</BODY>
</HTML>
The Ethiopian food example is incredibly biased. People need food. People don't need software.
A better analogy: People who refuse to use closed-source software are like those who refuse to buy products from companies that damage the environment/run sweatshops/ban unions/etc.
Even if a product is better from a functional standpoint, a consumer may not consider it better than another product for a variety of other reasons. For instance, a friend won't use Quicken. The product may be best of class but when he considers Intuit's EULA and privacy concerns, he'd rather go to a lesser functional product.
Considering whether or not a product is OSS is one way to say "I like a future where a majority of software is OSS and I want to help make that happen". It's standing up for a principle you believe in, even if you may have to suffer a bit (using beta-quality software or software with fewer features).
My local bank's online checking/savings management as well as every credit card I have. It just works. Please let me know which banks DON'T work with FireFox so I can avoid them if they send me a sweet 0% balance transfer deal. Thanks,
Blar.
Does it matter that Beta is better than VHS, ogg better than mp3, or Firefox better than Opera? In the eyes of the world, the answer to that is a resounding 'No.'
http://www.rayn.net . Funny. Stuff.
Now people, can we agree on one thing:
If we were to combine the strengths of Opera and Firefox, the browser wars would be over and finished instantly for a very long time.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
(say "security" and watch the firefox crowd blush) I hate to say it, but you have to be a real nerd to appreciate the miniscule differences between browers. All the new features do is detract from the web content. (after all, the web is about content, it's not a fashion show)
I will argue that content is king, and the ability to access that content without a hassle is the only selling point that matters. Look at google. It's a dirt simple interface, you type some keywords and you get what you want, no hassle.
From my preferred stat provider, IE is actually back UP in marketshare to 91%. I think that this reinforces my concept that amount of hassle, not # of features, is what sells.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
"But there is still stuff missing, such as reorganizing tabs (supposedly taken care of next ff version). "
:)
.part, and delete them if the file fails to transfer fully. Redownloading a several hundred meg file is irritating, so I find I use wget just to avoid going through firefox whenever possible."
:)
:)
miniT extension does that
"The quick prefs thing is a really big thing for me, but for some reason firefox users don't care."
Care to elaborate what quick prefs are? The ability to adjust preferences somewhere different than tools->options? I really am clueless...
"FF doesn't let you control cookies as easily as you are able to in opera. "
Have you tried cookie culler extension?
"The disabling of images is something I used a lot more than I thought I would. Saving sessions was awesome. I'm sure there's an extension for that somewhere."
To block _anything_ you can use RiP (remove it permanently), and you can use adblock to blocks images (specifically ads, but any other image too). Saving sessions is achieved through 'session saver'
"Crash recovery was nifty, though crashes were rare."
Session saver also recovers your browser from crashes.
"Opera also overrides the replacing of the status bar text, so you always know what you are clicking on before you click on it."
Firefox has an inbuilt 'annoyance eliminator' that does the the same thing.
"And the transfer window is a big pile of crap in mozilla. Seriously that would probably be my number one gripe. That and its habit of saving files as
Okay, I'll give you that one =)
"Another thing that aggravates me is when I'll open a bunch of links in separate tabs to read in a few moments, then 2 minutes later a window pops up saying the server couldn't be reached. But when I go over to the tab, the url bar is blank, so I have no idea which links I clicked on that couldn't be reached. In Opera, even if the page doesn't load, the url bar still has the location you tried to visit, so you can see if the link was typoed or if you even care in the first place."
This is EXTREMELY aggravating in firefox and made me exhibit great bouts of anger. Until I found the 'show failed URL' extension. Now it behaves like you'd expect it to.
"Opera never registers right clicks on web pages that pop up those copyright notices because it interferes with mouse gestures. There's no way to disable that in firefox that I'm aware of without finding the javascript options in prefs."
The extension you're looking for in this case is called 'allow right click'
"Lastly, I hate that firefox doesn't obey normal unix copy and paste rules. There's no option to right click in a text field and delete everything in it without highlighting the text that is already there. In opera you just click in the box and type ctrl+U. This is particularly annoying when I'm messing with phpmyadmin."
That's the only gripe I don't know an extension for. But I'm sure one's available
In conclusion, as long as you familiarize yourself with all the available extensions, firefox is great. But the fact that you have to manually add them, can be either a pain or a pleasure, depending on whether you like tweaking
Ask and ye shall receive. I'll be sure to look into these, thanks.
...opera is off the table because it costs money. :P
Considering just how much money keeping "legal" with software sucks out of the company budget on a yearly basis (it used to be bi-yearly, but now Big Apps are shifting to variants on the subscription model...), more paperwork and POs for a web browser - when all the machines already have one - just can't be justified.
I have no idea what's up with your machines, but I use FF on machines as slow as a p2-266, and I have no such issues.
