Opera vs. Firefox

[zyntax]

you know, i've been using Opera for many many years now, and I wouldn't have it any other way personally.

now all I hear is Firefox this! Firefox that! Firefox!!! Firefox!!!

Please tell me what is SOO good about Firefox, that Opera can't do? What are some of the differences between the browsers?

I dunno, I just love Opera and trust it very much, now Firefox comes in here a few months ago and everyone is raving, personally I think Opera kicks Firefox's ASS!

Mozilla only makes good linux browsers...

 

[Terpfen]

Firefox is popular because it's small and not-bloated. It does just enough out of the box, and the ability to download extensions makes up for the "but it doesn't do everything I want" excuse.

There's no real comparison between Firefox and Opera anyway. If Opera ever made a stand-alone browser, then we could compare that with Firefox. Opera should be compared to the Mozilla Suite.

And all you hear about is Firefox because it struck a chord with the general userbase. Opera's failed to do that, as has the rest of Mozilla's products. You don't hear too much about Thunderbird and Sunbird, do you?

 

[lomn75]

Firefox has a far more customizable browser than Opera due to extensions (unless Opera has drastically changed recently, I might be wrong). It also uses a superior rendering engine. Finally, it's wholly free -- not adware.

I do think, however, that Opera compares directly with Firefox. The MAS / Firefox distinction is drawn because MAS is sloooooooow. Opera isn't. It's a competitively sized download with competitive speed. I used Opera (as a paying customer) for a couple years until Phoenix came along. I switched for the first two reasons above.

TBird gets a fair amount of attention. Sunbird just isn't anywhere near done yet. Phoenix didn't get mad attention at 0.2, so I don't see why that affects Sunbird now.

 

[Nazo]

Meh, opera supports plugins and things like that, just I've only seen them used to add support for things like quicktime. Thing is, firefox is opensource and free, so it's 100x more likely for people to make stuff for it than a commercial closed source browser.

IMO, Firefox is only just recently starting to get into some of Opera's best features (such as tabbed browsing) and has a long way yet to go to catch up since Opera had a head start on these things. Even through extentions, I could never duplicate the nicer functionality of Opera in Firefox.

Mind you, Firefox IS good. Next best thing after Opera IMO. Anyone not using Opera should use it if you ask me.

 

[obyj34]

Opera doesn't work with gmail, so Firefox it is.

Still have Opera for when I have to cover my tracks.

 

[Nazo]

Personally, I run firefox for the only two places on the web I've been to that require firefox (or IE, but, I haven't willingly run IE since I used it to download Opera.) d-:

 

[zyntax]

i see where you guys are going with this, the open source bit will make Firefox a pretty supported browser (a while from now).

i still like my big red O though...it's super stable and has everything I could ever want from a browser, but who knows, with enough development Firefox could get there, I just don't like the fact that this friggin' thing gets released, now all I see is Firefox Firefox Firefox, christ people give it a rest, we know you like it!

As for me, i'll stick to what I trust and what's tried and true.

 

[greyghost]

unfortunately, firefox is becoming so popular that there are going to be major downsides to it such as security loss. I have heard that there is going to be a market for adware specifically coded for firefox by the end of this year. If someone where to ask me, firefox would never sink as low as IE <only an out-of-box computer user could enjoy> but someday it will happen.

Now, I don't personally have anything to hide on my computer but I don't like the idea that someone is watching me (i honestly believe MS does this), so therefore, I might stay with the underdog whoever that may be at the time.

It is about time that I gave opera a try.

 

[Nazo]

I'll say one thing. This popularity Firefox is enjoying is getting the masses to slowly switch from IE to a REAL browser.

I will agree that it's annoying that Firefox gets all the popularity and Opera is still completely forgotten by site designers. *sigh* So sick of sites supporting IE and Firefox first and foremost and maybe Opera, if they feel like it. Saddest thing of all is, all they have to do is follow basic standards as written by W3C (easier than proprietary anyway!) and no problems.

 

[mosin]

In my case, I initially chose Firefox because its GUI is similar in many ways to the old Netscape from years gone by that I loved so much. After Netscape became a bloated crash-aholic, I switched to Opera for awhile, but could never get quite used to it. For a brief time I even used IE, but just long enough to realize what a POS it is. Then Phoenix appeared. I suffered through all of the early betas, but it was worth it to me. I'll never go back.

