Opera vs Firefox

[scarph]

I know this has been debated before but I just can't decide. I've been using firefox for like 4 years now and I love it. I downloaded opera today out of curiosity and I can tell it's a bit faster. The mouse gestures are different (and not customizable) and I haven't seen any useful "widgets"...extensions.

Can someone shed some light onto this

[TeenDev]

Firefox is good if you need compatability but Opera is good for speed and email and news and RSS.

[VampDude]

Opera is cool, I use FireFox mostly thou. Widgets aren't really worth the space or time to be honest, if you want cool widgets/tabs I suggest setting iGoogle as your browsers homepage and adding loads've tabs (I have 18 tabs set on mine) :)

[kcajblue]

i like using opera.
i used it before it was popular.

i dont like using firefox.
it reminds me too much of IE.

[ganondorf]

Opera is my favourite browser. Ive been using it for 2 years now. I like the idea that you can change the theme.

[kcajblue]

yeah.
i changed mine to a blue theme.
cause im kcajblue.

[scarph]

all browsers have theme changing, you can probably even change IE by now

[Shadowblind]

Firefox all the way. I don't really like Opera too much, wierd download system :/

[JKKDARK]

Firefox is better, obviously.

[SnesR0X]

FireFox is sweet, I love the setup

[VampDude]

Firefox is better, obviously.

Mainly because it has thousands of pugins/add-ons to make it fully user customizable and personal :)

[quzar]

This debate has been on these forums as least 4 seperate times. What it always boils down to is:

Opera is faster, Opera passes Acid2, Opera has mouse gestures, Firefox is open, Firefox IS BETTER !11!!, Firefox has many more addons availible, Opera has a lot of the most functional things out of the box, Firefox can be themed, by saying that you obviously havn't used Opera which can also be themed in any way you want, and so on and so forth.

That last point for FireFox is where people usually consider it to be way better. Firefox starts off as a relatively blank slate that lets you addon all sorts of whimsical things. Opera on the other hand comes to you with everything ready to go. Recently Opera has pushed for more third party bits and has MANY more than it had 1-2 years ago, but it's main point is still that everything is integrated.

I'm a long time Opera user (at least 6 years) and for me Opera is great because without having to hassle with anything, it has all the functionality I'd ever need from a web browser built in. I use Opera as not only my web browser, but my irc client, my newsgroup client, my email client, as an rss feed tracker, a bit torrent client (ok, so I don't but it can do it), and wether a page works right in Opera is almost always the litmus test to wether it was written correctly.

Some have made the compairison to me in the past that Firefox is like linux, you start off with something that is barely functional, but all the tools and bits are out there for you to make it exactly how you want. Then Opera is Mac OSX, you don't have to worry about how it works because it does everything you ever need it to do and does it with style, if you like it's style you'll love it. With that thrown out there I'll say I mostly agree except that Opera is way more customizable than OSX =P.

[Buddy4point0]

opra does torrents? thats cool, i wish firefox had that.

[kcajblue]

i use opera as my irc client too.
no hassle of having to download one. :D

[Shadowblind]

Then opera just hates me. Everything about it runs so freaking slow and terrible on my computer.

[quzar]

Then opera just hates me. Everything about it runs so freaking slow and terrible on my computer.

Opera is still (afaik) the fastest web browser out there. That said, if you have a slow machine, don't expect to have 15 tabs open and not start to have slowdown.

edit: oh and by fastest, that is both in rendering pages, and in speed of Operation on a machine. Opera scales it's performance really well based on hardware, that is to say that it will look at your system specs and decide how much ram to use based on how much you have free. If you're on a machine with 128mb of ram, it will barely use any. 2gb and well. I've seen memory consumption go as high as 600mb, but with this 600mb you have the whole history behind any tab accessable instantly.

[Chameleon]

No your mistaking, firefox is much faster, just for some reason firefox is scaled down to only load 8 images per page at a time... when it is fully capable of loading 30 or more.

This is easily fixable by downloading an extention called "tweak network" and setting it into power mode.

Alternatively you can type in about:config in your address bar, and manually configure it yourself.

When doing these "tweaks" i have noticed performance of firefox increase ten fold

if you need more help go here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1299854/posts

[kcajblue]

i dunno.
quzar really knows his stuff.

[scarph]

wow chameleon that helped a lot.

when setting the max requests, can i go above 30.

i have a pretty fast cable connection

[quzar]

No your mistaking, firefox is much faster, just for some reason firefox is scaled down to only load 8 images per page at a time... when it is fully capable of loading 30 or more.

So, if you MODIFY firefox it becomes faster? I am not sure as to the validity of the claims so I tried looking for more information.

