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The forgotten browser in the browser war!

opera.com — Opera 9 is often forgotten but its one of the most powerful web browsers out there. Some say its better than firefox 2 and IE 7 combined! Determine that for youself.

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DudeRoks 1 year 341 days ago, made popular 1 year 340 days ago

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AprilEthereal, on 10/12/2007, -75/+121I've given up on firefox - it's unfortunately been too buggy at some really inopportune times, but Opera has always performed. I like the layout better, too.
- Oakes, on 10/12/2007, -39/+45My experience on the Mac is almost the opposite. Sometimes it didn't even load the page I entered, and the look is absolutely terrible, partly due to non-native controls. Oh, and it's also suffering from some awful feature-creep. I'll stick with Safari.
- omaryak, on 10/12/2007, -13/+44I haven't had the stability problems with Firefox 2 that I had with 1.5, at least so far (I'm on a Mac). When I had problems with the stability of 1.5, I still used it because it loads pages faster and has a cleaner interface. That being said, Opera is a pretty lean browser, and I do try it each time they release an update.
- ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -97/+17That's a joke, right?
- portis, on 10/12/2007, -72/+193Opera is not popular for a very good reason. Extensions. Give it up Opera fanboys. Users of FF will never give up extensibility.
- thatsmyaibo, on 10/12/2007, -57/+16Lets get some answers! I love Opera because it has the integrated software for downloading torrents and such. But I mainly use Firefox.
  
  http://www.diggpolls.blogspot.com/
- flyinglikeakite, on 10/12/2007, -24/+64I agree with you portis. I am a hardcore Opera fan, but yet forced to use Firefox quite regularly due to lack of extensions.
- donatj, on 10/12/2007, -32/+11I can't stand the keyboard shortcuts and IE-esq following of the box model and scroll bar styling that Opera allows. Also, on the note of that first guy, I'm on a mac, and *hate* safari. Its not much better than IE featurewise... IE7 beats it far as I'm concerned.
- aurath, on 10/12/2007, -52/+50@portis
  You mean the extensions that add things to Firefox that Opera already has? The extensions that take up extra memory and don't come standard with the browser? Opera's new widget engine gives me the same stuff I used extensions for i.e. flash video downloader and flashget.
- acoot, on 10/12/2007, -47/+43The majority of people use FF because of loyalty to Open Source, which is ok. But some of us (1%) silently enjoy the best free browser out there. Somebody stop me..
  You know what, you are missing out on a good thing.
- srg13, on 10/12/2007, -44/+55Opera is cool, but I just hate the way the interface works. Also, the buttons look really bad. I use Firefox because it feels a lot less obtrusive.
- sorrow, on 10/12/2007, -33/+16@ aurath
  
  I think you may want to research your comment about Opera having the extensions built in. I used Opera for a month or two, and switched back because from my experience, the widgets did not offer anything very useful, and on top of that, where is Opera's version of Sage, FoxyTunes, NoScript, etc?
  
  If Opera had 1/2 of the extensions that i've fallen in love with in FF, then *maybe* i'd consider really using it; but for until then, i'm sticking with FF
- psiit, on 10/12/2007, -27/+18thatsmyaibo:
  the problem is that if you choose to use other, more powerful software not built in to Opera (like for torrents or mail), opera begins to seem like a pretty bloated piece of software
- MasterChi, on 10/12/2007, -14/+48@Sorrow - have you even used Opera ? Sage from what I read is an RSS Reader, this is standard in Opera. NoScript blocks javascript and such, again its standard in Opera without downloading extra things(extensions). FoxyTune is a music player......Opera doesn't have that to my knowledge but I change songs on my multimedia keyboard with just a push of a button so no big worries for me atleast. I couldn't find anything on the "etc" extension but let me know if there is anything else you think Opera is missing.
- acoot, on 10/12/2007, -18/+6Oh, I forgot... I use FF too :) or its sister version Flock especially to blog and do some flikr. That said both FF and Opera have their own special uses so there.
  
  Will you digg me up now?
- Hurricane, on 10/12/2007, -25/+10New Firefox 2.0 for Winblows on the PC is quite buggy with some of the biggest websites in the world, such as when it crashes almost every time you do anything in Yahoo Mail.
  Bring the Fire back to Firefox or you may loose me Mozilla team.
  
  Opera would be good if it had as much plug-in support as Firefox.
- SebastianMoser, on 10/12/2007, -17/+70@acoot
  Because of the loyality to Open Source? Oh my god... 90% of the Firefox people don't even know what Open Source is. And that's the strength of Firefox - it appeals to people that don't know about browsers but STILL prefer it over Internet Explorer.
  
  Opera appeals just to a fraction of the techies, and a even smaller fraction of the non-techies.
  Opera is good, though.
  
  I use Opera Mini on my Palm and am happy with it. But for the desktop, I prefer Firefox.
  
  And to the people saying that Firefox extensions include features that Opera has pre-installed.
  Yes, you're right. For probably 50% of the extensions. The other 50% are things like Firebug, which makes Firefox THE browser for webdevelopers, or Toolbars (Google, Yahoo, etc.) which are used by millions of people, or things like "Fingerfox", which enables Microsoft Fingerprint Reader for Firefox.
  
  But let's simply look at the most popular extensions:
  FlashGot
  NoScript
  Download Statusbar
  Adblock Plus
  FireFTP
  
  How many of this features are included per default in Opera?
  
  Then, let's look at the recommended add-ons:
  Forecastfox
  Sage
  Jeteye
  ChatZilla
  del.icio.us Bookmarks
  FoxyTunes
  Performancing
  Pronto Shopping Messenger
  Greasemonkey
  Map+
  Adblock Plus
  Download Statusbar
  FireFTP
  Firebug
  blueorganizer
  LinkedIn Companion for Firefox
  Clipmarks
  Cooliris Previews
  StumbleUpon
  Foxmarks Bookmarks Synchronizer
  Answers
  FlashGot
  Yoono
  JAJAH - Web-Activated Telephony
  Web Developer
  
  Some of them are features available by default, but many are NOT.
  
  Argue with Opera's real strengths - Web Standards and a working mobile version. It's not much more that Opera has. The Desktop client is available just for marketing and branding reasons, anyway. There's not much money being made with it...
- evilrobot, on 10/12/2007, -18/+3hmmm.... not even worth considering for use on a Mac... at least until its UI doesn't look like it was created by a 6 year old with a box of broken crayons.
  
  I have tried using it before though, and just didn't like it. No extensions architecture, and it just didn't "feel" very smooth to me.
- moonwell, on 10/12/2007, -24/+3Opera and IE for loosers. Opera never was an opponent for either.
- headswine, on 10/12/2007, -23/+3Opera is incompatible with many pages. Firefox isn't. It's that simple.
- Devz0r, on 10/12/2007, -8/+18I do agree that Opera doesn't have all the extensions. Most of them (that aren't already included in Opera) aren't really that important to me, though. And last time I installed more than 5 extensions in Firefox, I was given a very slow, unstable browser.
  