 

[Sykil]

Mozilla only makes good linux browsers...

That makes no sense, as it's the same across every platform. . . unless you use Camnino.

Anyway, it's personal preference really. Opera's really fast, but I still prefer Firefox. Besides, last I checked, Opera doens't support MathML or XSLT.

 

[KodiakStar]

For some reason every time I d/l'd opera I had some problem or another with it crashing
*shrugs*
with firefox I havent had any stability problems (other then trying to visit msn sites...
now THERE's a lawsuit waiting to happen ) but I like it because it is simple, does a
good job at blocking popups without d/l an add on bar like you need with IE and there
is no ad-ware on it

 

[Tangent]

Opera doesn't work with gmail, so Firefox it is...

Really?

 

[Nazo]

It's about time!!! It didn't only a short while ago though. Officially they haven't admitted to it working.

Well, now there's only one site I've actually visited that doesn't work right on Opera. Stupid WebCT on my school's systems. Lol, they have the dumbest system... If I set it to identify as Opera, I get an error message informing that the server is currently experiencing difficulties. I have verified using another browser at the same time that this is a pile of crap as I suspected. If I set Opera to identify as IE, everything works but the tests. They refuse to actually save the answers, so it's an automatic 0%. Everything else works though.

*sigh* Thank goodness. No longer having to keep firefox & opera open all the time.

EDIT: Bah, when I click links nothing happens. Well, even if it's just me, I can safely say that this proves Opera still doesn't fully work with gmail.

 

[Tangent]

You have to be using version 7.6 or higher. 7.6 and 8 are both beta but I haven't had any stability issues at all with either.

 

[Nazo]

Yeah, I felt silly. I looked more carefully at that tiny screenshot and noticed it said you were using 7.6 preview. Downloading the beta now.

IMO, we shouldn't have to rely on beta.

Anyway, one thing I'd like to point out. As far as the Opera vs Firefox argument goes, it's not actually fair to say "Opera doesn't work on so-and-so site" because it's the site designers' fault, NOT Opera's. Now, if Opera is caught breaking standards, then I'll agree that you can blame it for that, but, so long as the problem lies in the sites breaking standards, it's not a fair argument.

BTW, I know Netscape has been around since the earliest days, but, my dad tells me that Opera was the first. Don't know if that's true or not, but, one that that is certain is that Opera has been actually developing for longer, including that time that Netscape was concentrating on adding bloat and as many bugs as they could think up in an attempt to catch up to the crappiness that is IE. (It just can't be done. You can try and try, but, short of wiping out BIOSes and such -- and av software will put a stop to that -- there just isn't really any way to compete.)

 

[Tangent]

The reason I downloaded and tried Opera when I just got sick and tired of IE a couple of years ago was because of past experience with them. It must have been some time in 98 or so that I first tried it because they were hailed as the best light-weight browser around. At that time they were reeeeally light-weight... A browser equivalent of DOS.

 

[Nazo]

Oh yeah, speaking of how light they are...

Firefox half locks up my ancient laptop if I open two tabs, and even one is insanely slow. P1-70MHz with 40MB of ram on Win95B. Opera 6.x runs as smoothly as silk with quite a number of tabs, but, I'll admit that Opera 7.x start to get a bit slow on there, though it didn't do like firefox and nearly lock up the system. The almost freeze was due to memory not cpu though. I didn't notice a huge difference except that Firefox took longer to load (more swapping I presume.) Firefox was just a tad bit slower at the actual browsing (scrolling, moving back and forth, etc,) which I THINK is more CPU limited overall.

IMO, that laptop makes a pretty darned good test of efficiency levels. Lol, whatever runs well on it is good stuff.

 

[ShuttleLuv]

I tried Opera long before the Firefox craze. I found it to be a decent alternative, albeit with some issues I couldn't stand. For one, it was a major memory hog. Two, it just wasn't as compatible with sites in my opinion. I'm an avid Firefox user now, but even Firefox has a ways to go before it's truly compatible like IE.

