Dang Opera is fast!

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Just downloaded the newest opera, as I seem to have fubared my firefox install on my work laptop..

Bloody Nora it's fast! pages load instantly, and scroll smoothly even on this chuggy machine. I'm not amazingly keen on the UI, but assuming it can be modified, this browser is a keeper!

Anybody here use Opera as their browser of choice? What are your arguments for using it over FF/Chrome? Any addon/customisation tips?
 
I've been meaning to move from Opera to Firefox for a while now.
Opera is great but there are quite a few sites out there that are not compatible with it. I can't name any from the top of my head but when you come across one, it's annoying that you have to switch to another browser.

It seems some websites only have priority for IE, FF, Chrome, and Safari.
 
Opera is indeedy-doody fast. :p

If you've borked Firefox on your laptop, find the profile and NUKE IT FROM ORBIT WITH A SPADE! ;)

If you go to Tools>Appearance or Shift-F12 you get to the Skins menu. Click on the 'Find More Skins' radio button and wait a few seconds. A 'Opera 9 Classic Skin' option will appear. Install that and Opera looks much better. :)

I use Opera because I prefer the amount of customisation and fiddling you can do with it. If you search for speeddial.ini on OcUK or Google you'll find out how to increase the number of websites you can have showing on the Speed Dial. It is set to 9 by default but you can up that if you have more sites you regularly visit.

If I were you, I'd type 'Opera:config' into the address bar and click on the BitTorrent link and UNCHECK the Enable box for BitTorrent. Opera's torrent feature is quite poor compared to the rest of Opera and you might as well carry on using uTorrent or whatever you use.

Opera is more customisable and quicker than Firefox I would say although Firefox has a better extension system. You can't really get that with Opera although there are widgets to install but these are more like mini apps to help you with stuff not really browsing related.

If you pop into the HGP forum you'll find a thread with a custom black skin for OcUK. You can download the code and save it into a .css file if it isn't already then go to OcUK, right-click on the page, 'Edit site preferences' and go to Display tab. Then where is says 'My style sheet', navigate to where that .css file is, select, press OK and refresh the page and you should see OcUK in a new light/colour. :p

What tchan_4 says is quite true but it isn't as if the sites just don't work, they just don't look 100% right all the time. There are a few graphical glitches that are obvious on the pages. You can try and fix this by identifying or masking Opera as Firefox or IE to try and trick the website into rendering better.

I wouldn't say the websites have priority for IE, FF, Chrome and Safari. Its just the way that Opera interprets HTML, quite strict really, so other sites which aren't coded as well as they could look OK in IE because of its low standards, but look poor in Opera.

Any other problems or questions, don't hesitate to ask or search OcUK for previous threads. A certain Leperous Dust person will be along surely to convert you to Opera, MediaMonkey and Digsby all in one go! :D
 
I have been using Opera as my browser of choice for a while and really like it. Yes, I ahve noticed some sites that don't work but these normally use Active X controls so I just open them in IE7.
 
I've used Opera in conjunction with the mighty Admuncher for years and it beats FF with Adblock hands down. I haven't really customized it apart from removing a few buttons here and there and trying a few skins. I like to keep things minimal, I can live without "extensions". In fact, I wish the dev team would add an option to leave out the email and bitorrent elements on installation as I don't need them either.
 
Ratbag said:
In fact, I wish the dev team would add an option to leave out the email and bitorrent elements on installation as I don't need them either.
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Lepers and I also want this very much. Just an option in the installation process to not have the torrent and email stuff installed. :)

Cmon Opera devs, make it happen!
 
fail at the internets said:
Untill opera gets a decent adblock, flashblock and noscript alternative i'll be sticking with firefox.
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There is a file that Opera uses for blocking ads, called urlfilter.ini. The default one isn't up to much but there is a better one hanging around somewhere. There's also a half decent flash blocker but its not brilliant. And I iknow of no Javascript blocking tool either. Those three features should be default tools in Opera no doubt at all.

If someone told me to choose between Opera and Firefox vanilla I'd go for Opera. Opera v Firefox with Adblock, Flashblock and NoScript, I'd be sorely tempted to choose the beefed up Firefox. :p Opera badly needs these features to compete with Firefox.
 
Ratbag said:
I've used Opera in conjunction with the mighty Admuncher for years and it beats FF with Adblock hands down. I haven't really customized it apart from removing a few buttons here and there and trying a few skins. I like to keep things minimal, I can live without "extensions". In fact, I wish the dev team would add an option to leave out the email and bitorrent elements on installation as I don't need them either.
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I haven't checked what admuncher does, but you know Opera has inbuilt adblocking? its called content block if you right click on blank space on a website and if you search for urlfilter.ini on google you'll find loads of pre made lists of advertising companies you just don't need. I think its the same blocklist that firefox uses except it doesn't update automatically which i can very much live without anyway.
 
fail at the internets said:
Untill opera gets a decent adblock, flashblock and noscript alternative i'll be sticking with firefox.
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Marc has already covered them, but urlfilter.ini sorts out any advertising. And you can by default turn off all plugins (flash etc...) and javascript from webpages in the settings then enable it on a website by website basis by right click and editing site preferences... All pre built in and pretty damn easy to use :)
 
wesley said:
anyone know why opera dont do addon like you do with firefox?

opera with addon would be best browser in the world forever
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Because they've integrated basically everything you need and a more, and with an extension system you leave yourself open to 3rd developers who don't always do a great job and it can really degrade the performance of a browser and theres nothing main development team can do about it. Opera want to remain in control of their own browser thats all. If you need random extras like the ability to control winamp for no reason in your browser then use firefox :p Its as easy as that :)
 
LeperousDust said:
I haven't checked what admuncher does, but you know Opera has inbuilt adblocking? its called content block if you right click on blank space on a website and if you search for urlfilter.ini on google you'll find loads of pre made lists of advertising companies you just don't need. I think its the same blocklist that firefox uses except it doesn't update automatically which i can very much live without anyway.
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Admuncher is a tiny little program that blocks ads and popups and frankly does all sorts of things. If I switch to FF with Adblock I notice how much crap slips through the Adblock net. One of the reasons I haven't experienced any malware in 10 years of PC ownership is Opera and Admuncher.....

In fact, Admuncher is one of the very few programs I've actually bought in that time - I normally hunt down the freeware alternative.
 
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I've been using it since version 3, before it was really popular and it's not changed a whole lot, really. It offers a fast tabbed browsing experience, a good attempt at strict rendering but has a tendency to be unstable.

By all means use it, it's good on Windows but slow on other desktop operating systems.
 
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