Opera versus Firefox

[Shadow Skill]

I occassionalyl download Opera to see what is new with that browser, and I know alot of somewhat security aware windows users prefer Opera over firefox, and I am sure there are plenty of Linux users who prefer Opera to Firefox. My question to all of yuo Opera users is simply what advantages does it have over Firefox if any? I personally don't see any and I was hoping some Opera users could enlighten me about some of the wonders of Opera that I might be missing.

[imdeemvp]

Used once didnt like....I think firefox is better over all.

[Shadow Skill]

Used once didnt like....I think firefox is better over all.Using the Beta right now and it seems very capable but very, very cluttered and I am not talking about the ad bar which I barely even notice. What is with trying to charge users effectively 40usd for a wb browser anyway? But what exactly didn't you like about it MVP?

[the_profiler]

i tried making a webpage with frames.. all written on standard-compliant code :cool: well.. works fine on firefox, but not on Opera..

[kosmosik]

I remember Opera (6.x) to be much faster than Mozilla... but that could change with newer Opera versions...

[grnchile]

I've always had trouble printing with Opera - especially in the presence of frames. The formatting is often wrong and content is sometimes missing. I observed this over several major versions, but haven't tried it on the most recent one, so YMMV.

[LiNuX-CrUsAdEr]

Hi Guyz,

Do anyone of you have a comparison report between mozilla and firefox, or much better if you could include the other browsers freely available now. I guess that report would be a good basis wether mozilla (firefox) is better than opera. Much better if you could use their latest and stable release in the comparison. Thanks.

[the_profiler]

Hi Guyz,
Do anyone of you have a comparison report between mozilla and firefox, or much better if you could include the other browsers freely available now. I guess that report would be a good basis wether mozilla (firefox) is better than opera. Much better if you could use their latest and stable release in the comparison. Thanks.

be specific because firefox is different from the original mozilla.

[telmo]

What is there to compare? I find Opera really off track...

[kosmosik]

I recall Opera is bit faster than Mozilla/Firefox (but printing sucks in Opera - slow)... also Opera uses Qt so it fits better if you are KDE user... I don't know... I've used Opera for a while and it is in general comparable to Firefox (speed, browsing, features) - of course in user experience way, overall Opera is closed and you have to pay for it so it has no comparsion to Firefox... Opera's features that I've found nice were f.e. (mostly interface features, not engine itself):

* ability to take notes attached to given webpage
* ability to make loads of stuff with downloads - f.e. pass download URL directly to other application, or sort downloaded files to different directories depending on filetype
* print dialog in Opera is better designed (but printing itself sucks) - f.e. in Firefox you get a list of installed printers as cryptic names f.e. "PostScript\HP" etc. - Opera has it more user friendly.

but for me only Opera 6.x is worth attention - it runs on very old machines where Firefox simply won't run (it will like after 3 min. and choking on every operation). of course 6.x is quite limited in features but it is still better than dillo or netscape4 - and only such work on really slow systems (f.e. P133 32MB RAM)...

[veritas]

Well, I'll be trying Opera since I can't get java to run in firefox. If you search you'll find many in the same boat. Browser just crashes to desktop after I'm certain I've followed the instructions correctly and created the correct link in the correct place. Lack of java is a nontrivial issue and I'm curious at how I' ve seen no real help from Mozilla or Fedora devs about this. I can't claim it won't be a problem in Opera as I haven't tried opera yet.

[foolish]

Opera is a OK browser, a decent mail client, an fine rss-reader and a doable news-reader. But who needs all of that? Firefox is great because it's less, it does what it's supposed to do and just that. Same goes for thunderbird.

[digitalchaos]

I am a big opera fan. I use firefox sometimes, like at school, but at home it's opera all the way.
Some things I like better:
-Opera will never open a new browser window unless you tell it to, everything it opens gets tabbed,
-Opera pioneered the tabed window browsing
-Opera has a "Open in background Tab" feature
-Hitting the Left Then Right mouse buttons will move forward while Right then Left will move you back a page
-I can add many more links into the quick launch bar then in firefox
-You can zoom webpages, making the text and images biger, good if you use a high rez or have the monitor far away
-There are many many more configuration options that often come in handy.