 

[lomn75]

Now, if Opera is caught breaking standards, then I'll agree that you can blame it for that, but, so long as the problem lies in the sites breaking standards, it's not a fair argument.

I find that Opera's CSS positioning is a bit off. Not much, but some. This particularly appears with negative offsets.

 

[Alias]

It's about time!!! It didn't only a short while ago though. Officially they haven't admitted to it working.

Well, now there's only one site I've actually visited that doesn't work right on Opera. Stupid WebCT on my school's systems.

LOL I HATE WebCT. It sucks.

 

[Rombus]

Personally, i'm one of those people who get kinda anal about "Bloat". I like my interface to be clean and WITHOUT Ads.

Who is going to pay for a browser when they can get something equivilant for free?

 

[zyntax]

Personally, i'm one of those people who get kinda anal about "Bloat". I like my interface to be clean and WITHOUT Ads.

Who is going to pay for a browser when they can get something equivilant for free?

I understand, but when it comes to a browser that is far superior you tend to get used to it. You don't have to buy it either, and the ad is microscopic.

As far as how old opera is, i've been using it since around 1999 i believe...

 

[Nazo]

Personally, i'm one of those people who get kinda anal about "Bloat". I like my interface to be clean and WITHOUT Ads.

Who is going to pay for a browser when they can get something equivilant for free?

Considering that Opera is third most popular (and these statistics are based on browser ID tag, which is set to IE by default in Opera...) I'd have to guess a lot of people choose to use it. Whether the majority have bought it or not I don't know, but, I know I have. Not to get rid of the banner, but, to support the people who have been working hard to give us a nice clean quality product. Other than the ad, Opera is one of the "cleanest" browsers you can find. Remember, it can run on an old P1-70 more smoothly than the supposed cleanest (firefox.) Anyway, frankly, the banner is smaller than the one at the top and bottom of this page (and a heck of a lot less annoying...) so you don't get to complain since you still use this site instead of going elsewhere. d-:

I noticed in the skins there was one claiming to trying to emulate Opera 1.0 somewhat. It looked like Windows 3.1 at the highest, maybe even one of those DOS GUIs for all I could say for certain. (It is a skin retrofitting a modern version after all.)

 

[Rombus]

“Far Superior” is very debatable apparently, hence every firefox vs. opera thread.

An Ad is still an Ad, no matter how small it is. If there is one on the top and the bottom, that’s that much more of the website I can’t see.

@Nazo, Can you link to your stats? I’m curious to see the numbers and where the came from

Its great that opera runs on a p1-170, that really does not matter to me, same goes for skinning it to make it look like windows 3.1.

In any case: This thread accomplishes NOTHING! Its turned into a pissing contest between Firefox and Opera. People who use firefox are going to use firefox, people who use opera are going to use opera. End of story. No matter what we use, we can agree on one thing: Whatever we use, its better than IE!

 

[Nazo]

&#8220;Far Superior&#8221; is very debatable apparently, hence every firefox vs. opera thread.

An Ad is still an Ad, no matter how small it is. If there is one on the top and the bottom, that&#8217;s that much more of the website I can&#8217;t see.

No no, Opera has a small ad at the top of the window itself. I was saying this website, hardforum.com has a larger ad both at the top and the bottom of the page, each of which are horribly annoying with animations jumping around and such. In other words, if you can put up with those enough to use this site instead of one of the alternatives, I just can't see how you'd complain about a smaller less annoying banner in Opera.

@Nazo, Can you link to your stats? I&#8217;m curious to see the numbers and where the came from.

I'm sorry, I don't know to which stats you are referring.

Its great that opera runs on a p1-170

70, not 170. My point wasn't that you could run it on such a low end system, but, that it makes a great way to compare them. On a modern system the difference tends to get less noticable until you push the limits of things (such as if you had Prime95 or an encode running in the background or something.)

In any case: This thread accomplishes NOTHING! Its turned into a pissing contest between Firefox and Opera. People who use firefox are going to use firefox, people who use opera are going to use opera. End of story. No matter what we use, we can agree on one thing: Whatever we use, its better than IE!

Who says we have to all agree on one or the other? People switch back and forth all the time depending on features and such. IMO, the main point of the thread is to inform people of just what to expect as far as differences go.

