Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Should You Leave Google Chrome For the Opera Browser? (vice.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the different-strokes-for-different-folks dept.

mspohr shares a report written by Jason Koebler via Motherboard who makes the case for why you should break up with Chrome and switch to the Opera browser: Over the last few years, I have grown endlessly frustrated with Chrome's resource management, especially on MacOS. Admittedly, I open too many tabs, but I'd wager that a lot of you do, too. With Chrome, my computer crawls to complete unusability multiple times a day. After one too many times of having to go into Activity Monitor to find that one single Chrome tab is using several gigs of RAM, I decided enough was enough. I switched to Opera, a browser I had previously thought was only for contrarians. This, after previous dalliances with Safari and Firefox left me frustrated. Because Opera is also based on Blink, I almost never run into a website, plugin, script, or video that doesn't work flawlessly on it. In fact, Opera works almost exactly like Chrome, except without the resource hogging that makes me want to throw my computer against a brick wall. This is exactly the point, according to Opera spokesperson Jan Standal: "What we're doing is an optimized version of Chrome," he said. "Web developers optimize most for the browser with the biggest market share, which happens to be Chrome. We benefit from the work of that optimization."

Slashdot reader mspohr adds: "I should note that this has also been my experience. I have a 2010 MacBook, which I was ready to trash since it had become essentially useless, coming to a grinding halt daily. I tried Opera and it's like I have a new computer. I never get the spinning wheel of death. (Also, the built-in ad blocker and VPN are nice.)" What has been your experience with Google Chrome and/or Opera? Do you prefer one over the other?

6 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. "Open too many tabs" by DatbeDank · · Score: 1, Informative

    The majority of people who have 10+ tabs open don't need all of them opened at once. Close out the tabs you don't need and use bookmarks if you need a handy reference back to something.

    Or get more RAM. The sticks are dirt cheap.

    On a side note: Opera's a great browser, however i'm skeptical of its Chinese ownership. If i'm going to have any intelligence agency know my private details in and out, I prefer it to be the NSA and CIA. /sarcasm

    1. Re:"Open too many tabs" by EvilSS · · Score: 5, Informative

      The majority of people who have 10+ tabs open don't need all of them opened at once. Close out the tabs you don't need and use bookmarks if you need a handy reference back to something.

      Or get more RAM. The sticks are dirt cheap.

      On a side note: Opera's a great browser, however i'm skeptical of its Chinese ownership. If i'm going to have any intelligence agency know my private details in and out, I prefer it to be the NSA and CIA. /sarcasm

      The problem is it shouldn't take over 100MB of RAM to display a webpage. Opened this very /. page in a Chrome incognito window (so no browser extensions in the tab, clean as I can get it) and it settled in at around 140,000 KB of RAM. That is ridiculous.

      --
      I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
    2. Re:"Open too many tabs" by mspohr · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm "the guy" who owns a 2010 MacBook Air. I realize that this was never a high performace machine and is now obsolete. I would buy a new Mac but the offerings from Apple are even more pathetic than in 2010.
      I had abandoned the machine but dug it out to do my taxes and when the whole "get a VPN" thing happened, I decided to try Opera. I was amazed that the machine was useful again! Instead of endless bouts of soul sucking beach ball spinning, I could just use the machine and it rarely pegged the CPU or filled up the measely 2 Gig memory. It felt like a new computer.
      So, if you are suffering from a slow,, memory hogging web browser, I highly recommend Opera.
      P.S. If you couldn't tell, I am a cheap old geezer.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    3. Re:"Open too many tabs" by mspohr · · Score: 3, Informative

      My MacBook was about $1000 and I'm still using it seven years later... so about $150/year.
      Before I installed Opera, I retired the MacBook and bought a Chromebook which has much better performance... but it did cost $250.
      I now use the Chromebook (Flip) as a tablet... works great. I'll keep using the MacBook until new improved software kills it again.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
  2. solution by supernova87a · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just use The Great Suspender -- idle tab suspending service: https://chrome.google.com/webs...

  3. Interesting by The+Wild+Norseman · · Score: 5, Informative

    For years, no one mentioned Opera except to scoff in passing, but now that it's been bought out, suddenly it's the best thing since sliced bread.

    But, thankfully, Opera was forked into Vivaldi for those of us who were concerned about the direction Opera is going/went.

    At one point, years ago, I paid US$35 for Opera because it completely rocked -- it was and has been, ahead of the curve for years. Now, I dropped Opera and only run Vivaldi (except I have to use Chrome for some peculiar website shit but that's it Just one site, essentially).

    Did I mention this better browser, Vivaldi, by chance?

    --
    "A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book