First I found this site: http://willlangford.com/2006/06/22/firefox-15-vs-opera-9/ which, although not on the same issue, gives a REALLY good rundown of all of Opera's features from a Firefox lover's perspective.

The following article outlines speed tests for rendering in ie7/firefox/opera: http://news.softpedia.com/news/IE7-vs-Firefox-2-0-vs-Opera-9-20-54537.shtml

It also does memory tests and some security tests.

Here's another: http://exe.gotfrag.com/portal/story/33887/ They do fewer speed tests, but have a nice little (a bit simplified) pros/cons at the end.

While whatever your speed thing does may speed Firefox up, that does not mean that it necessarily makes it faster than Opera, especially since many of the tests shown in the links above work on individual images or scripting type things, which your hack (as you explain it) would not affect at all.

[Chameleon]

@ Scarph- nah i wouldnt go above 35 or itll start to lag, it did for me, and i have a really fast connection too...

Mine is set to 30 at the moment now, so i would reccommend 30 ;)

Oh and id set the max persistent connection to 16 instead of 8.



especially since many of the tests shown in the links above work on individual images or scripting type things, which your hack (as you explain it) would not affect at all.

If you read my first post I clearly said it loads 8 images/scripts which is pretty much underclocked in a matter of speaking, because dial-up users cant handle all the processing of that many images... so for cable or broadband users this is not giving them the power they should have. Thus increasing the amount of images loads the page faster.

And I have used both Opera, and Firefox.. and with my hack i can gaurantee firefox is way more efficient in the loading process. When I was in opera it was way faster than firefox was, but i got tired of opera so switched back to firefox and applied this hack for the first time, and i know its faster... because now i dont even have to worry about a page loading because its already done for me before i can even think about it ( instant)


And granted there have been speed tests done, but ask scarph he knows it works...
and these "dumbasses" dont really think about hacking something to make it go faster, they just want their paycheck and go home, so theyll test firefox at its original installation, and opera as the same. so generally the speedtests mean nothing to me.
Frankly i am upset with you for taking other peoples word for fact when not actually testing anything yourself before trying to contradict my statement ;)

[quzar]

And granted there have been speed tests done, but ask scarph he knows it works...
and these "dumasses" dont really think about hacking something to make it go faster, they just want their paycheck and go home, so theyll test firefox at its original installation, and opera as the same. so generally their speedtests mean nothing to me.
Frankly i am upset with you for taking other peoples word for fact when not actually testing anything yourself before trying to contradict my statement ;)

o_O First of all, you provide no numbers. You say "it's faster" but what proof do you have to back it up? None. Run some of these tests on both Opera and Firefox on your machine then I can start to put stock into what you say.

Second of all, where the hell do you come off calling people you have never met "dumasses"? (It's spelled dumbass by the way) Two of the three links I posted are personal tests run by people, and only the one on softpedia would be in any kind of position to be being paid for writing his article. Of course they're going to test the original installations of each, but if you would actually read the articles you will see they perform tests with loading single images and rendering single scripts to see how fast each browser performs in doing so, and in both Opera is much faster. You say your hack affects the amount of scripts and images loaded at once, so it would not affect the results of these tests at all.

Last, upset with me? Yes, how dare I look for actual facts and quantifiable evidence while still keeping an open mind about the nature of some qualitative measure some random person on a forum told me. SHAME!

[Chameleon]

You know what I really dont care, you can continue living in your opera dream world.. whilst I bask in the glory of my wonderful firefox world.

And...you got me I didnt even click on any of those links because of my prior statement ( theyll test firefox at its original installation, and opera as the same. so generally the speedtests mean nothing to me.)

So what they dont get paid to do it...big woop
what im saying is opera is better at rendering images IN ITS ORIGINAL STATE!!!!

If your not a "dumbass" ( ha i spelt it right this time :P) then you would take certain factors into consideration.. yes opera does autodetect your connection but firefox doesnt.. then if you were smart youd manually configure it to the same configuration as the other, and not give firefox a ****ing handicap...

I know your not stupid, and i just figured youd go by your opinion and not what other people say... I cant count how many times ive relied on other peoples opinions, and it got me nowhere!!!

And again im not going to speed tests to prove jack shit to you, you can either take my word for it, do it yourself to see how well it works, or shove my opinion up your ass!

[quzar]

You know what I really dont care, you can continue living in your opera dream world.. whilst I bask in the glory of my wonderful firefox world.

And...you got me I didnt even click on any of those links because of my prior statement ( theyll test firefox at its original installation, and opera as the same. so generally the speedtests mean nothing to me.)

