Opera vs. Firefox

[Shadow2531]

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.

Congrats.

However, it does indeed happen to many people (including myself) .

A quick search will show you:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=263669
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=249120
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=239223
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=272452

The problem has existed from way back. They've never been able to fix the problem completely.

Of course many have problems with Opera that the majority don't have. It's a shame.

 

[Luthorcrow]

I have tried various versions of Opera since 6.0. It never lasted more than a few weeks before it would get iced. The same was true of Firefox until about .7 which for me was the sweet spot and I discovered the Tabbrowser Preferences extension. Until then I was using IE shell interfaces like Netcaptor (Crazy Browser, etc).

I still think both Firefox and Opera have piss poor default settings for how browser tabs are handled compared to all of the IE shell programs. But with settings tweaked/extensions it works the same.

But for me Firefox is better for 3 reasons.

1) Lite and compact
2) It is free without Ads
3) With extensions it offers features no other browser can match.

Of course the security piece is a nice add but it was not the motive. If it was not for extensions I would still be using Netcaptor.

 

[MooCow]

Yeah firefox.exe still lingers around in the process list for a few seconds after you close it, like maybe for another 5 seconds. But during this time, sometimes I accidentally start a new instance of firefox and then it gets all fucked up and you gotta kill both processes. Is this normal?

 

[lomn75]

Yeah firefox.exe still lingers around in the process list.... Is this normal?

No. I'd try an uninstall / spyware sweep / reinstall.

 

[zyntax]

I don't get why so many people hate the fact that Opera comes with a mail client built in... SO WHAT?

It's hidden away in the tool bars and if you don't want to use it, you don't even have to know it's there.

Also, so what if Opera turns into a bit of a memory hog, most likely we are all running 512mb of RAM at least. I have a Toshiba P1 100mhz with 64mb RAM and I load about 6 or 7 tabs on that machine and it doesn't bog it down AT ALL.

 

[Nazo]

No no, Opera starts up using a tad bit more memory (4MB more with beta 8 vs Firefox 1.) In practice it's not actually a memory hog. When you start visiting multiple sites and such, Opera is using less memory. I have demonstrated this (painfully) on my laptop when I tried using only firefox since the opera at the time couldn't handle gmail. It didn't take me very long at all to hit the limit of physical ram and it start swapping so much I thought the system was locked up at first. Whereas with Opera I have browsed quite a number of sites without troubles -- this is with it set to automatic memory usage... Opera has an option to use less (or more) memory for caching and such, unlike Firefox... I just haven't needed to use it since Opera manages the memory better.

 

[zyntax]

No no, Opera starts up using a tad bit more memory (4MB more with beta 8 vs Firefox 1.) In practice it's not actually a memory hog. When you start visiting multiple sites and such, Opera is using less memory. I have demonstrated this (painfully) on my laptop when I tried using only firefox since the opera at the time couldn't handle gmail. It didn't take me very long at all to hit the limit of physical ram and it start swapping so much I thought the system was locked up at first. Whereas with Opera I have browsed quite a number of sites without troubles -- this is with it set to automatic memory usage... Opera has an option to use less (or more) memory for caching and such, unlike Firefox... I just haven't needed to use it since Opera manages the memory better.

well to be honest lately i have seen Opera taking lots of memory. my pc is always on and with that Opera is usually open for days, sometimes i'll check and opera could be taking up 50mb or more.

maybe there's an issue with 7.52, i haven't upgraded to the newest yet .

Opera never used to pull this, but it doesn't matter to me much, just noticed it this morning.

 

[Shadow2531]

In 8 beta 1 at least, if Opera is using a lot of memory, minimize it and it will let almost all of it go.

The most I've ever seen Opera use is around 80MB and that was when I was trying to load a 49MB webpage that had over 300 Million characters in a pre tag. Besides that, the most it uses is 30MB, but it only gets that high if I load web pages with plugins or java applets.

Try turning off plugins and java for a while just to see if it stops sucking memory. Opera (in any version) has plugin problems and those problems could be sucking memory.