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Why I like the new Opera browser
Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 4:55 pm
by Benjamin
I have always been a Firefox fan and I used to shy away from Opera because of the ads it used to have in it. But I downloaded a copy the other day and it does some pretty cool things.
1. It has a search bar at the top that never dissapears, which allows you to search the page your currently viewing.
2. All the standard features like tabbed browsing and all that
3. A really neat feature that allows you to Zoom in on a page rather than just expanding the text
4. It really is about twice as fast at rendering pages than Firefox on my Linux pc here.
5. An interesting User Mode dropdown which allows you to remove the style sheet, disable tables and some interesting other things.
6. A bunch of other stuff that is interesting to play around with.
If you haven't downloaded it lately, you may want to install it just to have a look at it.
Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 5:34 pm
by darryladie
On a slightly different subject you can donwload a superb developer toolbar for Firefox that gives you all that functionality and more here:
http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper/
Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 6:33 pm
by neophyte
I like Opera.

Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:43 pm
by wtf
CTRL+F
Re: Why I like the new Opera browser
Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 10:28 pm
by Roja
Only responding because you mentioned specific items in comparison to FF, and you may not realize FF offers them too.
agtlewis wrote:1. It has a search bar at the top that never dissapears, which allows you to search the page your currently viewing.
CTRL-F, and don't close it - same effect in FF.
agtlewis wrote:3. A really neat feature that allows you to Zoom in on a page rather than just expanding the text
http://imagezoom.yellowgorilla.net/
agtlewis wrote:5. An interesting User Mode dropdown which allows you to remove the style sheet, disable tables and some interesting other things.
http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper/
Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 11:14 pm
by Benjamin
It's cool that Firefox has all those features. I am still going to use it once in a while. But I'm very impressed with Opera, even though I haven't been in the past, and I think I am going to be using it for a while.
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 4:57 am
by onion2k
Opera doesn't play nicely with Script.aculo.us so I don't like it.
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:03 am
by shiznatix
does opera have any awesome extensions? also, is opera really that much faster than FF? Also, does it ever crash? My FF has been crashing every once in a while and as we all know it goes crazy on the resources at times. I would like a replacement but I would have to lose the extensions.
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 6:03 am
by Roja
shiznatix wrote:does opera have any awesome extensions?
Opera doesn't offer extensions. It does however, offer "User Javascript". Its similar (although more powerful) to FF's Greasemonkey scripts. There are substantially more Greasemonkey scripts available than there are User Javascript files. But yes, there are some awesome scripts that extend the power of Opera.
shiznatix wrote:also, is opera really that much faster than FF?
It really depends. Some things it does dramatically faster. For example, startup speed is, has been, and will continue to be something that Opera *trounces* the competition on for a variety of reasons. If you want some interesting numbers from testing, check out
the browser speed comparison.
You will however, find that your mileage may vary. For example, a number of people complain about memory use for FF, yet on my system, the difference between O and FF is rather insignificant - often less than 33%. (Even after keeping many tabs and windows open in both). Newer versions of FF have been deeply improving performance including speed and memory use.
But without a doubt, few can argue that FF is faster. Opera is simply more focused on speed, and it shows.
shiznatix wrote:Also, does it ever crash? My FF has been crashing every once in a while and as we all know it goes crazy on the resources at times. I would like a replacement but I would have to lose the extensions.
You might want to try losing the extensions *first*. A ton of people find that it is extensions causing firefox to crash and act poorly. For a number of months, I had problems with an obscure extension (The Fangs accessibility extension). An early version caused endless problems for me. Once I disabled it, it felt like Firefox was a whole new program - faster, less crashes, and less memory used. (A later version also fixed those issues at least for me).
Also, consider disabling obnoxious parts of the web. My FF browser used to crash at least twice a day before I disabled Java. After doing that, I only enable it on sites that I need it on (Yay webdeveloper extension!), and haven't had it crash in quite a while.
Your mileage may vary - it seems many people prefer what they want to, and judge based on those biases - myself included.

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:02 am
by Benjamin
It's definetly faster on certain *types* of pages. I haven't done any testing, but I know that this forum is a good example of something that renders noticably faster in Opera when compared to Firefox. I am on a linux system.
Re: Why I like the new Opera browser
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 2:13 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
agtlewis wrote:I have always been a Firefox fan and I used to shy away from Opera because of the ads it used to have in it. But I downloaded a copy the other day and it does some pretty cool things.
1. It has a search bar at the top that never dissapears, which allows you to search the page your currently viewing.
2. All the standard features like tabbed browsing and all that
3. A really neat feature that allows you to Zoom in on a page rather than just expanding the text
4. It really is about twice as fast at rendering pages than Firefox on my Linux pc here.
5. An interesting User Mode dropdown which allows you to remove the style sheet, disable tables and some interesting other things.
6. A bunch of other stuff that is interesting to play around with.
If you haven't downloaded it lately, you may want to install it just to have a look at it.
Most of those things have been in Opera for years.
If you are adventurous you can try their
weekly builds of the Opera 9 Test Preview. The weekly that was released today now fully supports the
Acid2 Test. I think the only other browser that passes the Acid2 test is Safari.
And I always get a laugh out of the Firefox users when they get excited about a new extension for Firefox that has been satandard in Opera for a long time.
Yesterday a friend of mine was going on about a new extension he installed in Firefox that would allow him to automatically refresh pages and set the time interval between each refresh. I chuckled and told him that has been built into Opera for years.
Why go through the hassle of looking for extensions and installing them when most of them are already built into Opera and even with all those extras built in it is smaller than Firefox without extensions.
Opera just kicks web browser butt. Sadly some people are so invested in Firefox they can't change to something better. It would feel like they had wasted their time.

