Opera Web Browser... eh?

mrk · 27 Jan 2007 at 15:44

I use all 3 browsers but primary is ff2

IF opera ever gets a FTP extension (like fireFTP for ff) and has a "decent" adblocker that functions as good as adblock plus in ff then I will use Opera but as it stands there is no plugins that allows these type of functions to work from within the browser in the same manner of firefox.

I like operas memory usage a lot, 43mb for ff and 6mb for opera with 6 tabs open (same on both browsers) but I have 2gb ram so ram usage is a total non issue and a mute point for most users who just need something petty to complain about.

I have 22 extensions in FF too but the above are my 2 most used ones and are vital for my daily net usage, especially fireftp which I use inline with my webhost so I can easily upload images to my webspace and link them in forums without leaving the browser window.

That's the only downside to Opera for me, I can live with the bookmarks toolbar not being the same as ff.

CHUDS · 27 Jan 2007 at 16:35

i have been using it for years, never understood why everyone loved firefox...opera is better. i love the way you can drag the tabs into toolbar and the icon will then show up, a much better idea than favouriting

stubie_doo · 27 Jan 2007 at 16:43

I've used opera for a few years now, mainly due to the ease of navigation with the mouse gestures as well as tabbed browsing. I have yet to try the new firefox but i understand that it still doesnt support mouse gestures so i think ill be sticking with opera for a while longer.

MarcLister · 27 Jan 2007 at 16:46

stubie_doo said:
I've used opera for a few years now, mainly due to the ease of navigation with the mouse gestures as well as tabbed browsing. I have yet to try the new firefox but i understand that it still doesnt support mouse gestures so i think ill be sticking with opera for a while longer.

There is an extension for Firefox that introduces mouse gestures.

dirtydog · 27 Jan 2007 at 17:26

Every so often I give Opera another try, to see if it's improved or if I might change my mind about it. And every time, I end up with the same view as always, that it's a pile of poo

Zogger · 27 Jan 2007 at 17:27

MarcLister said:
There is an extension for Firefox that introduces mouse gestures.

further to this point it will (probably) never support mouse gestures out of the box because the point of firefox is that you can add the functionality that you want.

CHUDS said:
i love the way you can drag the tabs into toolbar and the icon will then show up, a much better idea than favouriting

Not sure what the difference is..? You can drag tabs to the shortcut bar in fx and it will add it...

MR_Punk · 27 Jan 2007 at 17:43

dirtydog said:
Every so often I give Opera another try, to see if it's improved or if I might change my mind about it. And every time, I end up with the same view as always, that it's a pile of poo

Why do you think that?

+44

MarcLister · 27 Jan 2007 at 17:45

Zogger said:
further to this point it will (probably) never support mouse gestures out of the box because the point of firefox is that you can add the functionality that you want.

Exactly. Not everybody will want mouse gesture support built-in so it makes sense to allow extensions for this kind of stuff doesn't it?

dirtydog · 27 Jan 2007 at 17:49

Plus-44 said:
Why do you think that?

+44

It has a horribly messy and cluttered interface, and a million different configuration options - it is way too complicated and unintuitive. It also uses a ton of memory as already mentioned, and despite the hype is no quicker than IE7 or Firefox 2.0. The quickest browser IME is IE7, but my favourite is FF2 which has the best interface of all three browsers, and the best extensions (IE7 has no adblock for example).

Richdog · 27 Jan 2007 at 18:15

dirtydog said:
It has a horribly messy and cluttered interface, and a million different configuration options - it is way too complicated and unintuitive.

Eh? Sorry mate but a 12-year old could find their way around the UI... it's very well clean and well laid out and the features are very customiseable.

It also uses a ton of memory as already mentioned.

Also already mentioned was a clear explanation for this, and how the memory cache usage can be fully customised down to as little as 4MB.

Pr0t0c0L · 27 Jan 2007 at 18:17

i use opera for browsing

ff2 for web developing

dirtydog · 27 Jan 2007 at 18:19

Richdog said:
Eh? Sorry mate but a 12-year old could find their way around the UI... it's very well clean and well laid out and the features are very customiseable.