I've been recommending FF to my clients since pre-1.0 and no one has reported issues similar to yours, FWIW.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
check this page out
After applying it's really fast=]
Extensions, Extensions, Extensions. Why doesn't someone make some of these features part of the main suite? Many extensions don't mesh 100% with other ones. Extensions are a great idea, don't get me wrong. But I run FF on multiple computers - I do not want to re-download and set up 5-10 extensions on every box, but that's what's needed. Opera offers many of these features out of the box. Is there some kind of Überextension pack that I can just install - or, even better, one Überextension?
Opera works mostly OK. Some quirks I have encountered one time or another are:
- Well Fargo has an ill conceived attempt to block access from non IE or Netscape browser. The big irony is they claim they do this to improve security (by forcing me to switch from Opera to IE!!!) Latest version of Opera is doing fine now.
- Citibank has a neat Virtual Account Numbers function that at one time requires ActiveX. Works on Opera now.
- When logging in some of Fidelity' site, identify as Mozilla or IE to get pass the user-agent checking. Once logged in, it is safe to switch back to identify as Opera. All this switching can be done easily by the F12 menu.
Finally this year I used Firefox to file my tax with Web Turbo Tax.Opera seems to be a bit more efficient than Firefox, and certainly is usable for example on my old 120MHz Compaq Armada laptop with 32MB RAM (Debian 3.1, Xfce 4.2) which I configured today.
Oh, and may I recommend naim as an AIM client? Talk about efficient chat!
Aha, that explains it. Indeed, the test was flawed, since I rarely shut down Opera at all, but had just started Firefox for the test.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
This is due to the philosophies behind the features included in both Opera and Firefox. Opera crams in everything useful they can think of (or at least, it appears that way), and Firefox includes only the features they feel everyone will benefit from to avoid bloat, while leaving the extensions up to others.
Now, I'm not saying Opera is bloated. It's just that the Firefox developers felt that the average user doesn't care about mouse gestures or quick prefs, or doesn't use the browser enough to care. Most Opera users I know started using it because of the extra features.
The big problem with extensions is they're never guaranteed to work with the current release, and some conflict with each other. Maybe the Mozilla team will come up with a package of "officially sanctioned" extensions guaranteed to work, but I doubt it. I'm sure they have their hands full working on the features in the next release.
Really, how is it that much better? Firefox is designed to run on a closed source operating system, so what's the point in dissin Opera?? Firefox "supports" closed source 100%, even if the app itself is "open" under a non GPL license.. Firefox does not run all by it's lonesome, it needs an underlying operating system to function. The FF devs go way out of their way to do multi billion dollar for-profit corporation called Microsoft's work for them, yes? But we are supposed to dis Opera, who actually come up with some neat stuff *first* all the time?
Moz/FF are working hard to make closed source for-maximum profit MS Windows "better", yet closed source MS contributes *nothing* back. This is just raw indisputable data, correct? If FF was developed *solely and exclusively* to run on open source operating systems (which I would certainly prefer) I could see the major distinction from the adherents, but as it stands now, nope, it's a minor point of contention at best, a pot meet kettle situation.
You can't have it both ways, if "anyone you" allegedly "supports" open source, you would *stick* to open source then in your development and evangelizing. To do otherwise is maximum hypocritical.
MS is laughing all the way to the bank while it's major work gets done for it for free,(from both Moz and Opera) then later on they can snag the innovations, tweak it and re-release it as their "own" and still profit from it. It's saved them umpteen billions from having their shaky no-security cookies yanked out of the web security fire again and again and again for a few years now, I bet they are *well* pleased for the freebie breather they got. Just watch this "mindshare" deal as the next IE with tabbed browsing and whatnot gets released.
but it's not because it's open-source. don't get me wrong, i used to love opera until Firefox came along. the problem with Opera i have right now is that it will actually *HANG* my X session after using it for a few minutes. otherwise, i love Opera and would use it more often!
i suspect it may have something to do with either QT or the nVidia drivers. but i have no idea.
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
Spatial navigation and caret browsing are two vastly different ways. With spatial navigation, you move across the links in mostly visual order, with caret browsing you move a cursor around text on the page.
In addition to spatial navigation, you can also navigate using the following keys
In addition to the mentioned keyboard shortcuts, Opera allows navigation of elements inserted into the document's head, using <link /> elements, and the entire keyboard setup is customizable to your own liking (you can even use emacs-style keybindings if you want).
http://virtuelvis.com/
There are a bunch of ways to block ads in Opera, one is a beta port of adblock to Opera 8 being developed by opera forum members.
My preferred method on windows is proxomitron with grypen's set - amazing, one install, and forget. Update occasionally, and you're done.
These are just 2 out of I think 7 methods figured out on the Opera forums (some do require other software like proxomitron).
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3