  And I'm sure the only people who care or even know about Firefox being open source or having extensions are virtually only the "techy" group.
- gandalfan, on 10/12/2007, -14/+16@headswine
  
  Did you browser pass Acid test?
  http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html#top
  
  Follow the link and see it for yourself.
  ..........................
  "Acid2 Browser Test
  
  Acid2 is a test page, written to help browser vendors ensure proper support for web standards in their products. "
- trylleklovn, on 10/12/2007, -12/+6Opera is very cool.... But I don't use it.
- m4v1s, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22headswine:
  You mean, many pages are incompatible with Opera. One of the main goals of Opera's developers is to make it compatible with all web standards. So if a page doesn't work in Opera, the page is usually at fault. And sometimes you can even alter the html/css/javascript with Opera's live source editor and fix the page yourself.
  
  I have been using Opera since I can remember. It includes so many features in such a small, unbloated package that are so intuitive to use. I love the ability to download one installer and have all of those features and not having to download a browser, then add the 10+ extensions to get the default functionality that Opera has, all without the memory consumption. I do also use Firefox, but when I do I really feel like I'm using a toy.
- thatsmyaibo, on 10/12/2007, -7/+7"the problem is that if you choose to use other, more powerful software not built in to Opera (like for torrents or mail), opera begins to seem like a pretty bloated piece of software"
  
  I didn't say i use Opera as my main browser. Firefox is my main browser. I run OSX 90% of the time and believe me Firefox 2 is used almost all the time. But i still do like Opera and what they've tried to accomplish. I hate to post the link again but since my last comment was buried I think it yields some interesting results. Over 60% of digg users, are FF users and a distant second are Opera users.
  
  http://www.diggpolls.blogspot.com/
- AlexMax, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16@SebastianMoser
  
  Wow, how much have you really used Opera? About half of those extensions you list are built in to Opera, and another couple are added by user extensions or widgets. I can only see a few of them which have no equivilent in Opera. And good luck trying to keep Firefox from crashing or eating up all your memory with all of those extensions installed. Opera can do many of the same things while remaining fast and responsive.
  
  The only problem I've ever had with Opera is that it tends to not like heavy use of javascript, but it's not enough to make me switch away from it. Heck, now that IE7 has tabs, I uninstalled Firefox, because now if I need to open up a site that doesn't work in Opera (Grand total of 1, the WebCT for my college stuff), I keep my tabbed browsing experience.
  
  And good luck with that whole "representing the strength of the Open Source community" deal. "Iceweasel", anyone? *laugh*
- praxis22, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I recently bought Opera, for the DS, great mobile platform.
  
  But I run with Firefox because of the extensions, I try to care about the acid test, but the ability to display a test page properly does not a great browser make. Don't get me wrong anything is better than IE, and I'm happy that the Opera people get their time on the front page, but this is a religious choice for many, much like choosing to buy a mac, or installing Linux.
  
  So yeah, go Opera! :)
- flyinglikeakite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Since you guys are going on about extensions have a look at
  http://www.pallab.net/2006/04/12/extending-opera-the-ultimate-guide-to-customizing-opera/
  Its a bit old but most of the things still work.
- soccerboi00, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5I think one reason why Firefox is so popular is because you don't even have to think to use it. The interface is very clean, and customizable too. I found the Opera menus to be a little cluttered.
- Szekely, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1@Gandalfan So would something like me having to refresh this very page 3 times in Opera and it still not rendering right be similiar to that?
- Technopundit, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1Opera sticks ya with extra toolbars, just like the new IE7 does. I can read drop-down menu's thank you. I don't need three rows of useless icons. I prefer screen space.
  
  I like Firefox, but it opens very slowly on all my PC's.
- mastercheif, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1My Favorite browser for Mac is Omniweb, well worth the $10 dollars it is now going for.
- foxhoundadmin, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1i like opera, because it doesn't crash when i'm browsing myspace (a web design gone terribly, terribly wrong and a coding nightmare). not to mention, it was one of the first, if not THE first (sorry, i'm shaky on the details), to pass the acid2 test. however, opera's not better than firefox, imho, because firefox has more usability. i mean, opera doesn't even have a highlight function for search. c'mon!
- tornpage, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Yes it does. It has the "traditional" CTRL+F search box, as well as the "quick" search - "." (PERIOD) followed by the text. It will live search as you type and highlight other instances of the same pattern.
- person, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"I think one reason why Firefox is so popular is because you don't even have to think to use it. The interface is very clean, and customizable too. I found the Opera menus to be a little cluttered."
  
  But I don't like using a browser written for dummies!
pevail, on 10/12/2007, -11/+71Opera is very fast on my old PIII computer-much faster than Firefox.
- jamesthejust, on 10/12/2007, -4/+32True. It's also the fastest browser at rendering pages on old G3 Macs.
- Hindu_Wardrobe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18I'm a rabid Mozilla fan (trust me--I wanted to be "Mozilla Girl" for Halloween), and I do agree that Firefox is a slow piece of ***** on older computers.
  [Insert 6-paragraph persuasive essay here]
  It all comes down to this: I use Firefox, you use Opera, hooray! Differences! Neither is better, it's a matter of opinion. Apples and oranges.
  
  But both do kick the ***** out of Internet Explorer. :D
- shootthemonkey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@Hindu_Wardrobe
  
  I wish everybody thought as you do. The Firefox v Opera war is pointless and annoying. They're both completely capable browsers that appeal in different ways.
martalli, on 10/12/2007, -36/+30Firefox 2.0 keeps crashing on me whenever I hide/show buried comments. I'm using opera right now for that very reason.
- devindotcom, on 10/12/2007, -13/+34Yeah, my extensions are part of my whole browser experience now. It's hard for me to go back even temporarily to IE or Safari for a page that's being weird. Opera is great and I used it for a while, but Firefox has superseded it in customization and usability - for me anyway.
  
  I'd be happier, though, if it were a big war between Firefox and Opera rather than Firefox and IE.
- nogami, on 10/12/2007, -8/+12Firefox 2 is very solid for me, the only real complaint I have is that the javascript rendering is pretty slow. Hopefully they do some intensive optimizing for the next major release.
Sanchez, on 10/12/2007, -22/+81What? Nobody's forgotten Opera, a lot of people just prefer firefox. Myself, I just find Firefox a lot more user friendly. Also, I have like over 20 extensions, many of which i couldn't live without.
- MasterChi, on 10/12/2007, -30/+16I hate to tell you but probably every one of those 20 extensions come standard in Opera. So not only did you waste probably half and hour to find 20 extensions you like but also the time to download them and the extra resources they are using on your computer...not to mention that Opera is still a smaller package size the Firefox.
  
