Opera vs Firefox...?

K

KevC

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Oct 21, 2001
Messages
6,365
Hey,

I just downloaded the latest version of Opera and a lot of people seem to like it (1mil+ downloads). I've recently been getting a lotta popups with firefox so I'm not sure if I'll stick to it.
Opera has ads that annoy me, and I'll hafta learn the shortcuts which will take a bit of time, but I'll give it a shot.

Anyone else switched from Firefox? Or has always been using Opera?
 
i'm a die hard Opera user/fan

....tried firefox, just to...um....lets see if i can find a word for it...its like for IE users who are tired of the popups and the spyware...
opera seems to have much more customizable features....and for those of you who say you dont want email/chat whatever...theyare so easy to disable that its not funny..

the only thing is, that the latest version of opera 8 beta...they F'ed it up alot...and stripped away some stuff...which means i'm going to be sticking with 7.52 or whatever the current version is untill the real opera 8 comes out for me to check it out..

um
go here...http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=827152

this is a thread i started a looonnnngggg time ago...this should answer some questions.

the shortcuts are AWESOME. specially the inbuilt mouse gestures....ive stripped away all my buttons except for 2 or 3 for a pinch, ive gotten rid of all my tool bars, because everything has a mouse gesture or a keyboard short cut...

i find myself frantically trying to use mouse gestures in windows to no avail....
 
Opera's nice and what not, but unless it has something like Spiderzilla (Htttrack) or can open up a new page in a background tab by simply middle clicking, then Ima have to stay with Firefox.

It's just more pr0n friendly.

:D

EDIT: Yes, those are the ONLY things keeping me with Firefox. :)
 
WillowHawk said:
i'm a die hard Opera user/fan

......
i find myself frantically trying to use mouse gestures in windows to no avail....
Click to expand...


Me too. :D

I would like to point out that mouse gestures are available in Firefox too.

I use Firfox now, but I have used opera in the past (hell, I liked it so much I actually paid for it). Both are excellent browsers and IMHO far beyond IE in terms of, well, everything.
 
One really good plugin to download for firefox is the plugin that stops flash animations before the begin and you have to click on them to allow them to start :D I love my firefox
 
I've tried Opera, it's not bad, but couldn't strip me away from Firefox. I can have my mouse gestures, my adblockers, my CSS edit, my DOM inspector, FlashBlock, Flashget, tabbed browser extensions, tetris, I love it..
 
Tried Avant, Opera, all those others. I'll have to say, Firefox is keepin me proud. It's the most stable and very stylish, specially with the mods and stuff. Very fast too, blocks pretty much anything and everything.
 
For those of you who like me use Opera mouse gestures all the time and find yourself trying to use them in Windows: StrokeIt One of the best bits of freeware I've come across in quite a while. :)
 
I used opera and I liked it. It was filled with cool stuff. Then i tried firefox, and I never went back, except when bugs would annoy me.
 
Opera vs Firefox is not a valid comparison. Opera is an Internet suite, Firefox is a stand-alone web browser.

Opera vs Mozilla Suite is a better comparison, and the Mozilla Suite wins that one too.
 
WillowHawk said:
its like for IE users who are tired of the popups and the spyware...
Click to expand...
Doesn't IE have a popup blocker now? And if you still get spyware, there is something the hell wrong with you. Just install some programs (Norton SystemWorks and Internet Security can be had for practically nothing, for example) and you should NEVER get viruses or spyware! I know I have NEVER been infected for several years, and let's just say I regularly download things and visit sites with "questionable content". :D

To get back on topic, I considered checking out Opera recently. (I use Firefox right now.) But I looked at the screenshots and it didn't seem quite as minimalistic as Mozilla's browser. I like to keep the buttons and shit really tiny and out of the way to maximize viewing area.
 
Clownboat said:
Doesn't IE have a popup blocker now? And if you still get spyware, there is something the hell wrong with you. Just install some programs (Norton SystemWorks and Internet Security can be had for practically nothing, for example) and you should NEVER get viruses or spyware! I know I have NEVER been infected for several years, and let's just say I regularly download things and visit sites with "questionable content". :D

To get back on topic, I considered checking out Opera recently. (I use Firefox right now.) But I looked at the screenshots and it didn't seem quite as minimalistic as Mozilla's browser. I like to keep the buttons and shit really tiny and out of the way to maximize viewing area.
Click to expand...