PS. Opera has a linux binary. In fact, when I tried to install Firefox 1.0, it crashed every time, so I couldn't use it in linux anyway. Only reason I wanted it in linux was for gmail, so, with Opera 8 beta, I'm pretty well set.

 

[Terpfen]

unfortunately, firefox is becoming so popular that there are going to be major downsides to it such as security loss. I have heard that there is going to be a market for adware specifically coded for firefox by the end of this year. If someone where to ask me, firefox would never sink as low as IE <only an out-of-box computer user could enjoy> but someday it will happen.

No, it won't.

Firefox is set by default to block installation of ANYTHING. A user would have to consciously go through a three-step process to allow installation of XPIs, or anything else:

1) Notice the "Firefox has prevented this site from installing software" message up at the top of the window, and hit the Click Here button.

2) Add the webpage to Firefox's whitelist for trusted sites.

3) Reload the page and click OK on the installer window that comes up.

And all this takes place if the userpref to allow software installation is enabled in the first place. There already are sites that try to install crap on Firefox. They don't work, because Firefox blocks them from running anything.

If you want to use Opera, go right ahead. It's a decent browser, though I wish they'd make its various components (the e-mail composer, for example) optional. They also need to out-do the Pinstripe theme for Firefox.

 

[compslckr]

i love opera, i have used it for about a year, and i really like the built in features, including ftp, irc chat, and a ton of other stuff. the interface is really nice and easy to customize and there are some great skins for it

 

[zyntax]

yeah, the thread did go a little off-topic.

i just wanted to know why this brand new browser is all the rave when a tried and true browser has been around forever never gets any gratification.

but, as long as no one is using IE, i think it's all good

 

[Terpfen]

i just wanted to know why this brand new browser is all the rave when a tried and true browser has been around forever never gets any gratification.

It's because Firefox does what most people need, no more and no less, while adding in some features new to most people. Firefox could be a lot better, and it will get better, but Opera won't gain marketshare until they re-examine their product. Mozilla put out an application suite ala Opera and didn't get much for it. The much-simpler Firefox went 1.0, and everyone wants it.

That said, I hope every alternative browser gains marketshare (well, maybe not Netscape...) Every share percentage that Firefox, Mozilla, Camino, or Opera gains is one less for IE, and makes the Internet that much safer.

 

[MooCow]

...and makes the Internet that much safer.

Well put...

How many years did it take Microsoft to implement a popup blocker in IE???

 

[Shadow2531]

Opera is my browser of choice.

My comments on Opera and Firefox are posted here.

 

[Nazo]

If you want to use Opera, go right ahead. It's a decent browser, though I wish they'd make its various components (the e-mail composer, for example) optional. They also need to out-do the Pinstripe theme for Firefox.

Have you actually looked through the themes that users have created? Chances are you'll find something you like. I must admit I don't know what the "pinstripe" theme is to compare with though. I always select to disable themes since I absolutely hate them.

And if you don't like the e-mail composer, set it to use the default e-mail program on your system (in my case that's thunderbird for the rare occasions I use something other than web-based e-mail.) Ok, I admit you don't get the option to choose to not have them built into the program, but, this is due to the fact that the file size difference is so minimal it doesn't make much difference. I mean, 3.6MB for a browser isn't so bad, right? Lol, and what's IE taking up these days? 50? 100? 500? I wouldn't be surprised if it were the latter.


Oh, on those comments you posted shadow, I'd like to point out that Opera has one thing firefox lacks. That's the option that says "block unwanted pop-ups" which seems to block 99.9% of the popups that I don't want while still allowing the ones I do. Who needs to maintain a painfully large list of sites to allow and block in such a dynamic environment (new adservers appear every day, old ones die every day) when this option is nearly perfect?

BTW, the reason Firefox is slow with going back is because it's set to check the page every time it goes back for some unknown reason. Doesn't occur to them that you might prefer to use the part still in memory. Opera is smart enough to do it that way so it's less of a pain in the rear.


Might not hurt to copy and paste comments instead of linking to another forum though.


One little tip for all of you considering one over the other. I STRONGLY recommend you keep both on your system. You will always find some rare site that just won't work at all with one of them but does with the other. It's the painful fact of the way browsers work.