  I've used Firefox and Opera and it might just be personal taste or maybe that I like to take advantage of my time rather then spend it all trying to find extensions but Opera is the one for me.
- Modulo, on 10/12/2007, -18/+29@.masterchi "not to mention that Opera is still a smaller package size the Firefox." Wow! You're Right! Opera is only 5.51 mb and Firefox is a massive bloated 5.62 mb! I should switch right away so that I can put that 110 KB to use saving HALF A JPEG FILE!!!!!!!!
- SuitCase874, on 10/12/2007, -10/+17Modulo: I don't have recent figures, but Firefox's default install is on the order of 15mb while Opera remains about 5-6mb installed. This is significant when you consider that Opera comes with so many "extensions" built in, along with mail, usenet, IRC and bittorrent support. It's not that significant by itself, but it's an indication of things that matter more than the 10mb of space Firefox wastes - i.e. less memory usage, more efficient program code, an absence of bad ideas like XUL, etc.
- crammaz, on 10/12/2007, -9/+14I just installed Opera on Mac OS X.... it was 29.9 megabytes.....
  
  i thought I would have a look at it, and whilst it is very cool, Im staying with firefox.
- worbd, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15@ Modulo
  
  Opera is significantly smaller than Firefox, actually. Let's look at Mac first:
  
  *Firefox for Mac: 17 981 KB
  *Opera for Mac: 13 428 KB
  
  That's quite a difference in size.
  
  Let's look at the Windows version too:
  
  *Opera MSI: 4 758 KB (MSI is Microsoft's bloated installer system for network installs etc.)
  *Opera Classic installer (no MSI bloat): 3 910 KB
  *Firefox: 5 763 KB
  
  Source: ftp.opera.com/ftp.mozilla.org
- jakem1, on 10/12/2007, -16/+4How is a difference of about 10 Mb an issue? Surely hard drives are big enough and cheap enough not to worry about such a tiny amount of space these days. This is not an argument in favour of Opera.
  
  IMO Opera's main attraction is it's speed but I really dislike the way the Home, Bookmark, etc. buttons are only available when you click on the address box - it just involves too many extra clicks to get simple things done.
- Murdats, on 10/12/2007, -17/+18right, because opera has all the features of the following
  fasterfox
  forcastfox
  flashgot
  image zoom
  nuke anything
  google suggest (the plugin not the google service it uses)
  colorful tabs
  adblock plus
  site advisor
  gmail skins
  firefox google bookmarks
  ressurect pages
  google browser sync
  adblock filterset.g updater
  downthemall
  googlepedia
  flashblock
  bugmenot
  firefusk
  stylish
  
  and thats ignoring some and not counting the greasemonkey scripts
  
  so give me all of them opera, and any more that may take my fancy in the future and I will switch
  but until you have a dev team of serveral thousand spending their time designing what they want how they want
  you are never going to have the feature set of firefox+plugins
- SuitCase874, on 10/12/2007, -13/+12Jakem: Read the rest of my comment. The fact that you save 10mb of space isn't significant, it's just a useful indicator of how Firefox is bloatier and less efficient than Opera. Speed, memory usage and efficiency are important reasons a lot of people choose Opera. As for your issue with the homebookmark buttons, you realise you can just right click them, hit "Customise" and drag them wherever you like, right?
  
  Murdats: Probably not all the features, but I'd bet most. I don't know what a lot of those extensions are, but I know that Stylish, flashgot, fasterfox, googlepedia, image zoom, adblock and downthemall are similar to built in functionality, and further to that, you can get stuff that works like forecastfox, filterset.g, gmail skins and flashblock in various guises (widgets, user javascripts, even css.) By the way, most greasemonkey scripts work in Opera, and if you are so into the utopian "everybody codes!" idea, Opera's user javascript allows for a lot of stuff people do in Firefox extensions.
  
  Of course there are extensions Opera will never have. There are features Opera has that Firefox won't have for some time, too (most Firefox updates include features Opera users have had for years.) The fact of the matter is that Opera is hardly lacking in features and that these "OMG LOOK AT MY EXTENSION LIST!" arguments are often insignificant as Opera usually has an equivalent of some kind, just without the security/bloat/convenience issues of a Firefox extension.
- Devz0r, on 10/12/2007, -2/+33@Murdats
  
  fasterfox - default config settings
  
  forcastfox - touchtheSky Widget ( http://widgets.opera.com/widget/3903 ) or Weather Widget ( http://widgets.opera.com/widget/3789 )
  
  flashgot - Links Panel and/or customized menu in combination with an external accellerator (such as Flashget or Stardownloader)
  
  image zoom - Most features out-of-box; try also AutoSizer UserScript/Zoom Image UserScript
  
  nuke anything - http://mrclay.org/index.php/2006/04/23/mypage-bookmarklet/
  
  google suggest (the plugin not the google service it uses) - Google Suggest Userscript ( http://userjs.org/scripts/site/enhancements/google-suggest )
  
  colorful tabs - Not available (necessary?)
  
  adblock plus - Right click, block content
  
  site advisor - Is this anti-phish? This is being implemented into Opera 9.1, I'm using it in beta right now.
  
  gmail skins - not available (possible for userscript?)
  
  firefox google bookmarks - bookmark synchronizer? Third party tool oSync ( http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=104071 ), storage at my.opera.com
  
  ressurect pages - this has long been a default opera feature by going to the trash can, or continuing from last browser session.
  
  google browser sync - Third party tool oSync, storage at my.opera.com
  
  adblock filterset.g updater - not available
  
  downthemall - Links Panel and/or customized menu in combination with an external accellerator (such as Flashget or Stardownloader)
  
  googlepedia - Operapedia http://www.gt500.org/blog/static.php?page=operapedia
  
  flashblock - Site Preferences, Block Content and Flash Block UserScript ( http://userjs.org/scripts/general/enhancements/hide-objects )
  
  bugmenot - BugMeNot Widget ( http://widgets.opera.com/widget/4172 ) BugMeNot userscript ( http://userjs.org/scripts/general/enhancements/bug-me-not )
  
  firefusk - certainly seems possible, but isn't that apparent.
  
  stylish - User Stylesheet in Site Preferences (Default)
  
  any more questions? consult http://files.myopera.com/Rijk/blog/extensions.html
- Dylan16807, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Firefox also has right click->block images from...
  Adblock is much better, with extensive built in filters.
  Firefox has the same kind of preferences for Javascript, but with NoScript there is a convenient interface that can enable one domain's scripting in two clicks, or run a Flash or Java applet in one click.
- raj3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8try this list also for some more opera equivalents of extensions
  
  http://files.myopera.com/Rijk/blog/extensions.html
SilverGinger5, on 10/12/2007, -12/+34I absolutely love Opera. Once you get used to navigating with mouse gestures it becomes so instinctive. I'm constantly bringing up the menu box at work where they make me use IE by right clicking to try to navigate.
- JimV, on 10/12/2007, -12/+16I never really got the hang of gestures. But maybe that's because my Intellimouse has a forward/backward buttons on it.
- quentinmcalmott, on 10/12/2007, -17/+12I like gestures too, but I use the firefox extension http://perso.orange.fr/marc.boullet/ext/extensions-en.html . It's fully customizable, and (seems to) have a lot more options than Opera's gestures, although I haven't spent much time with Opera's, as I can't quite grasp the interface for changing gestures.
- worbd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17There's more to gestures than back and forward, JimV... Never got Firefox extensions to work as smoothly as the gestures in Opera, though.
- Complexium, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9>> I never really got the hang of gestures. But maybe that's because my Intellimouse has a forward/backward buttons on it.
  
