[KOTLP]

The Firefox extensions thread enticed me to try the latest version of Opera yesterday. I hadn't used Opera a couple years, and it sure has changed. For those that don't know, Opera is now completely free (the free version is no longer ad supported). They offer paid premium support. Some initial thoughts after a few hours.

General/Features

Overall, I'm very impressed. It far exceeds Firefox out of the box. Many of the common things you need extensions for in Firefox are built in, and Opera has some unique features as well. One that I will probably use often is the ability to define custom styles on a site-by-site basis (I use a high resolution on my notebook, and the fonts are too small on some sites I frequent such as 2+2). There is a "trash can" for closed tabs that is very handy. It works better and is more intuitive than the way a similar feature of Tab Mix Plus with Firefox. There is a somewhat mysterious smart fast forward button that is supposed to take you to the most likely next page. I haven't used any of these yet, but it also comes with an email client, built in torrent support, an IRC client, voice command support, and "Opera Widgets".

Speed

Opera is fast, very fast. Pages seem to be rendered a bit faster than Firefox, and going back to cached pages is instantaneous, noticeable faster than Firefox. You can configure how often it checks for a new version before pulling from disk cache. As far as memory usage, Firefox has actually done better in some quick tests with multiple tabs on intensive sites. This may be entirely due to my ad blocking in place in Firefox though. Regardless, the difference is minor and totally insignificant if Opera doesn't have the occasional memory leaks Firefox does.

Ad Blocking

I haven't seen 2+2 with ads since before registering, and forgot how incredibly ugly they make it here. Opera comes with an ad blocker. You have to manually remove ads. This is somewhat streamlined though as you block all unwanted content for a site in one swoop. You right click a page, go to block content, and all the blockable content is visible. You just click whatever you want blocked, and never see it again. Not sure if anything comparable to Adblock Plus with filter updater for Firefox is available for Opera. One benefit to the Opera approach is unblocking content is infinitely easier. There doesn't appear to be anything comparable to Flashblock for handling flash ads, which IMO is the perfect way to deal with flash (block by default unless you explicitly allow all for a site, but give you a play button).

Gripes

On my notebook, scrolling with the touchpad isn't working. Guess I'll need to investigate this, I don't use a mouse and no touchpad scrolling would be almost unbearable.

There are a few tab related features I've grown used to with Tab Mix Plus and Firefox that aren't available, at least out of the box. For example, I like to double click a tab to reload it. I also use some custom gestures I'm not sure if I can duplicate yet (though Opera has built in gesture support, unlike Firefox).

Although there are some 3rd party plugins available, at this point there don't appear to be many. The massive developer community is the biggest thing going for Firefox IMO.