So what they dont get paid to do it...big woop
what im saying is opera is better at rendering images IN ITS ORIGINAL STATE!!!!

If your not a "dumbass" ( ha i spelt it right this time :P) then you would take certain factors into consideration.. yes opera does autodetect your connection but firefox doesnt.. then if you were smart youd manually configure it to the same configuration as the other, and not give firefox a ****ing handicap...

I know your not stupid, and i just figured youd go by your opinion and not what other people say... I cant count how many times ive relied on other peoples opinions, and it got me nowhere!!!

And again im not going to speed tests to prove jack shit to you, you can either take my word for it, do it yourself to see how well it works, or shove my opinion up your ass!

So basically your argument is that you're right but you aren't going to even try to prove it because you don't need to? Sounds like the typical argument for using Firefox to me.

[SnesR0X]

So basically your argument is that you're right but you aren't going to even try to prove it because you don't need to? Sounds like the typical argument for using Firefox to me.

Yeah, he's got you there :p

[Chameleon]

Yeah, he's got you there :p

Yeah you were finally able to respond from the first sentence you were able to understand :p

And no, basically i dont want to install opera on my computer because i believe it is dreadfully slow...and pretty much just GAY!! Call me a fanboy i think opera is so Fing gay!!

EDIT- and no, im not speaking from a biased opinion i am speaking from first hand experience with both browsers, and ive found firefox is better.

So if he chooses not to beleive me thats his choice im not going to make a full f'ing review just to please one person.

[kcajblue]

i like opera cause im used to it.

i hate using firefox cause i hate it and i think it sucks ass.

i dont care about plugins or shit like that.
and i want a browser that works good after install.
i dont want to have to mess around with a whole bunch of stuff just to get it running good.

[SnesR0X]

Yeah you were finally able to respond from the first sentence you were able to understand :p

And no, basically i dont want to install opera on my computer because i believe it is dreadfully slow...and pretty much just GAY!! Call me a fanboy i think opera is so Fing gay!!

EDIT- and no, im not speaking from a biased opinion i am speaking from first hand experience with both browsers, and ive found firefox is better.

So if he chooses not to beleive me thats his choice im not going to make a full f'ing review just to please one person.

More like the first sentence I gave a sh*t about :p
You do need evidence before fanboyism though.

[Chameleon]

i like opera cause im used to it.

i hate using firefox cause i hate it and i think it sucks ass.

i dont care about plugins or shit like that.
and i want a browser that works good after install.
i dont want to have to mess around with a whole bunch of stuff just to get it running good.


Good for you, you are an opera fanboy.. just as i am a firefox fanboy!

No matter what i say it would not get you or quzar to submit into the firefox world. Quzar on IRC said it himself hes set in his ways, and nothing i would do could change that..

So why bother recreating a speed test when the screenshots will just entertain him?

And you do have a point, you want a browser that works great from install thats your choice...
I was just saying Firefox is better than opera if you modify it, and if you dont feel like modding it then in that case i would agree 100% that opera is much better AT SPEED. but if you know what your doing and modify it, its better than opera...

So in other words if you dont want firefox than dont use it, i was just stating a reason that firefox may be better.. but even so it still wont change a fanboys mind.

If the shoe was on the other foot and somebody gave me a really good reason to switch to opera i would decline because firefox is my baby, pure and simple!

so what exactly would a speed test do? prove a point? make quzar switch? no it would do nothing so i see it as a waste of time!

@ SnesROX- yeah fanboyism is not really a good thing to have when trying to prove a point, but you try googling speedtest with that hack enabled.. you wont find it!
and im not going to make a speedtest because quzar said that would just entertain him because i was already on a quest to prove a point.. so what exactly would be the meaning of trying to back up my statement. if i did it it would be me trying to alter the results, or if i found someone else who did it ( which is near impossible) it would just be one persons opinion, and could alter from page to page?

[kcajblue]

like i said earlier, ive been using it for a really long time cause i was tired of using IE so i searched for a new browser and found opera.
ever since i started using it, its all ive been using.

my cousins use firefox and i hate it, it reminds me too much of IE.
but the thing is, they dont do all of the stuff you do to make it better than opera, they just install it and use the defaults.
and yet they say its still better than opera.

[pibs]

Even with the edited configurations on my firefox my speeds are the same as opera i see no difference, but opera's tab features are ownage, id be happy to make the full switch to it but only if it would have the same "ctrl+f" or "find" whatever its called feature as firefox where its placed in the bottom of the browser. I really dislike the little window that pops up on both ie and opera when doing a "find" command. if theres a way to switch this can someone tell me?