  Mouse gestures is so much more then going back and forward. Closing tabs, opening tabs, copy tabs, stop, reload etc. Mouse gestures made my browsing experience come to a new level.
- tackle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7[Quote]But maybe that's because my Intellimouse has a forward/backward buttons on it.[/Quote].
  
  This is BS. I'm surprized how so many other diggers agree with this.
  
  How would you perform the following actions with your forward and backward key on your "intelli"mouse:
  1. Open a new tab
  2. Close an existing tab
  3. Switch between tabs
  4. Refresh page
  (and 10s of others)
- Ryosen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3There are countless plugins available for IE that provide mouse gestures. A simple google search will bring them up for you - I recommend Drowse.
- stealth658, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1I use the mouse buttons and keyboard shortcuts for all of those things that you use gestures for, and I bet it's probably faster, too..
  
  1. Open a new tab - Ctrl + T
  2. Close an existing tab - Middle Click on Tab
  3. Switch between tabs - Ctrl (+ Shift) + Tab
  4. Refresh page - F5
- JimV, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1In answer to the questions about how I close tabs, open tabs, and such with my intellimouse...
  
  I open tabs by middle clicking on the link I want to go to
  I close tabs by, well, clicking "close"
  I reload with the "reload" button
  I stop with the "stop" button
QuorumCall, on 10/12/2007, -11/+27Integrated bittorrent? I'll give it a shot.
- Chaser12, on 10/12/2007, -9/+39And IRC and Email and RSS. Along with it being more complaint and faster at rendering. Works better on slow computers, fewest exploits. The list goes on..
- SilverGinger5, on 10/12/2007, -9/+20Although I do use Opera, I'm not a fan of the integrated bittorrent so I still use Utorrent. The problem with the Opera version (and it might just be that I've missed something in the configuration or something) is that for example if you go to get a torrent of an album, you have to get the entire album, whereas with Utorrent you can just select which songs you want from the album.
- mookieXL, on 10/12/2007, -9/+18Opera's BT sucks. You can't select priority for files inside torrent, it has no DHT (trackerless) support etc etc.
  
  Otherwise it's nice browser, i use it as default one (because it loads faster than FF).
- Kithkin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Opera's bittorrent wasn't designed for downloading albums or TV shows.
  
  If you want that stuff, set up Opera to associate torrents with utorrent.
- nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -23/+5@SilverGinger5:
  
  it's not Utorrent. the "u" in uTorrent is supposed to be the greek letter "mu", which you can see on wikipedia. it's a symbol for micro.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro
- worbd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12It's still easier to call it "uTorrent", since most people don't have that weird character on their keyboards.
- andytandreou, on 10/12/2007, -14/+7ΑΒΓΔΕΖΗΘΙΚΛ
  
  μ
  
  ΝΞΟΠΡΣΤΥΦΧΨΩ
- torhu, on 10/12/2007, -11/+1You can press ctr+alt+m or altGr+m on many European keyboards to get µ (mu, or micro). Also works on US international keyboards, I think.
- nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2all I'm saying is at least when you write it "uTorrent" the lowercase u looks a little bit like a µ.
- Engival, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I view Opera's bittorrent to be a really good tool for people who simply install opera, and have no idea what bittorrent is. They click on something, and it magically downloads.
- robche, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I dont think operas BT support is meant for hardcore bt users, but for people who dont know what BT is and just want things to work.
  
  Personal note, i switch between Opera and IE7
mikeoh, on 10/12/2007, -27/+10Firefox for sure. Adblocking in Firefox is the killing feature for me. I don't know of any way to Adblock. The Adblock extension plus the filter-set extension makes sure that all those pesky ads arent displayed making the site load faster and without those annoying adds.
- IMustBeEmo, on 10/12/2007, -10/+42Opera has ad blocking, too.
- JimV, on 10/12/2007, -28/+11Those ads pay for the site your browsing.
- flyinglikeakite, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17Its built into Opera v9 and earlier a 3rd party soft allowed you to block ads via urlfilter.ini
- alex.will, on 10/12/2007, -10/+5I am an avid-user of NoScript, and it blocks pretty much every ad. I support digg by allowing fmpub.com to run scripts ;-)
- PaulRay, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11In Opera, right click, click on what you don't want to see, click Done.
  I like being able to decide exactly what I do and don't want to see on a page.
- SuitCase874, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I use a CSS file to block ads in Opera and it works quite well, and uses a negligible amount of memory to work with. Many Firefox and Safari users have taken to CSS ad blockers, too.
  
  Adblocker is a pretty bad reason to stick with Firefox. It's not particularly better than the alternatives available in other browsers, that problem has been solved. I believe userstyles.org has a FilterSet-something CSS sheet for you to try out, and it seems pretty aggressive.
- Dylan16807, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1In Firefox, right click, click on what you don't want to see, click Done.
  Opera is behind here.
  Adblock has built in filters that many people want.
  Firefox also has the same kind of CSS features, and could probably use the same filter stylesheet.
- Cerberus047, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Ah i hate when people bring that up.... opera has a content blocker... they cant call it an ad blocker because they are a ligit company and if buisnesses know that they shun opera forever... ever wonder why you cant get adblock directly from mozilla?
IMustBeEmo, on 10/12/2007, -9/+31Opera has a lot of standard features that Firefox doesn't. It also doesn't have that stupid memory leak, and it is the best browser for older systems.

I am currently running a laptop with 2 GHZ mobile Pentium 4 and 512 MB of RAM. If I use Firefox, the computer slows down to an almost unbearable speed. With Opera it's all smooth sailing!
tektalk, on 10/12/2007, -18/+10From my experience,
Opera is your choice for speed
Firefox is good for safety and convenience, note that the v2.0 has a tab system like opera, even the buttons seem as sharp as opera.

K-meleon is based on the opera source code, i recommend this for people who used up too much free space and can't seem to delete their data. very fast and takes up minimal space (still in improvement by the ever supportive geek community.