I got news for ya...NIS blows! I'm still with ya on IE though. I have no problems at home with IE, Spybot, AdAware and AVG. There is no need to switch browsers to combat spyware...just clean your system fully and use those proggys and you're good to go!
 
I like firefox's minimalistic interface. Mmm-m. Elegance through simplicity. It's basically a stripped-down version of the Mozilla browser, so you can use that if you like all the extra features and/or doing web developement, or whatnot... although, I find most of those useless.
 
I use Opera primarily and Firefox from time to time. I am running at 1600 x 1200 on a 21 inch CRT and some websites are hard to read with small fonts. By hitting the CTRL key and scrolling you can zoom in and out of a webpage easily. Opera and Firefox both do this, but Opera also magnifies images in addition to the text whereas Firefox only magnifies text. If there is a way to make Firefox magnify images as well as text, please let me know.
 
i love opera, i have been using it for a long time and i am really comfortable with it. it is well worth registering it to get rid of those annoying adds.

i like opera alot more than firefox
 
Tangent said:
For those of you who like me use Opera mouse gestures all the time and find yourself trying to use them in Windows: StrokeIt One of the best bits of freeware I've come across in quite a while. :)
Click to expand...

StrokeIt rules!! Thanks for that link!

I use Firefox, with extensions. I was just about to switch to Opera a year ago because of mouse gestures, but then I got a Firefox gestures extension. Then I got more extensions (Adblock, Image Zoom, etc) and they're just great. Adblock in particular is amazing. I also find that Opera tends to not work on a lot more sites than Firefox.

The only thing I really like about Opera over Firefox is the animated mouseover on the toolbar buttons...
 
Sheff said:
By hitting the CTRL key and scrolling you can zoom in and out of a webpage easily.
Click to expand...

IE does that too

Clownboat said:
To get back on topic, I considered checking out Opera recently. (I use Firefox right now.) But I looked at the screenshots and it didn't seem quite as minimalistic as Mozilla's browser. I like to keep the buttons and shit really tiny and out of the way to maximize viewing area.
Click to expand...

there are small versions of the images for the toolbars, removing the text will also make them even smaller.
 
It took me a while to get used to using firefox and its tabbed browsing (and other great features) but now that I am comfortable with the various options I don’t see myself using anything else anytime soon.
 
I personally prefer Opera over Firefox. It's as minimal as you customize it to be. Yes, you can get most the same features by installing dozens of plugins for Firefox, but it just doesn't feel the same and it's annoying to have to install so many. I also like how Opera controls applications and launches them. The transfer window is great too.

I tried Firefox for awhile then went right back to Opera.
About the magnification, Opera magnifies images as well as the text. Firefox doesn't do that last time I checked. Also, you don't need to hit CTRL. As long as you're not on a text field, you can control all of opera's windows/tabs including zoom, tile, minimize, etc. just with the numberpad on the keyboard.

And yes, for you guys that will ask, the image magnification thing is very porn friendly.

I also like having the find in page search on the bar that jumps instantly to text and you can't beat the wand feature for passwords. I have a great skin for Opera and it looks great and incredibly minimalist.
 
I'm in the Opera cult as well.
Opera is to browsing what OSX is to operating systems. Clean and refined.

I agree, the zoom and wand can't be beat, in opera mouse gestures work for everything, not just webpages, and they are so cleanly implemented absolutely no comparison to firefox plugins, you do know where firefox gets its "features" from right?
Opera also saves your last session so if something happens you end up right where you were, it even remembers the back button pages, which again are instant, no refreshing, just pure loading love.
As for ads yeah Adblock is nice, but the fact is, reasonable banner/text/gif ads don't bother me. All the flash/java crap is ridicolous though, so i made a toolbar at the bottom right in opera that has
"**Enable Java" "**Enable plug-ins" "Enable JavaScript" "**Enable referrer logging" "**Enable cookies"
checkmarks by default the ones with ** by their name are turned off, do you know how many resources that frees up? I also turned off repetitive gif animations. If i had somewhere to upload i'd post a screen shot.
Oh and you know those pages that prevent right clicks, and image saves, Opera has no problems letting me what i want to do, not what some korny script tells it to do.

but if your happy with firefox, knock yourself out, i'm done trying to persuade people one way or another who still click on banner ads that look like windows error boxes.
 