Edit: also when trying to access the "play now" feature on www.ijji.com games the whole browser crashes while on ie and firefox it doesn't.

Edit: Edit: found out why according to opera "Opera does not have in-built support for Microsoft's Windows-specific ActiveX technology or the VBScript scripting language." and so i got the neptune plugin still haven't really figured it out but according to neptune i can run on opera microsoft update. nvm im sticking to firefox the plugins are easier to install and ietab lets me do everything ie can(even ms update), while im still having trouble figuring out neptune on opera.

[kcajblue]

the only way i know how to use find in opera is to press ctrl+f or to press "." and then type what youre looking for.

[quzar]

so what exactly would a speed test do? prove a point? make quzar switch? no it would do nothing so i see it as a waste of time!

The point is the thread is supposed to contain a discussion over the two browsers in compairison. All you have done is shown a way to speed Firefox up, but that does not say anything about a compairison to Opera at all.

Just because I have no intention of switching to Firefox does not mean I will not entertain arguments as to which is better. I posted saying that Opera renders pages faster than Firefox and you said that I was outright wrong. I then posted independent benchmarks that backed up my statement, at which you berated me and claimed that your hack invalidated those tests.

I explained that while that might be true for some of the tests, there are many that would be unaffected, specifically all the ones having to do with the rendering of pages as opposed to the loading of sites (which was, if you recall, my original point). You called the people who ran the tests 'dumasses' and claimed Opera was 'Fing gay' (In my experience though, most browsers have only reflected the sexuality of their users. I've never had Opera take me to gay porn sites on it's own).

The way I see it, I have an argument while you have contradiction. Now I'm not saying that Opera will be faster than Firefox with this hack. Based on your explanation of it and subsequent followthrough, there is a great chance that it works nothing like you described. However, only knowing that it makes Firefox faster does not show that it will make Firefox faster than Opera.

Edit:


Even with the edited configurations on my firefox my speeds are the same as opera i see no difference, but opera's tab features are ownage, id be happy to make the full switch to it but only if it would have the same "ctrl+f" or "find" whatever its called feature as firefox where its placed in the bottom of the browser. I really dislike the little window that pops up on both ie and opera when doing a "find" command. if theres a way to switch this can someone tell me?

Edit: also when trying to access the "play now" feature on www.ijji.com games the whole browser crashes while on ie and firefox it doesn't.

Push the little glasses button under the trashcan on the top right. That will drop down an extended menu which contains the "find in page/find next" things (as well as other stuff). Now that you know where those are, you can move the to any other menu space in Opera.

[kcajblue]

i find it easier at least for me to just press "." and type what im searching for.

EDIT: about the ijji thing. i thought they still make you use IE to play.
cause i remember you cant use any other browser to play the games.

[Chameleon]

Ok whatever your point happens to be.. firefox is way faster than opera FOR ME... PERIOD

I stated the information to maybe change some opinions and help some while im at it.. god forbid!!

opera is faster.. firefox is gay... my hack doesnt work.. im talking out of my ass... i like to see little boys naked... it makes no difference i was trying to help because i was unaware of the hack for the longest time, and i was thinking of switching back to opera before i found this hack.. now im a firefox fanboy!!

So shoot me down, and everyone else who reads this forum just shoot me down too while your at it, and back his posts I DO NOT CARE... and for those who want to boost the performance of firefox dont listen to me because quzar doesnt believe it works based on nothing factual he has stated!!

He did state facts, and on what? the original state of both browsers.. and my whole case is dealing with this hack... i told you previously i agreed 100% that opera is faster than firefox in its original state.. so what exactly did you prove?
what factual information did you provide? NOTHING!!

Cmon quzar make a funny joke, make me laugh... because you dont have any evidence to back that im wrong :P

[quzar]

As I have said multiple times, I don't refute that your hack will speed up Firefox because I cannot. I also don't claim that your hack will not make Firefox faster than Opera, only that you have no proof that it does so, and so it is unknown. You however, started by saying that I was wrong that Opera was faster than Firefox because you can make Firefox faster. Your claim though is faulty because just making Firefox be faster does not ensure anything as to it's speed relative to Opera.

Simpler: I showed that Firefox<Opera (in rendering speed). You have stated that Firefox<Hacked Firefox. Even if you are correct (which I am not siding on one way or the other), that does not mean that Opera<Hacked Firefox.

Didn't you ever do any of those problems that go like: Timmy is taller than Steve, and Jimmy is taller than Timmy, if Bob is taller than Steve, who is the tallest? The answer is you can't know. You know that Jimmy>Timmy>Steve and Bob>Steve, but Bob being taller than Steve does not say anything about his height relative to Jimmy or Timmy.

[pibs]

oh ijji released a firefox plugin forgot about that but it also worked b4 that with the ietab plugin. btw thanks quzar 4 the search tip, now all i need to fully switch to it is a simple ie in opera plugin. cuz im still a bit confused with neptune

ima stick to opera it takes it easier on my system
these are the memory usages in my pc with both browsers using 3tabs with same sites

opera 18,552K
firefox 113,668k (with plugins off)

Edit: for opera's neptune it says on the opera support page to do this
Find the file "npmeadax.dll" in Internet Explorer's plug-in folder (it can usually be found in C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\PLUGINS\). Copy this file to Opera's Plug-ins directory (by default C:\Program Files\Opera\Program\Plugins).
that file does not exist in my folder grr im so confused

[Chameleon]

OK then its basically settled, cause neither of us can provide factual information based on the hacked firefox compared to opera... nor did i care to win a battle! I was trying to help scarph increase his performance to see if it worked better for him afterwards, because it worked better for me!!

If i helped someone, then im glad i did :)
But arguing with you is not worth it enough to drag on this whole thing.. and the thread is being consumed by us..

final verdict..

Jimmy> Bob> Timmy> Steve

[quzar]

If i helped someone, then im glad i did :)
But arguing with you is not worth it enough to drag on this whole thing.. and the thread is being consumed by us..

final verdict..

Jimmy> Bob> Timmy> Steve

It saddens me when I feel someone walks away without understanding it. You were not arguing, what you were doing is called contradiction, and while it can be an essential element of argument, it is not argument.

Glad I could help pibster, I've never used the neptune thing though, so I don't know anything about it. No website that I frequent has ever been broken by Opera, so I havn't had to go looking for stuff like that.

[pibs]

oh i fixed it in case anyone has trouble with viewing pages

try this... install neptune, grab the npmeadax.dll that comes with it, copy it to the opera plugins folder.



// ==UserScript==
// @name Load ActiveX
// @author Tommy
// @description Replace ActiveX MimeType so Neptune can handle it
// @ujs:category general: enhancements
// @ujs: published 2006-04-01 20:00
// @include *
// ==/UserScript==

/*
* This script is granted to the Public Domain
*/

document.addEventListener('load',function(ev){
var d = document.getElementsByTagName('embed');
for (var i = d.length-1; i > -1; i--) {
if (d[i].getAttribute('type') == "application/x-oleobject") {
d[i].replaceAttribute('application/x-meadco-neptune-ax');
}
}
},false);

To enable UserJS you go
Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Content > Javascript Options > Choose a folder at the botton
To make the UserJS, go into the folder you just specified, make a new file called ActiveX.js and insert the code I just gave you.

then u can add the button view in ie (opera:/button/Go%20to%20page%2C%20%22javascript%3A(function%20() %20%7B%20if(%20!location.href%20%7C%7C%20location. href.match(/%5E(javascript%7Cabout%7Copera)%3A/i)%20)%20%7B%20return%3B%20%7D%20var%20w%20%3D%20w indow.open()%3B%20w.document.write('%3Chtml%3E%3Ch ead%3E%3Ctitle%3E'%20+%20(document.title%3Fdocumen t.title%3Alocation.href).replace(/%3C/%2C'%26lt%3B')%20+%20'%20-%20using%20Internet%20Explorer%20rendering%3C%5C/title%3E%3C%5C/head%3E%3Cbody%3E%3Cdiv%20style%3D%5C'position%3Aa bsolute%3Btop%3A0%3Bleft%3A0%3Bright%3A0%3Bbottom% 3A0%3B%5C'%3E%3Cembed%20type%3D%5C'application%5C/x-meadco-neptune-ax%5C'%20width%3D%5C'100'+String.fromCharCode(37)+ '%5C'%20height%3D%5C'100'+String.fromCharCode(37)+ '%5C'%20param-location%3D%5C''%20+%20window.location.href%20+%20 '%5C'%3E%3C%5C/embed%3E%3C%5C/div%3E%3C%5C/body%3E%3C%5C/html%3E')%3B%20%7D)()%3B%22%2C%2C%22View%20in%20IE %22%2CView)

hope it helps

[Chameleon]

It saddens me when I feel someone walks away without understanding it. You were not arguing, what you were doing is called contradiction, and while it can be an essential element of argument, it is not argument.


OMG what dont you get, your contradicting my statement just as much as i am yours, you didnt put anything of use on the table either... and dont tell me the links you showed me was backing up an argument, it was backing up your pointless contradiction.

now back to the topic quzar.. if you dont remember its opera vs. firefox