No one has really heard of Tablane but i suggest you play with it, it has two lanes where you can view 2 tabs simultaneously and there is a zoom option. don't recommend for daily use (pain in the ass)
- Chaser12, on 10/12/2007, -14/+1Lol it's based on firefox's code. It's hardly any different. Few added features + gui change.
- aurath, on 10/12/2007, -12/+4They're _both_ based on netscapes code. Its also the fastest and conforms to web standards the best.
- Awesomedude, on 10/12/2007, -10/+24Opera is the choice for speed, safety, and convenience.
  I don't know if I would call firefox convenient as you need to install a bunch of extensions to get the same features that are built into opera.
- flyinglikeakite, on 10/12/2007, -8/+25History suggests that Opera is more secure (compared to fx).
- worbd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16@ tektalk
  
  "Firefox is good for safety and convenience"
  
  Last time I checked, Opera had fewer security bugs than Firefox, and no need to download dozens of extensions to get useful functionalyt...
  
  "K-meleon is based on the opera source code"
  
  No it isn't. It uses Gecko.
  
  [quote]No one has really heard of Tablane but i suggest you play with it, it has two lanes where you can view 2 tabs simultaneously and there is a zoom option. don't recommend for daily use (pain in the ass)[/quote]
  You mean like you can tile tabs in Opera to view several at once, and zoom them (including images, not just the text)? Wow... :P
- Murdats, on 10/12/2007, -9/+5firefox is more convienent when you have even more convineint features installed
  
  opera's level of features and convinience is constant
  firefox's is highly variable and almost infinate
- LouisC, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6aurath: Opera's not based on Netscape at all...
- rowanjl, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1History also suggests that as an application gains popularity the number of bugs found increases. It's also worth noting that people WANT to install extesnions, both of your arguments are old and based on opinion instead of facts.
  
  As for the "opera source code"... I'll have to assume he made the biggest typo o ever, and meant Firefox :P
  
  LouisC, I think you'll find that he wasn't talking about Opera, you should actually read the parent comment...
aurath, on 10/12/2007, -11/+36Opera is the fastest browser and has the most features. Most of the new features in Firefox 2 have been in Opera for ages.
DoubtfulSalmon, on 10/12/2007, -27/+7I think its good that someone posted an article to digg using the main product link for Opera, 'cos that means that no-one else will be able to do it ever again. Opera users are the pathetic whining minority of the Internet.
- michaelbeckham, on 10/12/2007, -8/+12Firefox users were like that for a while too really. I'll stick to Firefox 2.0.
TheGunBlade, on 10/12/2007, -36/+6It costs money - Hence it sucks!
Just kidding, but I do think that's why it's not as popular..
- aurath, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30Its been free for ages.
- michaelbeckham, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18It has been free for ages, get with the program...
- SilverGinger5, on 10/12/2007, -21/+1Edit - two people got in there before me. Please bury
DigginTuesday, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27Opera is well worth a go. I've used it for years, it's just so quick :)
Mouse gestures are great, tabbed browsing, the notes panel is very handy, the list goes on.
I've no idea why people want to have a holy war about it though. Use IE, FF, Opera, or all three. Free choice for all :)
coheedcollapse, on 10/12/2007, -12/+5I love Opera, but for some reason every time I use it the pages take a while to come up (even on instant draw) and my fans start going crazy (even though the CPU usage doesn't seem to be too much).

The features are great, I really fell in love with it for a while over the summer, but the speed of firefox really kept me loyal.

I have a decent computer too, no idea why I'd be having trouble with a browser.
- flyinglikeakite, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Only thing I can suggest is to do a clean install of the latest stable version.
tadunne, on 10/12/2007, -11/+7Theres a war? I think of more like M$ won the war and Firefox and others are the resistance!
dAbReAkA, on 10/12/2007, -17/+6opera in the browser wars? funny.. opera may be better in certain things but it cant be in the browser wars with 0,5 - 1% market share
- wyzish, on 10/12/2007, -8/+4Nice e-penis post there mate, are those _your_ market shares? No thought not, so shut up.
- barktwiggs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Speaking of Wii's, once the free Opera giveaway with Nintendo reaches 4-6 million before next June, I would expect that to pad the usage stats a bit.
JapanisFull, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14Opera is quite good, even though for some reason the bury button on Digg gets all weird when ya try to use it (least in my experience, after the big digg upgrade).
NinjaDuck12, on 10/12/2007, -14/+9I think the name's a big part of it. Who's going to pick something with a name associated with old folks over something with fire in the name? Plus a cool logo.
- snlildude87, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9not to mention firefox burns your memory...
s1oan, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14It's not a question of a "forgotten browser". It's just a question of money invested on ads, magazine reviews and things like that.

Opera don't spend so much money on ads as Microsoft or Mozilla do to appear everytime someone talks about browsers (tv, magazines, web pages...)
chazuk, on 10/12/2007, -12/+12Opera is a fantastic browser and I have it for my DS and my Nokia N91, but Firefox will always win for me on the pc/mac because of stuff like adblock plus, flashgot E.T.C
- worbd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Heh, Opera has an ad blocker, and you can probably do the rest you mention in Opera too.
- chazuk, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I'm going to give Opera a try then.
  
  Could Digg have created another Opera convert? :D
- yalooze, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5chazuk: check out OperaGet http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=90198 for flashget compatibility and have a look at ablocker.css http://members.chello.nl/b.kroonspecker/opera/ for adblocking, in addition to the 'content blocker' within Opera.
  
  Add the location of adblocker.css to tools > preferences > advanced > content > style options > my style sheet
  
  enjoy.
- praxis22, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I'm not knocking Opera, but Adblock Plus really shines when you supplement it with Filterset G updater: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1136/
  
  "This is a companion extension to Adblock or Adblock Plus and should be used in conjunction with it. This extension automatically downloads the latest version of Filterset.G every 4-7 days."
  
  It does mean that somebody else makes your choices for you, but for most it's a "fire and forget" solution. Those two, no-script, nuke anything & Tab Mix Plus are really must haves for me. Though I'm really beginning to love the inline spell checker in FF2.0
  
  For people who want just to install the base app I'm sure Opera is great, but if you like to tweak, there's far more to tweak in Firefox IMO, but to each their own, anyone not using IE, is one less problem to worry about.
  
  (I'm a postmaster, SPAM comes from virused and mal-wared machines, for which compromises for IE are legion.)
bh1nd3r, on 10/12/2007, -7/+9They are both nice browsers but I prefer the overall design of Firefox. Also I've stuck with it for such a long time that I don't want to change. Yes, Adblock is great-I haven't seen an ad in firefox for a long time-but there is something like that available for Opera too.

Check this out http://operawiki.info/BlockAdvertisements

One thing that I really like about Firefox 2 is the integrated spell check for all the forms. That's one feature that the other browsers need to implement.
- PaulRay, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Spell check any word in Opera by double clicking it, right clicking and clicking "Dictionary" from the extensive list of things like, translate, search from various search engines, copy it (or anything you highlight" to notes. It really does a lot.
- anmol2k4, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Opera integrates with the GNU Aspell spelling checker (You can also check out the Windows version of GNU Aspell. Read the tutorial on how to install and use it. The added benefit of Opera’s integration with GNU Aspell is that you also get spell-checking when composing e-mail and Usenet messages.
  