Firefox is the life for me!

I tried Opera, just things about it I found amazingly annoying.
 
I've used opera and am currently using firefox. I liked some of the features in opera... one being when there's a list of pictures I could keep hitting the forward button on my mouse instead of going back and goign to the next picture.

It's unfortunate that all the praising of firefox we've done in the enthusiast community has made it targeted specifically for spyware and pop ups. Hopefully the people at mozilla will be able to thwart the attacks with patches and new releases.
 
Lol, I installed Opera 7.54 just for fun the other day. Yeah, the toolbars are shiny, but really. When I want to do browsing and get stuff done, I go back to Firefox.

As many have said before, Firefox is popular b/c it is a STAND-ALONE browser. All it does it browsing, and it does it the best. Host file + Adblock means you stop Flash, on-the-page ads dead in their tracks. Custom CSS file can stop alot of other things too, if you really need to.
 
I got a plugin that blocks any flash on a page and won't come up unless you click the box. I'll also right click and block ads any time I see them. I wish you could block ads (pictures) more specifically by blocking the particular picture. For example if there's a site that hosts the pictures for the ads locally you can't right click and block it or else it'll block EVERYTHING from that site instead of that particular picture. I could pick out little things i'd like changed but it comes down to the simple fact that anything beats IE :).
 
Im an opera user.

here is mine
http://webpages.charter.net/ocean/Opera.jpg
two buttons; turn on cookies, and bookmarks


i love the color themes for all skins, and the lack of buttons. i use mouse gestures instead.

the right click menu saving time for; dictionary lookup, search, or go to url.

you can type "g porn" or "y porn" in address bar to google or yahoo search for porn

i dont have any ads whatsoever on my comp by utilizing the hosts file.

opera zoom the ENTIRE webpage. text, images, and flash games. i play all my web based games full screen :D

great for browsing thumbnail sites. i can scroll through all picture links without returning to the root page.

and yes it has middle click, open in background tab function.

it has smooth scrolling, skinned page buttons.

i can do more things faster with it than firefox and it looks ALOT better.
 
no contest for me, it's Opera all the way. I started with firefox after I finally decided to ditch ie and it didnt last a week. Opera has been going strong for me now for almost two years. Just registered 8.0 - But if you are not willing to register it, paying or otherwise, forget it. That ad screen stinks.

I only have two problems with Opera
1. My lousy bank (Wells Fargo) refuses to support it with their online banking
2. On only one of my two computers I have problems with some redirects in Opera.. not sure why.

lol.... and that last part of my sig has been there for months, so it's not exactly directed at you mozilla people... wait, what am I saying? yes it is.
 
love opera here too..
it took some effort to get used to, but now i can't switch..
i use firefox for pages that opera won't display correctly..but its very rare...
 
The add on extension for Firefox,, "popupsmustdie" is working great for me. http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/experimental/popupsdie/

It stops almost all popups and gives me tons of control.

Additionally I use the extension "flashblock"

Opera???? 39 bucks for a browser?? I can nearly get an extra 512 M Ram for that!!
I would use K-Meleon before Opera.

Remember, as long as spammers, adware marketers and the like of marketing riff-raff exist they will look for flaws in any browser. For any browser to counteract this it needs a very active and dynamic group of people who will tweak and change the browser as the need arises. (easy plug-ins and extensions) Go to Mozilla.org and you will find a virtual army of enthused browser tweakers who are ready to make the add-ons necessary to counteract
the web attacks that are sure to continue morphing and adjusting as long as the current web model exists. Recently I had noticed that more and more popups were getting through my firefox browser. But others were having this problem too and a fix was made and I am very happy with the results at least up till now.
 