Re: Why I like the new Opera browser
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 2:18 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
Roja wrote:Only responding because you mentioned specific items in comparison to FF, and you may not realize FF offers them too.
agtlewis wrote:1. It has a search bar at the top that never dissapears, which allows you to search the page your currently viewing.
CTRL-F, and don't close it - same effect in FF.
agtlewis wrote:3. A really neat feature that allows you to Zoom in on a page rather than just expanding the text
http://imagezoom.yellowgorilla.net/
agtlewis wrote:5. An interesting User Mode dropdown which allows you to remove the style sheet, disable tables and some interesting other things.
http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper/
Yet more extensions you have to FIND and INSTALL that have been built into Opera in most cases for YEARS.

Many of the Firefox extensions are additions that try to add features from Opera.
BTW, I bet most people don't know that extensions could be created for Opera using Java since Opera allows user java to be executed seperate of the web pages.

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 2:20 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
onion2k wrote:Opera doesn't play nicely with Script.aculo.us so I don't like it.
It plays nicely for me on that site. Even the latest weekly Opera 9 build displays and works just fine there.
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 2:30 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
shiznatix wrote:also, is opera really that much faster than FF?
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html
Check that out and there are also some speed checks there.
You can test your current browser javascript speed speed here...
http://www.24fun.com/downloadcenter/ben ... nchjs.html
If you look Opera just outclasses everyone.

And the worst 3 tests are all Firefox.
shiznatix wrote:I would like a replacement but I would have to lose the extensions.
I think you will find that you don't miss them.
Just remember that Opera is HIGHLY configurable. The default layout is setup for newbies. Some of us more experienced people like to have things far more streamlined and turn off most of the features and eye candy Opera offers. I have always hated having all those button bars some people like to have. That's one nice thing about Opera. You can basically configure it to look and operate exactly how you like. Plus there are a ton of skin files you can use. Plus Opera 9 added Widgets, which I find useless right now, but they are basically far more advanced extensions.
And I have been using the built in spell checker a lot more recently. It is so easy. It will check your spelling in any focused input box. You can even add text to your spelling library.
Re: Why I like the new Opera browser
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 8:06 pm
by Roja
AKA Panama Jack wrote:And I always get a laugh out of the Firefox users when they get excited about a new extension for Firefox that has been satandard in Opera for a long time.
I get the same amusement from Opera users that years later still don't have equivalents to the most popular firefox extensions.
AKA Panama Jack wrote:Yesterday a friend of mine was going on about a new extension he installed in Firefox that would allow him to automatically refresh pages and set the time interval between each refresh. I chuckled and told him that has been built into Opera for years.

I found a page that talked about Opera "equivalents" to Firefox plugins that didn't accomplish the same functionality, took more effort, and in some cases, were buggy to the point of barely being usable. I chuckled and posted a blog post about how Firefox did it right years ago.
AKA Panama Jack wrote:Why go through the hassle of looking for extensions and installing them when most of them are already built into Opera and even with all those extras built in it is smaller than Firefox without extensions.

Probably because many of the extensions don't have equivalents in Opera, and most people don't mind the trivial memory increase.
AKA Panama Jack wrote:Opera just kicks web browser butt. Sadly some people are so invested in Firefox they can't change to something better. It would feel like they had wasted their time.

Sadly, some people are so invested in Opera they miss out on functionality the rest of the world deeply enjoys. It would feel like they had backed the wrong browser.
AKA Panama Jack wrote:BTW, I bet most people don't know that extensions could be created for Opera using Java since Opera allows user java to be executed seperate of the web pages. Smile
Well, hopefully most people *read the posts* before posting, unlike yours. I mentioned user javascript, and even went to the trouble of describing the differences - namely, that user javascript is a mildly more powerful version of Greasemonkey, and
in no way compares with real extensions. Not to mention, ever notice the difference in the number of FF extensions available versus the number of User Javascripts? Probably not - since you quoted my posts, but missed the very comments that already answered you.
AKA Panama Jack wrote:I think you will find that you don't miss them.
On the contrary, Opera doesn't compete, and this just boils down to asking people to ignore that shortcoming. Extensions with no equivalent (or a laughably bad equivalent) isn't an equal comparison at all. Its functionality that Opera
does not offer.
I'm highly amused that I posted about the speed tests, linked and all, and yet you missed that, and posted the same link again.
Try reading before triple-posting to defend your perilous position.