  Opera for MacIntosh integrates with the system-default spelling checker and does not require any installation.
kfm187, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Yeah, I switch between O and FF -- but I admit I haven't fired up FF in a while.

I like a minimal UI that gets out of the way when I don't want it, but is there when I do. That's why I like Opera's popup progress bar and the ability to search google by typing 'g ' in the address bar. Seriously, why in the world do you need one address bar for urls and another for google search terms? Does FF still require that?
- rbvmusic, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16there are two things that I've gotten used to too much to switch from using Opera to Firefox. One is the feature that you mentioned in the address bar search, which is a godsend. Nothing is quicker than setting a keyword for a search and going to your address bar to type it in. Seriously, I search demonoid all the time and instead of going to the site to search, or even going to the secondary search bar on the top of the screen, I go to the address bar type demo (the keyword) and anything I want and boom, it comes up in a second. Seriously its frightingly easy to do.
  
  The second thing is the wand feature that Opera implements. Sure firefox has autofill but then you kinda have to search for the button to click to submit that. With the wand all you have to do is go to the top of the screen to login to any site, meaning you don't have to press the "login" button on the website to do so, its all controlled by the wand tool. I know its pretty much a personal preference when it comes to password managers but I like a centralized button to login, its much more efficient imo.
- jsebrech, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3Firefox offers the same thing. Just right-click any form field and select "add a keyword for this search". If that doesn't work, add a bookmark for the search url, replace the search term with %s and associate a keyword in the bookmark properties. By default it comes preconfigured to use "google" to search google and "dict" to give dictionary definitions, but you can easily modify these in the quick searches bookmarks folder. You can then remove the separate search field by customizing your toolbar. I always remove it immediately after install, since I don't need it.
Sakumi, on 10/12/2007, -19/+2This is on digg... why?

Opera is fine and all, but what does this have to do with news? Buried as Spam.
- billymachine, on 10/12/2007, -17/+2How can anyone not see that this story is an ad for Opera? It's not even trying to pretend it isn't.
Onechrisn, on 10/12/2007, -7/+37You know what I never see? I never see Opera users popping into Fire Fox posts and trying to prove that Opera is better.

You know what I ALWAYS see? I see Fire Fox users popping into EVERY Opera post and arguing every point under the sun that Fire Fox is Sooooo much better than Opera.

Why is that?

Is the browser you're using "The Best" or even "Best for you"?
Or do you use it because "all the cool kids are doing it"?
- billymachine, on 10/12/2007, -13/+14Well, both of Opera's fans were probably asleep when the post hit the front page. But seriously, it's because FF is about a bajillion times more popular, and more fans means more vocal fans.
- monticello, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19FireFox turned into a fanboy operation long ago. At least fanboying a console holds some tangible explanation...
- r0Ot3d, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12I wish I could give you the thumbs up more than once.
- FriedLocust, on 10/12/2007, -10/+5No offense Onechrisn, but if u claim to never see opera fanbois in ff posts u must be partial blind.
  It is part off human nature, it is the "I use it, so it is much better then what u use" attitude.
  This whole thread is about "Mine is much better than yours. Why don't u use the same as me."
  
  Use what ever u like people. ;)
  
  ps: strange thing, on my machine opera isn't any faster as ff2.0. Don't know why.
- sulaco, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2@FriedLocust
  
  I agree with you, yet somehow "u" are still an idiot.
- Hindu_Wardrobe, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3Pay more attention. No offense, but Opera zealots--while rare compared to Mozilla zealots--are the absolute worst.
  The casual fans I don't mind. The ones that say "Hey, Opera kicks ass, try it."
  But then there are the zealots who think they are the ***** because they use a browser that has almost no marketshare. It makes them feel special. So they have to flame non-Opera-ians until they feel they've won the argument--which neither side ever will.
  Zealoting is for squares, folks. Be a circle.
  Or a triangle, at least.
- FriedLocust, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2@sulaco, u should get a life and btw I'll use "u" whether u like it or not ;)
  
  lol and insulting people without stating a reason makes u a moron :P nah, just kidding, get a life man
Alisic, on 10/12/2007, -4/+22According to benchmarks, Opera 9 is the fastest and the most standards compilant. Also if you use it, you'll see that's basically really fast, everything happens instantly, in Firefox for instance when you open a new tab with a gesture you have to wait about 500 miliseconds for the tab to show up.
Another thing is that it has a lot of useful features, basically everything i need Opera has out of the box, whereas if I want extra features in Firefox I have to install extensions and each extenstion takes up memory.
I'm not bashing Firefox, just stating my preference, everyone should give Opera at least a try.
- FriedLocust, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4Tried it in my ff2, new tab pops up instantly like in my opera, 0,5 sec for a new tab? Ho did you measure how many ms it takes your ff?
leonwehttam, on 10/12/2007, -11/+4anyone else use Camino on thier mac? i cant stand safari
- Kelmon, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3I'd like to but I use RSS too much and Camino 1.0 just doesn't understand it. I'm not expecting Camino to actually perform the function of an RSS reader but I do expect it to at least recognise them and hand them off to my current default news reader (in this case NetNewsWire). Beyond this my gripes with Camino are the lack of a spellchecker, which is unusual for a modern OS X application, and the download manager tends to block when starting a new download (cue the spinning beachball of death for a couple of seconds). Given this I still favour Safari but must confess that Camino 1.1 looks like it will fix much of my problems so when it is officially released then I'll give it another bash since Camino is already supported by the excellent Inquisitor search tool and the URL auto-completion function is correctly implemented, unlike Safari's which has a habit of sending me off to a page I didn't want to go to.
  
  This said, Safari 3 is looking pretty promising as well so Camino's role as my primary browser could again be short lived, assuming that 1.1 is even released before Leopard hits the streets.
KrazyKoala, on 10/12/2007, -9/+7I love opera, but has anybody else's Opera started acting funny after downloading IE7?

Also out of curiosity, how do I get Opera to always load a page fresh when I enter it. A lot of sites will pop up the way they were last time I visited, but I then need to refresh them.
- tornpage, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Click Tools > Preferences > General (tab). In the startup field is a drop-down box that lets you change the startup mode.
- yalooze, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9actually you want tools > preferences > advanced > history > down the bottom where it says 'check if cached page is updated on the server, select 'always' from the drop down lists for 'documents' and 'images'
  
  Caching means the pages load a lot faster so maybe experiment a bit and instead of 'always' set it to '10 mins' or '1 hour' etc and see how it goes. Personally I have it set to 5 hours, although can't remember if this is default or not.
- tornpage, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Oh, you're right. I misread the question, lol. I have my cache dumped on exit, so it will automatically re-load the page when I start it back up, though.
tornpage, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20I've used Opera for years...since version 3.62 and it is simply the best web browser I've ever tried. It's small, it's fast, it's reliable, it started the whole "tabbed browsing" and was the first browser to be built around web standards - something IE has never come close to touching. Plus, I can customize Opera completely - IE and Firefox have limits to what you can change.

