Opera 9 vs Firefox Review

[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.

[CrazyEyez]

Thanks for this thread. I played with Opera for about 20 minutes last night and I have the following questions:

Customizing the toolbar: I can't seem to do anything. I'd like to remove the search box since I can use the address bar for searching. I can't figure out where the "home" button is. I can't drag-and-drop stuff to different locations. I currently have everything (except tabs) on one line in firefox, which I love (file, edit, etc, back, forward, etc, address bar, google search bar).

Tabbed features: I currently use drag de go. The number one feature I like about it is that I click a link, drag it and release to open in a new tab. I don't see how to do this in Opera. This is a deal breaker for me. I don't want to have to hold down a key, or right-click -> menu item.

The second drag de go feature I love is highlight any text, drag and drop, and a new tab is opened with google search results for selected text.

Mouse gestures: I don't use these as I customize my mx1000 mouse instead. I would need to redo this for opera. I haven't looked at it yet but I assume/hope it won't be an issue.

If anyone can chime in with comments on my issues, I'd appreciate it.

P.S. That ad blocking procedure is very slick, though it will be a pain to duplicate filterset initially.

[KOTLP]

I also use drag de go and am hoping for similar functionality, not sure yet on that. Will report back.

You can remove the search box by right clicking it. Right click a blank area on the toolbar and click customize for the rest (or tools > appearance). Or have you already been there?

[CrazyEyez]

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You can remove the search box by right clicking it.

[/ QUOTE ]

d'oh. Thanks.

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Right click a blank area on the toolbar and click customize for the rest (or tools > appearance). Or have you already been there?

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Yeah. I still can't find a home button. And I'd love to be able to condense it all like this:



But that's a "want" not a "need."

[KOTLP]

Dunno. I'm still trying to fix the touchpad scrolling issue. I updated the ultranav drivers for my thinkpad, but it still won't work with 9. I think I'm out of luck til IBM updates their driver or Opera fixes it.

Also just noticed a problem rendering the Yahoo TV guide. Some guide data doesn't show up at all.

p.s. if you can still edit your post, could you please crop or resize that image so it doesn't make this thread scroll horizontally.

[CrazyEyez]

[ QUOTE ]
Dunno. I'm still trying to fix the touchpad scrolling issue. I updated the ultranav drivers for my thinkpad, but it still won't work with 9. I think I'm out of luck til IBM updates their driver or Opera fixes it.

Also just noticed a problem rendering the Yahoo TV guide. Some guide data doesn't show up at all.

p.s. if you can still edit your post, could you please crop that image so it doesn't make this thread scroll horizontally.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sorry, too late. I thought <1200 would be small enough. My bad.

[StevieG]

[ QUOTE ]

p.s. if you can still edit your post, could you please crop or resize that image so it doesn't make this thread scroll horizontally.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fittingly for a thread on the topic of browsers, there is something you can do about this if you use Firefox.

See this archived post on a Greasemonkey script that will auto resize links and images here at 2+2 to keep your screen tidy.

Sometimes you have to reload the page to get the image to resize, but it works.

[KOTLP]

[ QUOTE ]
Fittingly for a thread on the topic of browsers, there is something you can do about this if you use Firefox.

See this archived post on a Greasemonkey script that will auto resize links and images here at 2+2 to keep your screen tidy.

Sometimes you have to reload the page to get the image to resize, but it works.

[/ QUOTE ]


Another, simpler approach is to use a "bookmarklet". This works in Opera and IE too. Here's one:

javascript:maxwidth=800;pi=document.getElementsByT agName("img");
for(var%20i=0;i<=pi.length;i++){var%20aspectrat io=(pi.item(i).height/pi.item(i).width);
if(pi.item(i).width>maxwidth){pi.item(i).width= 800;pi.item(i).height=aspectratio*800;}}

note: I separated this into 3 lines for readability, but you'll want to combine all 3 into one big line first.

Create a bookmark, then go to the bookmark properties and change the address to that bit of javascript. Now you're set. Anytime you are on a page with an image too wide, just click the bookmark and it will insta resize. This one is set to resize to 800, replace the 800's with whatever you want the max width to be.

[cold_cash]

If you're using Opera, click tools/preferences/web pages/ and select "always fit to width".

This is most excellent, IMO.

Have you messed around with the widgets yet?

[KOTLP]

[ QUOTE ]
If you're using Opera, click tools/preferences/web pages/ and select "always fit to width".

This is most excellent, IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sweet.


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Have you messed around with the widgets yet?

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Not yet, was about to earlier but got distracted with this damn touchpad scroll issue.