I know that this is useless, if you use firefox you're not going to change, and if you're a opera user you're not going to switch, but hey maybe you should just give the other side a shot, try it out for a day and see what you're missing.

Well I know we can all agree, at least it's not IE.

[DaBlade]

Firefox is the best! :D

[kosmosik]

-Opera will never open a new browser window unless you tell it to, everything it opens gets tabbed,
same with Firefox - the setting is hidden in about:config but you can do this... look at Firefox page and > tips...

-Opera pioneered the tabed window browsing
so? does it matter?

-Opera has a "Open in background Tab" feature
you mean that when you click on link it opens in background tab? Firefox does this also - you can change it to force Firefox to focus newly opened tabs...

-Hitting the Left Then Right mouse buttons will move forward while Right then Left will move you back a page
these are called mouse gestures. I belive that you can do this with Firefox also - using some addons - it is like Firefox is meant to be modular - you get base browser and you add addons/modules to it that do certain function...

-I can add many more links into the quick launch bar then in firefox
? you've set smaller font? :) how do you do that. I've got bookmarks arranged into folders in my personal bar...

-You can zoom webpages, making the text and images biger, good if you use a high rez or have the monitor far away
there is an addon for that :P

-There are many many more configuration options that often come in handy.
yes but it also can be considered as too many of them - config dialog is little crippled so
you have to poke around it some thime to find particular option that is obvious.

disclaimer: note that I am not saying that Firefox rulez or Opera sux - I just say that some things you have mentioned can be done with Firefox...

I as for configuration I find it more user friendly to hide some options... they are still accessible via about:config page - some options are quite obscure and should be never exposed to user - but I usually like to configure software to the extreemes - that is why I like Linux...

I know that this is useless, if you use firefox you're not going to change, and if you're a opera user you're not going to switch, but hey maybe you should just give the other side a shot, try it out for a day and see what you're missing.
I've used Opera quite long time. I've found Firefox slow, buggy and incomplete. but recently I installed 1.0 version and I find that it is well done and overall it works better for me than Opera - so I use Firefox now... main things against Opera were that its printing sux (printouts take ages to come out - there is no way to scale fonts, if I scale the print it is just smaller sheet so it wastes paper) and it has some stability issues (but I was using beta version - it tended to freeze for like 10s once 5 minutes. I was forced to use beta since Gmail won't work with older versions)... also way Opera manages stored passwords (Wand?) is inconvinient for me - I really think they should fix printing and redesign password system...

[kosmosik]

also another plus for Firefox is that it is open... so I install FC3 and get Firefox installed with it. version that I am using right now came as RPM for my distro. the print and open/save dialogs look the same as other GNOME apps are using... Opera's open/save dialogs (and printing) is like tottaly different than everything else (be it GNOME or KDE - it just don't fits anywhere). not like it is issue for me (visual apperearance) but it is issue for less technical users.

[Deks]

I think Firefox is a little bit better than Opera.

[PhilD]

I can't stand Firefox, although i think it's because i've used opera for years.

Firefox just seems so slow, and the layout is a sham... took me 10-15mins to get something that remotely made sense, and even then it seems to take me forever to do all the things i can do in opera... namely navigate through pages.

With that said, somethings are a joke in opera, i can't use my only banking for certain banks, have to use firefox... what makes this interesting is opera for windows handles them fine... but not opera for linux... both v.7.5

I'll keep using Opera but I do see why people prefer Firefox, i guess it just takes getting used to if you are used to Opera.

BTW.. number one thing that annoyed me about Firefox now that i remember it... in opera you close a tab and it opens the last one you had open, it remembers the order of the tabs. In firefox it just opens the one next to the closed tab. It drove me insane. There was probably an option to disable it, but i couldn't find it :)

[carlc]

I like opera and firefox both. I used opera in the past but switched to firefox when it came out. I thnk advantages of Opera are its speed and features like mouse gestures. However, it does display some pages incorrectly. I thnk FIrefox is great and you can not beat the price, $0.00!

