Firefox vs. Opera

[stsinner]

I've never met anyone who uses Opera, but I've seen it mentioned on TPF twice in the last week by two different posters.. Firefox seems to be the standard once you leave Internet Explorer, which I know no-one who uses.

My questions is this: what are the pros and cons with Firefox and Opera, and a consensus on which is better..

Firefox seems to be much better supported and has many very valuable add-ons, while Opera evidently has a built-in email client that would relieve me of using Thunderbird..

Opera was mainly created for portable devices such as mobile phones and PDA's, so is the full-computer version as good as Firefox and as secure? I read in Wikipedia that Firefox is much more dominant in the market than Opera, but Opera is backed and supported by Google, which is HUGE!!

I'd love to hear some facts and opinions..

 

[DeadPixel]

Thanks for this, Stsinner, now i know somthing about opera ,
I thought opera is totally useless. Now i know that it was created for a mobile equipment.
And it has email client
(by the way: lots of additional toolbars for firefox has these email clients, i use them on my own too)

I love Firefox a lot for huge assortiment of add-ons too, expecially i like 'no-script' and 'ad block' which, being in combination, save me from ad attacks and saves some time (also do not take my attention somewhere else with ads), because loading pages have no ads and loads much faster.
These plugins are my favorite and ill never go to a browser, which hast these two. (not sure if opera has)

 

[stsinner]

I love Firefox a lot for huge assortiment of add-ons too, expecially i like 'no-script' and 'ad block' which, being in combination, save me from ad attacks and saves some time, because loading pages have no ads and loads much faster.

I have both of these add-ons installed, as well, and love them, but at the same time I wonder-if people aren't viewing online ads, will the advertising dollars dry up and increase the price of software? Seems inevitable if people like you and me and ignoring ads by not being bothered by them...

Does Opera have add-ons, and is it open-source?

So far, Firefox has met my needs, but it would be nice to have a browser with a built in email client...

 

[DeadPixel]

I personally wouldnt mind at all to see ads if they wouldn't go too far (if they would be clean, i mean)... being misguided because of some suspicious ads can cost us more than to pay higher price for softwares and other stuff. I hate being misguided/fooled and going mad when see such ads...
My very personal opinion - ads are evil!
... But thats a webmasters bread in other hand.

Sorry for this offtopic

So far, Firefox has met my needs, but it would be nice to have a browser with a built in email client...

Here i can see very easy solution:
Why, Stsinner, you just do not install a toolbar lets say from conduit.com to get email client on your browser?
+ you get RSS reader on it and alot more things, which you can always hide if will not like.
Here actually are toolbars for communities, but you can build a toolbar even for yourself. I use such toolbar on my firefox - very customizeable, has email clients too. :thumbup:
I have all my yahoo, msn, and google accounts on it. Very happy with it

And i think it is clean of spyware, as the company is famous.

 

[Overread]

operas interface is very similar to that of IE7 so its much easier to change to than it is to change to foxy. I also like the fact that opera lets me read the exif of photos without having to install any addons and such.

As for IE7 some people still use it

 

[Dwig]

operas interface is very similar to that of IE7...

Actually, its the other way around. Over the years, IE has become more Opera-like.

Opera is designed around a excellent display engine that was designed to allow for a wide range of platforms and operating systems. Of the popular browsers (Opera, Firefox, IE, and Safari) it was the first to offer tabbed windows. In fact Opera had tabbed browsing before Firefox or Safari were available.

I discovered Opera years ago when working at Macromedia (Design Engineer on the FreeHand developement team) and was working extensively with Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver contained a licenced version of Opera's display engine and I started using Opera itself as my browser to see how it compared to IE (this is before Firefox). I liked it, its UI was better, and its immune to any of the IE specific malware.

I can't help by comparing it to FF as I don't have any significant experience with it. I can say Opera's integrated email and RSS client are very useful to me. I keep a side panel open displaying my mail and RSS folders while browsing to keep aware of any incomming traffic. Opera's download manager is also excellent. Interupted downloads can be restarted easily and the status of multiple downloads can be monitored on a single tab. Opera also hosts Widgets of which I use a few.

 

[Overread]

I must say I do like the download management method - far better than IE7 one

 

[clarinetJWD]

Well, for starters, Opera was not created for mobile phones. The desktop browser has been around far longer than mobile browsers, though that doesn't change that it's the de facto mobile browser.

As for security, there's an Opera Widget (Like standalone extensions) that monitors the relative security of the major browsers...Opera is always by far the most secure, though the results are probably a bit biased. I only say it to mean that in Opera, security is not a concern.

As for extensibility, Firefox has the edge here, with thousands of extensions, but Opera isn't too far behind. It has Widgets, which are mini-applications that run when Opera is open, and it can run Greasemonkey scripts natively (just point to them) to change page rendering.