The Mozilla engine is slow; Firefox in particular is a memory hog and you need many add-ons just to regain the original functionality of Opera. The only reason Firefox is so popular is a result of insane amounts of media coverage. Hell, it was even on the local news - anything with that kind of publicity will be eaten alive by the public.

I only use Firefox for the rare AJAX-ridden page that Opera has a hard time rendering (like Google Docs). If you don't have a choice though, Firefox is still better than IE by leaps and bounds.
- NerveBand, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Opera can render Google Docs perfectly. This method also works for other idiotic sites who don't give a ***** about Opera.
  
  1) Visit docs.google.com
  2) Go To Tools > Quick Preferences > Edit Site Preferences
  3) Click On The Network Tab and Identify as Mozilla
  4) Accept Changes and go refresh the tab
  5) Enjoy
  
  (Btw, if refreshing doesn't work, try opening and closing the tab again.)
- camomilk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@Nerveband:
  
  Thank you for pointing out that feature, I didn't even know I could do that in Opera.
StatusQuoRules, on 10/12/2007, -14/+3They need to add a freakin bookmarks toolbar to opera ffs! Not that dumb sidebar thing. It's one of the essential things people use! That's like having no navigation/location bar!
- tornpage, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8You can just drag a bookmark/bookmark folder to any toolbar in use...or setup the "personal" toolbar as a bookmark toolbar.
- GhostCow, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I don't use the bookmarks toolbar. In fact, one of the things about FF that I really hate is that I have to keep a folder for it in my bookmarks. I mean, I can't even hide it! wtf? When I used to use firefox, I'd always have to hide the toolbar and then rename the folder for it to something else to get my ui space back. Not cool!
- PaulRay, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I Love the bookmarking in Opera. Now that I'm familiar with it, I hate using anything else. This is one of the main features that has kept me using Opera. It has dividers within folders and the ability to look at only one open folder at a time. These are just a few customizations, I really think anyone could find a setup they liked within the choices.
- worbd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8View->Toolbars->Personal bar
Narwaffle, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Opera's a neat little browser. It's on par with Firefox, and is a good deal faster. I haven't really bothered with IE7, just doesn't float my boat. However, the reason I use Firefox more then Opera is because the RSS feature in Opera is clumsly and not as "accesible" as Firefox.
harris2004, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8opera is the 2nd best for me after firefox..I hate IE tho..opera seems to have a lot of features..i wonder how opera makes money now?
- pigdart, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The same way firefox does.
Dygear, on 10/12/2007, -7/+17Try opening a large SVG file in all of the major browsers
http://www.TheNZ.org/example.svg 8.04 MB (8,441,374 bytes) SVG file.
Try that file, and see how your browser fairs.

Opera Opens The File In 4 Seconds.
Firefox 1.5 Crashes.
Firefox 2.0 Crashes.
Internet Explorer 6 Try To Download It, As It Does Not Know What To Do With It.
Internet Explorer 7 With Adobes SVG Plugin Open The File In 7 Seconds.
- Ragzouken, on 10/12/2007, -14/+4But do you really want to open an 8mb SVG file in a web browser?
- zongamin, on 10/12/2007, -14/+2good luck - i've got better things to do that open that *****
  
  what a ***** ***** comment
- Dygear, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Oh grow up you two. People, like myself, have reasons for opening up files that are that big. Ever do 3d rendering?
- FriedLocust, on 10/12/2007, -1/+74sec from your hard drive, right? Took me 4min in opera same as in ff to download it on 10mbit. With free download manager it was 10sec.
  Opera rendered it, ff did not crash, but my comp slowed down incredibly and I could not use it anymore. Never saw the ball in ff. OK, advantage opera.
  Should report this on bugtrack.
- stelt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Opera is leading the pack in SVG in browsers at the moment, try the many examples on http://svg.startpagina.nl
- JeffD, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Firefox 1.0.7 came up with a save as dialog box.
diggthiscrap, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17Opera rocks right out of the box. There are some cool features I would like from FireFox in Opera, but for something to work so well from the start you gotta stick with Opera!
kitkatsavvy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16I switched over to Opera after being sick of damn Firefox using at LEAST half of my damn memory (and thats no joke either!). Opera is great to use!

Oh yeah, if anyone is using Opera and needs autocomplete software (ie filling in the google search box autocomplete) just go here > http://vvs.post.lg.ua/?fl=0&i=16#engl
- NerveBand, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Opera has Built In Auto Complete in the Preferences.Not too hard to setup.
- u8myfoood, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2@kitkatsavvy
  so you have 64mb of RAM?
  TIME TO UPGRADE!
wardriver20, on 10/12/2007, -14/+7I like opera. But the interface just looks too messy.
- SuitCase874, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11You realise Opera has the most comprehensively customisable interface of any browser, right? Poke around a bit, you'll work it out.. and if not, you can find people who have made layouts you can download that replicate the look of FirefoxIE for you.
  
  Opera takes a few minutes to set up, but if you make the effort of setting the personal shortcuts, gestures, interface layouts etc you'll find you browse far more efficiently than before.
- worbd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Too messy? It has a button or two more than Firefox, and it's "too messy"?
  
  Never mind the fact that the UI in Opera takes up less screen estate than Firefox...
- wardriver20, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Comparisson:
  
  http://www.opera.com/img/products/desktop/screenshots/mac/bittorrentresults.jpg
  http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/5087/picture1vb8.png
- yalooze, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7In your Opera screenshot you should remove the navigation toolbar below the address bar and remove the panel on the left. Then it'll be a fair comparison.
  
  Also, grab a skin like 'Breeze Simplified' and you'll notice a dramatic increase in screen realestate.
- worbd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Ahem, wardriver20, the navigation bar is disabled by default, and so are the panels.
  
  You are cheating! ;)
csulok, on 10/12/2007, -8/+6harris2004: operamini isnt free, opera for wii wont be free after 6 months i guess, they have paid support too
- bjohnsonwsu, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Opera Mini is free, and anything about Wii at this point can only be called speculation.
- tornpage, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Operamini is free. I have it on my phone. What they sell is Opera mobile, a more capable version of Operamini (i.e., it's guaranteed to work like a PC browser - most phone browsers have trouble with non-wap designed pages).
aurath, on 10/12/2007, -4/+21Has anyone brought up the acid3 test?
http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html
Opera passes with flying colors, how does firefox fair?
- SilverGinger5, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12I've just tested the acid test. As you said it works perfectly in Opera, it looks a bit messed up in Firefox 1.5 (haven't got 2.0 yet so can't test that) and I'm not testing it in IE as last time I fired that piece of software up my computer wouldn't shut down.
- srg13, on 10/12/2007, -18/+3Who really cares? Acid2 just tests how browsers handle invalid CSS.
- aurath, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19@srq13
  web developers do.
- s1oan, on 10/12/2007, -4/+21Opera 9 shows it correctly.
  Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 do NOT show it correctly.
- srg13, on 10/12/2007, -11/+7"web developers do."
  