[kosmosik]

BTW.. number one thing that annoyed me about Firefox now that i remember it... in opera you close a tab and it opens the last one you had open, it remembers the order of the tabs. In firefox it just opens the one next to the closed tab. It drove me insane. There was probably an option to disable it, but i couldn't find it :)
for Mozilla there was an addon called like "tabbed browsing extension" I think it can do what you need... I don't know if it is aviable for firefox but it should be. after all extensions/addons are writen in interpreted standard language which does not change (it is standardized) so properly writen extensions/addons shall work with both (mozilla/firefox)...

[Finalzone]

for Mozilla there was an addon called like "tabbed browsing extension" I think it can do what you need... I don't know if it is aviable for firefox but it should be.

I confirm tabbed browsing extension is available for Firefox.

[PhilD]

Excellent, trying hard to like firefox, am installing extensions all over the shop to try and get it to function as opera :)

Maybe it's not too far off my move from opera to firefox (which l accept is inevitable)

[comsparks]

Veritas Said

Well, I'll be trying Opera since I can't get java to run in firefox.

Go to the URL listed below and scroll down to How do I install Java?
http://www.fedorafaq.org/

If you follow the instructions to the letter it will install Java on Firefox and or Mozilla. Afterwords it will run the script as well apps and all functions. There are several test pages out there you can check after you reboot to test the Java on.

Enjoy!

[Void Main]

Open vs Closed, I pick open.

[dickinsd]

I moved to firefox, slowly, didn't really like moving from IE, but then I installed FC, and everyone was talking about firefox all of a sudden, so I installed it.

Now I love it ESPECIALLY tabbed browsing. Firefox is installed on all of my machines now whether linux or XP.

Earlier this eve I was asked to get opera for my sister, not too sure why, but I downloaded and installed it on her machine (XP) first thoughts where not too good, I didn't like its look or feel, and the initial look (tool bars etc) yuk.

A bit of tinkering, and I got to be honest I think it is pretty damn nice, seems fast, and it seems to deal with things a little different than FF.

Only thing I don't like is the free version includes advertising (google adds) but it only takes a small amount of room, so its not too bad.

The zoom feature is great, and the ability to turn off images, excellent if your on a slow internet connection.

I do really like it, but don't really think it will take FF's place on my computer.

Will have to see what its like on linux I suppose.

Oh, anyone that knows anything about web design etc. can you look at this page.

www.rndinternet.co.uk

For some reason IE seems to be the only browser that can display that page correctly, FF seems to think there are missing images and opera just display the image (mouse logo) with no text to the sides?

Anyone got any tips, would appreciate them.

Dave

[Finalzone]

I just read the page source of this site http://www.rndinternet.co.uk/ and noticed this: urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml. The script used to display that image is from Microsoft software meaning the page is optimized for Internet Explorer.

[dickinsd]

Thanx for tip.

well we're due to change it some time in March/april, plans are underway for a graphical page, made with fireworks, not something I am a big fan of, but we'll see.

thanx for the tip

Dave

[Finalzone]

You are welcome. For graphical page, make sure to test it on different browsers to see the problem.

[chiku31]

I just tried out opera7.5 with FC3 and I wasn't able to make it to work with mplayer-plugin and realplayer-plugin. I also tried it in my windows xp machine and still couldn't get windows media plugins to work. My final word is that firefox rocks.

[Rock]

Firefox is better, Opera is actually slower than Firefox. My internet is supposed to be 5Mbps and Opera only runs at 2.4Mbps while Firefox runs at 4.5Mbps on both Windows and Linux.

[Webby]

I prefer Opera, I liek hte Mouse Guestures, the email client built in, and the way the tabs are done is better than any other browser, imo.

I barely notice the ad.

[sanjay_ankur]

prefer opera too... faster than firefox... using the 9.5 version... pretty stable.. cant comment on the printing bit.. please give this opera a try ..

[Wayne]

OK Ankur, enough is enough. The last thread you posted to was last used in January and this one is three years old! Will you stop posting to old threads!
Wayne