 

[Shadow2531]

For some reason every time I d/l'd opera I had some problem or another with it crashing

Did you download the newest, stable build of Opera? It is very common for Opera users to stick with old versions or use the newest preview/beta, which isn't exactly expected to be stable.

Opera betas are usually pretty stable though and are more often than not, better. When a beta comes out, you should use it or at least try it. IMHO.

Firefox (any version, with/without extensions) has a major problem of not shutting down the Firefox.exe process when you exit. It just closes the GUI and when you try to start Firefox again, it won't start till you kill the process (just as bad as crashing). It may not happen to you, but it does happen for many, which makes Firefox very annoying to use since it doesn't shutdown properly. On the Firefox window, maybe we have to click start->shutdown->shutdown instead of just clicking the X. So I'm just pointing out that Firefox is also not perfect.

Firefox has a far more customizable browser than Opera due to extensions (unless Opera has drastically changed recently, I might be wrong). It also uses a superior rendering engine. Finally, it's wholly free -- not adware.

Yes, you can add a lot of features to Firefox that Opera does not have. However many just want the same features as Opera while using Gecko and there are no extensions that get Opera's features exactly right. The way tabbed browsing is done is Opera is the benchmark. (There are some extensions that come close, but until I see an "Opera Envy" extension that does things right, I won't use Firefox full-time. Not that you have to use any one browser. I use many)

Gecko might be considered a better rendering engine than Presto, but only because it has a few more features like support for rich text editing, copying of rich text and images, document.stylesheets, *direct* support for XHTML 1.1, XSLT, MathML. Like any rendering engine, Gecko has it's problems and there's really no winner, but I can see why people would rather use Gecko. Presto is superior in other ways. Both Opera and Firefox break specs in different situations. So I would say Gecko has better support for things.

K-Meleon has an interface similar to Opera's while using Gecko. It's pretty cool and if I need to use gecko, that's how I use it.

Opera doesn't work with gmail, so Firefox it is.

Opera 8 beta 1 works fine with Gmail. Make sure you ID as Opera. By default, Opera identifies itself as Opera+MSIE. Also, click the "Sign in anyway link" on the sign-in page. The only problem I see with gmail in 8 beta 1 is a problem with spell check in replies and launching gmail compose links usually gives you an alert box. That's a gmail problem though.

I tried Opera long before the Firefox craze. I found it to be a decent alternative, albeit with some issues I couldn't stand. For one, it was a major memory hog

Usually, it's the other way around and Firefox is the memory hog. However, there are random case where Opera sucks a lot of memory. However, if you have a lot of memory, Opera is going to make use of the memory and it will let go of it if the system needs it.

I find that Opera's CSS positioning is a bit off. Not much, but some. This particularly appears with negative offsets.

True, there are some cases like that. Of course there are some cases like that for Firefox too. I recently filed a bug report for Opera because it was positioning an element incorrectly. However, there are cases where Opera more strictly follows the spec and won't position something properly until you set a parent element with certain attributes etc. In other browsers, the author can get away with it.

Personally, i'm one of those people who get kinda anal about "Bloat". I like my interface to be clean and WITHOUT Ads.

Who is going to pay for a browser when they can get something equivilant for free?

Opera 8 beta 1 is not bloated and starts with a very clean interface. If you choose the google ads, and keep the main bar off, the ads will stay skinny and do not get in the way.

If you like the main bar on all the time, you can customize the UI so the ads still stay skinny and don't get in the way.

Firefox != to Opera

You should change your question to, "Why would I pay for something I don't like?".

No no, Opera has a small ad at the top of the window itself. I was saying this website, hardforum.com has a larger ad both at the top and the bottom of the page, each of which are horribly annoying with animations jumping around and such. In other words, if you can put up with those enough to use this site instead of one of the alternatives, I just can't see how you'd complain about a smaller less annoying banner in Opera.

Very good point. One problem is the "google ads" are not selected by default during the installation, but that may change.


The biggest problem with Opera is printing. Although it has improved, you still can't print images in a selection. You cannot even select images on a page. If you print styled tables in a selection, Opera will unstyle the tables when printing.