  Shouldn't web developers NOT care? I thought they were paid to write valid CSS...
csulok, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2bjohnsonwsu: one of the mobile versions of opera isnt free -.-
wii spec: true
fatas, on 10/12/2007, -15/+2You can't even customize the print headers in Opera.

Opera and IE gets owned by the following page:
http://www.econsultant.com/i-want-firefox-extension/index.html
- aurath, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Go through that list and pick something useful. (useful, as in not the extension to test whether a blog is under the creative common license). There won't be many you can find that Opera can't already do. The only ones I can see that Opera wouldn't be able to handle on its own is anything that interfaces with a blog/social bookmarking page. Personally, a faster, better browser is well worth the inconvenience of having to go to a website, in my web browser, to blog something.
- tornpage, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2005/01/opera-and-firefox-extensions
  
  http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2005/09/opera-and-firefox-extensions-ii
- SuitCase874, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11opera:config#Printer
  Actually, Opera does let you customise print headers. It's pretty damn comprehensive, too.. try entering that address into Opera 9 and you can see. As for the extensions, Opera has many of them by default, and in most cases they are more reliable, efficient and better integrated into the browser than the Firefox equivalents. There are a few extensions Opera can't quite catch up on, yes, but I'd take the forrmer choice more readily than the one where I have to run around updating extensions from multitudes of different authors with different configuration interfaces every time there's a Firefox patch.
- fatas, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2@suitcase
  
  Those are limited you can't even tell it what you want in the header.
Kelmon, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4I've tried each of the recent version of Opera on the Mac and I still don't like it for the same reasons that I don't like Firefox - it's not a real Mac application. Because the application is cross-platform it seems to cater for the lowest common denominator and as such it doesn't support the features of OS X that any self respecting Mac application does. For me the killer non-supported feature as a mobile user is Network Preferences. My office is a wired network with a proxy server whereas at home I use a wireless network with a direct connection to the Internet. With Mac browsers like Safari and Camino I don't need to make any changes to my preferences in order to use them at either of these locations but for Firefox and Opera I need to make a trip into the application's Preferences and change my network settings. This by itself drives me nuts and is the #1 reason why I won't use either unless I come across a stroppy website that will only behave under Firefox and even that hasn't happened for a long time now.

My other 2 pet peeves with both Firefox and Opera is the lack of support for storing passwords in the Keychain (Keychain is both secure and easily backed up) and not supporting the OS X Dictionary that I have already trained so I'll be damned if I'm doing that again.

Currently I'm running OmniWeb to see if it is sufficiently good enough that I'll pay $10 for a license over the free cost of the other browsers. Beyond that Safari is my mainstay due mostly to the Inquisitor search tool and excellent automated form completion tool, although the automated URL completion drives me bezerk at times. Camino lacks in the current 1.0 version (heck, it doesn't even understand RSS to hand off to NetNewsWire) but version 1.1 is looking quite promising as it fixes most of my annoyances. The dark horse as OS X browsers go has to be Shiira 2.0 which shows a lot of promise but development of that browser seems pretty slow at the moment.
- psilanthropist, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4get a blog!
Moria, on 10/12/2007, -12/+6How ironic. Opera stalled on my Mac when viewing this page.
Bonzodog, on 10/12/2007, -12/+2opera....qt....ugh.

I won't touch the qt/kde env's with a bargepole. QT is memory hungry, and has always been sluggish on every machine I have ever used it on.

I want a simple fast light gtk browser. Thats all. NOT dependent on the gecko engine. Is that too much to ask?
- worbd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Opera only uses Qt for a couple of things like system dialogs. The rest is not Qt.
gookie, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24Dugg - to show my support to Opera. :)
- dr00, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19dugg using opera!
jimbo92107, on 10/12/2007, -16/+1What, no integrated spell checker? How very last-year!
- ColonelKilkenny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Opera has spell checker. It checks if user has Aspell installed and uses it. That's called desktop integration.
  And this feature was added a long time before Firefox added their own spell checker.
  
  Priceless.
psilanthropist, on 10/12/2007, -13/+4of course opera is better than IE and firefox put together. even a firefox addict like me would agree with that.

but the question is . . . is it better than firefox and "the extensions" put together ?
Not a chance in hell !
- worbd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Considering that it has most of the useful extensions built in already... Well... :)
paker, on 10/12/2007, -10/+0The last time I used Opera it wouldn't use cookies correctly from my homepage and I couldn't log into my mail, so I never used it after that.
bbnkstr, on 10/12/2007, -18/+3opera needs to become open source before it can compete with firefox
- AxiomShell, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15I really don't understand this nonsense that something open source is good per se...
  Open Source software is *potentially* superior because of all the reasons we know (all bugs are shallow, blah blah). You can't take a piece of crap software (which isn't Opera's case by the way, I use it and love it) and make it "compete" just because it is OSS.
  At the end, it's about quality software. I always use (what IMHO) is the best choice for the task, regardless of being proprietary, OSS or hybrid-mixed-monster.
  Again, OSS ins't a magical elf solution, it's just something that a lot of folks (that know a thing or two about software) swear by to make quality programs.
  So if Opera can compete with the others without being open source, so be it.
  The day opera can't cut it, I'll switch.
- barktwiggs, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Yes, I completely agree! Also, Nintendo needs to stop making innovative game consoles because they're in 3rd place and not losing money on each system sold.
ray86, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16I was a firefox user for a full year with about a dozen extensions, I was weary about Opera at first since Firefox has a large userbase. But I tried out Opera for a week and have been on it for 18 months now.

Opera had tabs back in 1995 and firefox and IE7 still don't do tab browsing properly. In Opera having a site open, managin my bookmarks, and having the download window open takes 1 window with 3 tabs open, not 3 windows like firefox.

Opera is the most innovative web browser out there:
http://operawiki.info/OperaInnovations?show_comments=1

People should really try out Opera, nothing against firefox here it's a great browser, but Opera sure gives firefox some great competition.
anti-net, on 10/12/2007, -14/+4the only problem I have with Opera is its not Open Source!!!!!! I wanna see the code dammit!
csgecko, on 10/12/2007, -14/+2I've got 512mb of ram and firefox clearly runs faster then Opera in all aspects.
- victord66, on 10/12/2007, -14/+1Same here. I was an Opera fan for several years, but it just got to the point where there were too many sites that didn't load or display properly. It has some nice features, and I was reluctant to switch but I've been using Firefox for a few months now and would never go back. And btw, regardless of what people say, Firefox IS much faster than Opera. So there!
- worbd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14I'm sorry, but tests would disagree:
  
  http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html
  
  As would many reviews. Just about all reviews of Opera 9 talk about how much faster it is.
  
  There was even a speed test made by a Firefox fan who found that Opera simply kills everything else when it comes to speed!
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