I absolutely love the built in email client, it's very intuitive, and full featured, while living in a sidebar. Oh, and the sidebar. It's not like FF's completely worthless abomination of a sidebar. It's really useful, showing bookmarks, mail, widgets, history, transfers, notes, windows, and even has a built in IRC client.

Also, your bookmarks, speed dial (instead of a new tab page, it shows a customizable grid of your most used pages), history, searches, and notes can all be synchronized to your opera page to be accessed from any browser, and completely synched between opera installations.

As for the rendering engine, Opera 10.0 Alpha is one of the few browser builds out there (Certainly not FF or IE) that can get 100/100 on the Acid3 test.

none of this compares to the best feature. Mouse gestures that work. I know about the various gesture extensions for FF, but because thay're add ons instead of built in, FF doesn't consider them high priority, so the more tabs you have open, the less responsive they are. That's not a problem in Opera, and it really speeds up navigation.

Besides ultimate extensibility, the only real problem in Opera is that some sites just don't work right in Opera, though most of the time "mask as IE" or "mask as FF" fixes that, and it's getting better these days.

If you haven't used it, try it for 2 weeks, and see how you like it. You owe it to yourself!

(EDIT: Completely off topic)
For the longest time, I wanted a client based RSS reader that could synchronize to a server. I don't like web based interfaces for RSS or email, so it had to be an app. Well, I came up with a very overcomplicated way of doing it. Set up an account at newsgator.com, and enter all your feeds. THere's a setting on the page that allows you to have your RSS feeds emailed to you. This is step 1, but through newsgator, it's pop3 only, so no synchronizing. Next, set up an email account through gmail, and set it to check your newsgator address. Now you have IMAP based RSS feeds, synchronized anywhere, or available through a web interface.

 

[stsinner]

Well, for starters, Opera was not created for mobile phones.

I'm having trouble substantiating your claim when I read this on Wiki... "Opera was first released publicly with version 2.0 in 1996,[6] which only ran on Microsoft Windows.[7] In an attempt to capitalize on the emerging market for Internet-connected handheld devices, a project to port Opera to mobile device platforms was started in 1998"

 

[stsinner]

Those of you that use Opera, can you walk me though transferring my email accounts (verizon) into Opera, because I've tried, and I can't see where it's possible... And I want to import my bookmarks from Firefox...

 

[Josh66]

I used Firefox for a long time. When Firefox 3 came out, there was just something about it I didn't like. For about a month or two after that I tried virtually every browser out there. Opera was the only one I liked. It does everything I want without having to add a bunch of extensions.

Everything just seems more intuitive in Opera.

I like the way pretty much everything is organized better, and speed dial is awesome. I don't visit a ton of websites every day, so 9 to choose from on start-up is perfect for me (TPF is #1 ). I also like that I can just type "1" in the address bar and hit enter to get here if I'm on another site.

the only real problem in Opera is that some sites just don't work right in Opera, though most of the time "mask as IE" or "mask as FF" fixes that, and it's getting better these days.

How do you mask as IE or FF? I still have to use firefox to pay my cable bill. The cable company redesigned their website a few months ago and it no longer works with Opera (now it's all flash, I hate it. It doesn't remember my password or user ID anymore either). It's just kinda annoying having to open a different browser just for one website...

I've never tried using the built in e-mail client with Opera... I think I'll try setting that up now (using Thunderbird now).

 

[Josh66]

And I want to import my bookmarks from Firefox...

That part's pretty easy. Open the "Manage Bookmarks" tab, then under File there is an option to import bookmarks from various browsers.

 

[stsinner]

That part's pretty easy. Open the "Manage Bookmarks" tab, then under File there is an option to import bookmarks from various browsers.

First, there is no, "Manage Bookmarks" tab... I clicked on Bookmarks >Manage Bookmarks, but there is nothing for importing bookmarks that I can see...

Oh, I found it-File>Import>Firefox.... NOTHING>.. I've got a hundred bookmarks.. Where can I find them..?

 

[Josh66]

First, there is no, "Manage Bookmarks" tab... I clicked on Bookmarks >Manage Bookmarks, but there is nothing for importing bookmarks that I can see...

Oh, I found it-File>Import>Firefox.... NOTHING>.. I've got a hundred bookmarks.. Where can I find them..?

Ah - you have to export them from Firefox first.

In Firefox do this: Bookmarks-->Organize Bookmarks-->Import and Backup-->Export HTML.

Now in Opera, import that file.

 

[Josh66]

I have the e-mail pretty much set up, seems OK. I'll try it for a while.

One thing though - how do I import my contacts from thunderbird? Thunderbird exports them in a different format than Opera is asking for in the import menu...