So if you every want to print part of a page that contains images, you need to look somewhere else besides Opera.

 

[Terpfen]

Have you actually looked through the themes that users have created? Chances are you'll find something you like. I must admit I don't know what the "pinstripe" theme is to compare with though. I always select to disable themes since I absolutely hate them.

I have, and there isn't much I'm interested. Google for Pinstripe Firefox or some similar mix of keywords, and you'll see the gorgeous theme I'm talking about. It's the official Firefox theme for the OS X version.

And if you don't like the e-mail composer, set it to use the default e-mail program on your system (in my case that's thunderbird for the rare occasions I use something other than web-based e-mail.) Ok, I admit you don't get the option to choose to not have them built into the program, but, this is due to the fact that the file size difference is so minimal it doesn't make much difference. I mean, 3.6MB for a browser isn't so bad, right? Lol, and what's IE taking up these days? 50? 100? 500? I wouldn't be surprised if it were the latter.

Download sizes mean nothing to me--3.6 for Opera, 4.7 for Firefox, whatever. What matters to me is their memory footprint during usage and their general capabilities. I have an email program, so I don't need Opera's, and I'd like to remove it--but I can't. When each of Opera's components become optional, I'll give it another look. This is the reason I'm using Firefox over the Mozilla Suite--I don't want a bunch of add-ons that I'll never use.

 

[mosin]

Firefox (any version, with/without extensions) has a major problem of not shutting down the Firefox.exe process when you exit.

I have installed it on dozens of machines, and have never seen that happen...never.

 

[Nazo]

Download sizes mean nothing to me--3.6 for Opera, 4.7 for Firefox, whatever. What matters to me is their memory footprint during usage and their general capabilities. I have an email program, so I don't need Opera's, and I'd like to remove it--but I can't. When each of Opera's components become optional, I'll give it another look. This is the reason I'm using Firefox over the Mozilla Suite--I don't want a bunch of add-ons that I'll never use.

So you're completely refusing to use a browser simply because it starts up using four more megabytes of ram with the latest version? It's really not fair to require them to be seperated like that, because, unlike Netscape and then Mozilla, most people didn't start out making their browser components completely seperate and then integrate them into one bloated browser. Instead, the opera team elected to make the whole thing more efficient so that the whole thing is more stable and actually uses less memory than if you start up Mozilla. The firefox/thunderbird method has so much redundancy that you see about as many resources wasted with thunderbird as you see with firefox. Load both at once, and you have twice the memory and cpu power wasted... IMO, going from about 16MB for each component to 20 for everything is a pretty good difference...

Or do you just never check your e-mail with thunderbird while browsing at the same time?

BTW, that pinstripe theme didn't look so great to me. Well, it's a matter of personal preference I guess. Personally, if I were to actually use a theme, it would be that lovely TobsTheatre paper theme.


Oh, and I've never had trouble with firefox not shutting down the firefox.exe process down when exiting. Once I had a problem where I'd start to load it and it would take 20 minutes with the exe running but nothing happening (or was it before when it was Phoenix or whatever they called it last.) Haven't seen that since.

 

[mosin]

Maybe Opera should offer the programs separately as an option. Many people prefer another mail client. Me, for one. I am an extreme Firefox fan, but I like a lot about Opera. The mail client would keep me out of the club for sure, however.

 

[lomn75]

I have installed it on dozens of machines, and have never seen that happen...never.

I've seen it occasionally, but far more frequently with IE.

 

[Shadow2531]

I have an email program, so I don't need Opera's, and I'd like to remove it--but I can't. When each of Opera's components become optional, I'll give it another look. This is the reason I'm using Firefox over the Mozilla Suite--I don't want a bunch of add-ons that I'll never use.

In Opera, if you don't create an email account, none of the processes required by email are active and therefore do not use any resources. Same goes for newsfeeds and chat. It's like they were not integrated and not installed.

Opera doesn't bug you to setup chat, email and newsfeeds either so you can just use it as a browser without hassle.

The intergrated features that you don't use only take up a small amount of code and as already said, the processes are inactive if you don't use the features.

You would gain nothing by deintegrating chat and email. You'd lose a little tiny bit in download size, but nothing of significance.