Opera vs. Firefox

[Huey Kruthas]

There was some debate in the other thread of what is better Firefox or Opera, so to prevent spam in that thread, here ya go.

I, for one, believe opera is the best. It can hold many webpages in one page (hard to explain without using it), so it doesn't overcrowd your bottom toolbar (for windows users out there). Sometimes Opera messes up when loading long pages (not big byte wise, but long as in scrolling down), so I will load up firefox for that page, but other than that, Opera is the excellentest.

[MasJ]

Actually, I Firefox can do the same thing too, if you're reffering to Tabbed browsing..

[GODJonez]

Yeah, but Opera has never acted weird on long pages for me. Or how about a page with over 10000 lines of text ? No problemo

[Mikey_]

i've never used opera, only IE and firefox. is opera for pc's and macs? i use mostly IE and firefox for when something messed up in IE (which is often). so since i've never used opera and i have to choose i say firefox

[Sir Zaphanos]

I don't know about Opera (never tried it), but I use Firefox and I like it, so...
I'll say Firefox.

[Chaos]

I'm using Firefox for a very long time.

Never had any problems with it, so I'll go with firefox.

[Norgus]

Hmm is opera open source?
I must say from the time I tried it I thought it was good but I never bothered learning the features.

Also I remember it being a rather clunky interface and not so much space to fit the actual web page being viewed (due to the advertisement and other chunky feeling stuff).

Now bearing thats about all I know about and can remember about Opera (so not entirely fair, as i always use firefox)
I perfer firefox because it can have as many features as you select (important, as I don't like having features installed I will never use) and be as thin or bloated as you want. The skins can make a vast difference to the experience and I enjoy having the security settings just as I want.

[polobunny]

I used Opera before, but Firefox was just way better, simply because it has a plugin function built-in. That my friends, mean incredibly fast and infinite developpement, and a win.
Plus, when I used Opera there was this big nasty banner at the top, i dunno if it's still there. I think i was using Opera 6.XX, now they are at 7.54. :\

And no, Opera isn't open source.

I also think that Avant Browser ain't bad, as it use IE core, but implements popup stopper and adblocking features in it. And since it's based off IE, pages that cannot be saw correctly with Firefox can be saw without any problem with Avant Browser.

[Xaenn]

I believe that opera still has that nasty banner. Other than that it was pretty good. But firefox is still better IMO. Like said before, plugins are just awesome.

[Keithamus]

I used Opera for 2 years prior to switching to Firefox, about 6 months ago, so I think I can give a fairly good run down.

Opera is quite a nice package, for ~10mb you get tabbed browsing, gestures, email client, IRC chat, oodles of other features, including a decent and powerful rendering engine. The downsides are, it takes AAAAGES to load up, it feels clunky, it isnt as responsive as the competition, there wasnt (when i was using it) a way to get rid of features you dont want, and so you were actually stuck with say, POP3 mail support, when you dont want it. The biggest downside is that it is closed source, and not free. When I had it, one would have to pay $25 to register, taking the advert banner off, which was a waste of bandwidth and an eyesore.

When I first installed firefox, I was suprised at its loading time, faster than IEs. I started to get pissed off at the lack of features though, then I found out you add xpi's (or extensions to the common man) to add functionality, much like plugins. Within a week FireFox had all the features I liked about opera (gestures, proper tab support and more), and it was a hell of alot faster than Opera. Also being Open source and free, means I dont have to pay a penny for it, and bugs get fixed alot quicker than commercial companies. Opera crashed on a good few pages, which meant I had to use IE instead, firefox on the other hand, doesnt, I only use IE for testing websites I build nowadays. Downsides to firefox? Erm... Java apps slow it right down, some XPIs dont work all that well, but it is just a case of disabling it and finding an alternative.

So incase you couldnt be bothered to rtfp, long story short; out of my experience, I favour Firefox, it can be as good/better than Opera, faster, smaller, more features, prettier. But out of the box, Firefox isnt great, Opera on the other hand isnt half bad, even if it is 3-5x bigger.

P.S I would like to add as a final note, IE based browsers (MyIE, CrazyBrowser, Avant and AOL browser to name a few) are utter shite. They add a small amount of functionality to an already crap browser. This means instead of having a bug ridden browser, you have a bug ridden browser with a popup blocker. The Microsoft Explorer rendering engine has decades to go before it is as good as the next one. Put simply, dont use IE or a derivative.

[Soeru]

From the other thread:

*cough* Firefox *cough*
I read your post and saw no reason why Firefox would be better than Opera. In a browser test, IE got 9 points, Opera and Firefox 13 points. The testers said that Firefox is better for most of users, but Opera is for more pro users, like I am.

Well excuse me, Mr. Professional Websurfer dude. Firefox has a very good(and complete) webdeveloper's plug-in. If there's something that can be available in a browser, it's definately available for Firefox.

To those of you who haven't read my lengthy thread about why Firefox owns, read this.


Has anyone ever tried MyIE2? Not sure if it's a bastard stepchild of IE, but I've heard some good comments on the browser. Still not enough to stop me from using Fox, though.

[Keithamus]

I do apologise, when I say I use IE to preview my pages, I mean, make sure that it renders correctly in IE's browser. As much as I hate IE, alot of people still use it, just because it looks good in Firefox, doesnt mean it looks good in IE. A prime example is the website I made for my band, I used PNGs with alpha transparency, IE doesnt support it, and so I needed to use a Javascript hack for it. This is what I mean by testing in IE. I am fully aware of the web developing power of Firefox, and when I cbb to use notepad, I use Nvu, a free, open source WYSIWYG editor, based on the Gecko/Mozilla rendering engine.

[Howie]

I use Opera. It's made by norwegian people, so it wins this thread.

[Soeru]

I use Opera. It's made by norwegian people, so it wins this thread.

Then I assume Skinner only uses Ad-Aware.

[Grim Reaper]

Opera is no doubt the better browser. Firefox is way over rated only because its open source, like that's a really big deal. For a bare minimal browser, Firefox takes a hell lot more memory than Opera, and this slowness only goes up with their crappy third party plugins. I tried Firefox, while I was using IE, after a friend insisted on how good it is. Given its much better than IE, its really not as great as the hype claims it to be, and I switched to Opera after two weeks.

Firefox also has the shittiest excuse for tabbed browsing without some sort of tabbed browsing plugin. It's just a really really bad browser in general. And what's with that spreadfirefox site spending $250,000 pulling one terrible ad in the NY Times, you'd think they spend $250 sending a competent programmer to Morzilla to fix the memory leak in the software.