I have em both installed but Opera 8 is my primary browser. I cant stand the standard theme tho, so I use the BeOS skin for its clear and colourful buttons so that I can use my browser when drunk :) I have the BeOS theme also for AvantBrowser for when I need to use WindozeUpdate which makes it a more pleasant experience! I wish someone would make it for Firefox but I've heard that creating themes for Firefox is a real pain in the arse.

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But as I run at 1600x1200 I too use the ctrl+mousewheel for zoom and its a godsend. The ImageZoom extension on Firefox just plain sucks and only zooms one image at a time thru the popup menu. The ColorZilla extension seems to be the way but the magnify is slow and not quick and easy to reach.

I like how I can re-arrange EVERYTHING in Opera by dragging stuff around. I can open a clone tab of the current page with ctrl+alt+shift+N, and can open links in another tab with the mousewheel button as in firefox.

I also have lots of Sessions saved for different areas of interest which opens another instance of Opera with presaved webpages already open in tab form. And new to Opera8 is the Top10 button which is activated when you click in the URL input, and yes it contains a list of the most visited sites in your history. Very useful.

The wand keeps track of all my usernames and passwords, even different usernames for the same site!

Opera has so many features that are so damned useful such as the F12 popup menu to disable GIF/Audio/Java/Javascript/Plugins/Cookies etc. And I love being able to select some text, right click and select "Translate" to another language.

Things I like from Firefox are the AdBlock and the Flashblock though and I with they would implement these in Opera. However, I have a HOSTS file that can be downloaded with a massive list of blocks already. I tried the OperaAdFilter but its quite clumsy. I have a list of extensions longer than my arm in Firefox and I'm still not upto the functionality of Opera, and boy was it a pain in the arse to go and find them.

So there ya go, overall Opera wins but its missing stuff from Firefox... and Firefox has a LONG way to go before it gets near the functionality of Opera.
 
Opera 8 now shows exif data in image properties, whoohoo, been waiting for that one. they need to include more fields though.
 
Opera... been using it for years. Since the 90's and version 5.xx. $35 is cheap and I don't mind paying so little for a quality product.
  • Ctrl-Z to reopen that window that has just been closed.
  • Middle button mouse clicks to open a window in the background. How do people use IE and Google without that kinda feature?
  • Keyboard short cuts and mouse gestures mean a huge reduction in moving the mouse around. Great for less RSI.
  • What is a pop-up? I haven't seen oneof these in years. By setting Opera to block pop-ups means I don't see any. In fact, I hadn't realised how bad the pop-up problems had got in the "real world" until I started fixing PCs for a living and looked at the average IE user. First time I saw fifty pop-up windows appear on a customer PC I burst out laughing.
  • Remembering my previous browsing session means I can just return to my previous browsing at any time.
  • Controlling the size of a printout. IE always prints off the edge of the page, so Opera has a simple resizing feature. All my pages printout at 80% and therfore fit. (I assume this IE printing problem is cos I am in the UK and have slightly different sized paper)
  • Incredibly customisable. Everything is in simple editable ini files. So toolbars can be rearranged or removed. Menus competely re-written and rearranged. Keyboard and mouse short cuts can be changed to one's own personal choices.
 
I'm addicted to Opera like a cheap _____ to __rack.. I gotta have it everytime. It's just better at everything... I love it so much I put it on my usb flash drive and carry with me everywhere even to work.. with all my bookmarks settings and skins...Opera is what browsing the internet should be. Firefox is a good browser... but most of the features people love about it were created by and stolen from Opera... who had it years before anything called firefox existed.

Oh and I'm still Using Opera 7's classic skin "blue" best ui ... period
 
What it really comes down to is personal preference, nothing more. Both are very good browsers. One is not better than the other, it's just different. Opera fits my needs perfectly while Firefox does not, even with all the available extensions. We might as well argue over whether yellow or green is the superior color...

The only thing we'll probably ever agree on is that both are vastly superior to Internet Exploder. If you have neither Opera or Firefox just go ahead and try both of them out and pick whichever one makes you happy.
 
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