In a past browser discussion, several people agreed that it is confusing / unintuitive to configure compared to Firefox. I think a side-by-side comparison of the two browsers would render this inarguable.

Richdog · 27 Jan 2007 at 18:24

dirtydog said:
I think a side-by-side comparison of the two browsers would render this inarguable.

Several people eh? Wow... didn't realise there were so many. I bet they were all the world foremost experts on internet browsers too.

Just kidding but I think you as well as anyone (well ok maybe besides CBS) should know that nothing is inarguable... but I honestly can't see what you mean here. The first thing I notced when I loaded it up was how cleanly laid out everything was... and how intuitive the menu and options screens were.

dirtydog · 27 Jan 2007 at 18:27

Another killer app feature in Firefox is the find-as-you-type, which IIRC Opera doesn't have, and nor does any other browser on PC/Mac that I know of.

Hamster · 27 Jan 2007 at 18:34

Been using Opera for several years now. It used to have issues with sites like gmail and my internet banking site. Now it's more recognised i haven't used IE at all for nearly a year. Fantastic browser and very easy to customise.

m

mrk · 27 Jan 2007 at 18:46

Also the built in content blocker is useless at collapsing blocked content and maintaining future content via wildcards, look at this as an example of another forum i browse often:

Mekrel · 27 Jan 2007 at 20:19

I don't use Opera because it's crap for web developers to use. Firefox has Web developer toolbar by Chris Pedwick (iirc, that is his name) which makes web design so much easier.

Opera has a web developer package, but it's not even half of what the Firefox extension is.

Saying that, Opera is a nice browser - if I didn't use the Web dev toolbar of Firefox so much, I probably would switch. Also, Opera adblocking (you can do a .ini file block and CSS blocking) is hard to setup compared to Adblock for Firefox, and Firefox adblock also gets rid of any parent element that the ad is sat within, when I used CSS/URL filtering with Opera - it left fugly gaps all over web pages where the ads were (See mrk's screengrab).

If it improved on that, then I would most likely switch.

Jotun · 27 Jan 2007 at 20:28

I used to use opera but a few small things made me change back to Firefox. The main issue I had with it, is that when loading very large pages, it would max out one of my CPU cores, so stop responding, which got very annoying as I browse digg, and the comment pages can be *huge* (over 1000 comments on some stories) and also with flash videos it would lock up for about 1 second while playing, which happened every few minutes. I found it extremely frustrating after a few weeks so I am back with Firefox after several years of opera.

Something I found great that Firefox lacks, is drag and drop in opera. You can drag a tab out of the program and it spawns a new window with it in. Pretty nifty

Good to see that like Opera, Firefox lets you drag tabs between different windows

Another thing I miss is ctrl-alt-z opens the most recently closed tab, I've not found an extension to do this in Firefox, and can't find a shortcut key for it, so have to select it from a drop down list.

I plan on trying it again at the next release, and when the flash player is updated, but till then I'm back with Firefox once more.

BoomAM · 27 Jan 2007 at 23:38

Ive been using Opera for years now, i still have FF installed, but Opera for me is just better. The fact that the interface can be reconfigured exactely how i want is great. Firefox cant do that.

Memory usage is a debatable. Ive seen it use less than FF, and more than FF.
But the simple fact of the matter is that as long as Opera is smooth, and the rest of the system is smooth, then who cares how much memory it uses? Memorys there to be used, not so we can take notes of how little our system uses and then post it on a forum to extend our e-penises.

dirtydog · 28 Jan 2007 at 05:30

BoomAM said:
Ive been using Opera for years now, i still have FF installed, but Opera for me is just better. The fact that the interface can be reconfigured exactely how i want is great. Firefox cant do that.

Memory usage is a debatable. Ive seen it use less than FF, and more than FF.
But the simple fact of the matter is that as long as Opera is smooth, and the rest of the system is smooth, then who cares how much memory it uses? Memorys there to be used, not so we can take notes of how little our system uses and then post it on a forum to extend our e-penises.

I don't think people's concern about memory usage is anything to do with winning approval from strangers on an internet forum about how low it is :rolleyes: