Opera, Firefox Alternative?
06.05.06 - 10:11pm
Over the last couple of months I have heard reports of people using something called Opera to browse the Internet. Today I decided to go for a little adventure and experience what Opera has to offer. I had big plans on looking over Opera and Flock in the same article however I was dissuaded to do this by a friend. Once Flock beta releases with all the new features I’ll check Flock out, but for today Opera gets the spotlight.
Since Firefox is my only browser and the browser that 72% of my readers use, I will be comparing a few things in Opera to Firefox. My largest concern is how Opera renders webpages compared to Firefox. It is a well known fact that Internet Explorer and Firefox render very different, so if Opera renders terribly then that will introduce problems for users trying to surf the net. If you have no clue as to what I am talking about, load my website in Internet Explorer and in Firefox, notice all the spacing errors? That would be Internet Explorer and Firefox not rendering the same and me developing this website in Firefox.
First Glance
At first glance I had to admit that the layout of Opera reminded me a bit of Firefox. Although the buttons are a bit smaller and the interface is a bit sparser, using Opera wasn’t a traumatic experience. Right off the bat my biggest beef against Opera was the hotkeys, I kept hitting control-T to open up a new tab which was actually control-alt-N in Opera. Once I had the tab shortcut down I was on a roll opening up a few websites to test out the abilities of Opera. When I tried to control-tab to shift through my currently opened tabs I was shown a window that listed my currently open tabs. With this interface I was able to easily shift through my open tabs. One of the coolest things I liked was the functions when you opened up a new tab. When entering a URL, you had the option to hit either your Top10 visited sites, a bookmark, or perform a websearch. Since I visit about 7 websites on a regular basis I really liked the Top10 feature however I really wish there was a way to open each link in a separate tab. This could be done by bookmarking all the sites and just opening the folder however I would love for Opera to have that feature built-in.
More Impressions
With Opera you can adjust every single piece of the interface. You can literally remove all the buttons but the back button if you desire, or you could just remove a few of the buttons. This can be done for everything, for example I hate the built-in Google/Amazon search bars, so I simply deleted them. While default settings don’t display that many icons in the taskbar, once I had dug through the preferences I managed to get a bookmark toolbar up there, the basic navigation buttons, the URL bar, and I left the trashcan icon there for cool looks. Once I had my interface setup in a style that I enjoyed, I continued to play with the Opera navigation tools. One thing I really liked was the ability to cascade and tile all of the tabs that you were viewing. This would help make it easier when searching for a particular tab or when trying to close a lot of useless tabs.
When looking through the various menus within Opera I found it possible to adjust the magnification of a webpage. Now some people may pass this off as useless feature but I really like this. In Firefox you can increase the Font size however you can�t magnify the entire website. I find this very nice when I am browsing a web page from a couple of feet away, if there is a detail I can�t make out I can simply pump up the magnification. Old people aren�t the old people that can�t read size 12 font from 4 feet away.
IRC, Email, RSS
Opera has done what I wish Mozilla had done years ago, integrate web browsing and email support. With Opera you simply set up an account under Tools and follow the easy prompts. I setup my IRC account to check out how Opera would handle as a IRC and web client and I was very satisfied. It definitely beat the hell out of GAIM and I liked not having to include an extension like with Firefox. Once the IRC client was running it was very easy for me to find my favorite IRC channel and then begin talking up a storm. With a fullscreen browser the IRC client was very usable even with many people talking at one time. The color selection for the fonts is very nice, nothing very bright or obnoxious. One feature I really liked was the button interface for IRC, by simply pressing a button and entering a keyword you could find the IRC channel you were looking for very easily.
Conclusion
To be honest when I first heard about Opera I always had the impression that it would have a clunky interface that requires lots of customization. This thought couldn’t be farther from the truth, it literally took me 5 minutes and I had the browser running how I wanted it to with IRC running in a tab. Unlike in Firefox, the advanced settings can all be accessed through the preferences menu however there aren’t nearly as settings as in the About:Config portion of Firefox. Given enough time I believe one could use Opera with the same if not more effectiveness than Firefox however I will be sticking with Firefox. I have spent too much time configuring Firefox, however Opera is a great alternative if you are looking for something new.
I just checked the memory use between Firefox and Opera and with 3 tabs open (Gomeler.com, WP-Admin, Flickr.com) Opera was using 82MB of ram while Firefox was using 69MB. When I opened up 8 tabs in each browser, Firefox as using 8 fewer MB of ram. For some this might be an issue so keep this in mind.
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I like Opera. But you know, the functionality of Firefox is still its strong suit. Extensions and greasemonkey scripts make Firefox the winner currently, I think.
I completely agree with Firefox being a better choice. Although Opera can be internally customized to however you want, there isn’t any support like Firefox has for extra functions. Perhaps Opera will begin supporting extensions and scipts. Opera was fun to review but I will be sticking with Firefox.
I prefer Firefox over Opera because I’m an advocate of open-source software.
I just feel insecure when I can’t look through teh code that makes the application that I’m using what it is. For all I know Opera could be getting finacial backing from the US government and sending all my usage history to the NSA (Patriot Act).
Opera also has a history of being Ad-Ware. I think that it’s okay for people to use Opera, it’s just that I would rather use Firefox.
Firefox is very customizeable as well, but Opera seems to be better as that.
I do agree with you that it is a MUCH better browser than Internet Explorer.
Hey Chris,
Good article. I am a heavy Opera user and use it regularly and here are some of my thoughts. Opera 9 (now a public beta) has the normal keyboard shortcuts you are used to (control T for new tab, etc). You can open up a bunch of favorites at once. It is a feature called “sessions”. Simply open all your favorites sites and save them as a session and you can open those any time you want to.
You forgot to review a great opera feature: Mouse Gestures. Although Firefox has mouse gestures with an extension, I think the Opera mouse gestures are the best ones. Opera had mouse gestures and tabs long before Firefox did :)
Also, try the “wand” feature. You might just love it. It is the easiest and best username/password system I have ever seen.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Firefox and have used it since the beginning but I got tired of the interface, memory leaks, and crashes.
Ahmar:
Opera is a Norwegian company and I higly doubt they give information to the NSA. Opera used to be a paid product and the free version was ad supported. However, Opera is now completely free and there are no more ads (everyone gets the “paid” version).
Never knew anything other than IE existed a few months back tried firefox and was hooked from the start it’s just more friendly to use however yesterday I tried opera and although it was clear to use I felt like I was cheating so I don’t know if I can gice up firefox
im at college at the moment and they have figured out that we have downloaded firefox, although we are not allowed to. i just wondered if you know how to get firefox onto my computor without them knowing. thanks
I just prefer Firefox. I like tryign new software everyday. So I downloaded Opera it just looked too god. But when I started to download extensions and themes I just didnt liked what I had. Loading time for web tabs takes a little longer and the loading time for Opera too. So I just returned to Mozilla once again :)
Firefox forever!
hey! guys how about other alternative browsers like maxthon its a good one.
i been using firefox since the beginning but till now they haven’t figured their leaked.
hey! mozilla guys someone has to do something about it.
firefox eat a lot of resources.
Firefox all day…hands down. Opera reminds me of a cheap Netscape browser. Firefox is simple but extremely powerful with its plug-ins. Who needs a top visited pages tab, when all you have to do is go to your bookmarks? Remember K.I.S.S… keep it simple stupid…not referring to you, though.
I enjoyed reading your article. The responses were very helpful.
My story: I have been using FIreFox for a while now. I have also tried MineField. Recently my browser started to freeze while I was browsing a page. At that time I was fully invested in Minefield and I decided to send an email to Minefied stating that the browser was being finicky. I slso checked my sytem for spyware, worms and viruses. My system came up clean.
The tech folks at Mozilla responded with “Minefield is in beta, please use Firefox”. I followed. I uninstalled Minefield; started to use Firefox. Few days late, I experienced the same troubles.
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=219515&postdays=0&postorder=asc&postsperpage=15&start=0
I searched on the web and discovered that Firefox is updating the regry.dat file, which hogs up the memory.
My question to you is: Is there a patch for resolving this memory trouble?
Fyi: I asked Mozilla the same question, there had no clue as to what i was talking about. Last I heard they were looking into this matter.
Fennec is the new mozilla browser I haven’t tried it but opera is good to open html pages with javascripts.
Opera has been much better than Firefox for years!
I prefer Firefox over Opera because I am a supporter of open source software.
I have a feeling of insecurity when I can not see through the code that makes the program I use, what it is. As far as I know opera could get the support Finacial U.S. government and send all my use history of the NSA
Opera also has a comic be-ware. I think it is ok for people to use Opera, it’s just that I prefer using Firefox.
Firefox is very customizable so good, but Opera seems to be better.
I agree with you that is a much better browser than Internet Explorer.
I just wish one of them would load flash on a mobile device. Is that too much to ask for?