Is Opera better than Firefox?

[DioAngel 1]

Since yesterday been getting issues om memory since yesterday due to my internet connection going haywire by disconnecting and reconnecting itself! Trying to find out until today I noticed that my firefox browser took a HUGE memory (according to the resources)!

I desicovered the Opera browser site, but don't know it''s safe or not to use (Even I"M NEVER going back to IE)? Is it better than Firefox?

[jacqulina 162]

i think firefox linda hun,great to see you back.

[J. Doe 0]

I can't really say either of the browsers is the better one, it's a matter of taste. When it comes to security Opera will be fine, the only issue is that there is no auto-update (at least last time I tried it there was none). It does use considerabily less RAM than Firefox. But I can't imagine high resource usage can cause problems with the internet connection.

[Randomtaskk 1]

I used to be a huge supporter of Opera and was in love with it, simply because things like mouse gestures/speed dial etc were built in. It also had built in torrent support and IRC protocol which was awesome.

The downside was that a number of the pages I frequently visited always seemed to crash in Opera.

I then decided to try Firefox, and wasnt impressed at first, but I percevered and downloaded all the plugins like "All in one gestures", "Fast dial" etc to make it have the same functionality as Opera and now wouldn't go back. I don't have any trouble with pages crashing as I did with Opera and it performs much more reliably. I also like the fact it has tons of really cool plugins you simply cant get in Opera such as an Email Notifier, Minimap Sidebar that activates when you drag over an address, Cooliris image wall, Kallout enhanced search functions (select any word and hover over the icon and you can search google/wiki/shopping sites/amazon/get a map for the place etc), auto page loader (loads each, for instance, google search page below the current page so you can scroll endlessly without having to click next page etc), imageshack toolbar for one click uploads........If you can think of it there's an add on for it

Opera did seem to perferm a little faster, but thats probably just down to all the addons I have which as I said include the same functionality as Opera and improve on it...

[TV-VCR 14]

It's a matter of personal preference to be honest. However, I would have to root for Firefox. While Oprea does have a lot of features built in, there are very few free, good plugins available. Firefox doesn't have much built-in, but there are more plugins available for it than you can shake a stick at. Like randomtaskk said, if you can think of it there's an addon for it.

[J. Doe 0]

Originally posted by: TV-VCR

Firefox doesn't have much built-in, but there are more plugins available for it than you can shake a stick at. Like randomtaskk said, if you can think of it there's an addon for it.

quote>

The fact Opera lacks an addon interface except for plugins like Flash and Java might contribute to that as well

[Duke87 1,070]

Firefox does, for whatever reason, consume a substantial chunk of CPU activity. I don't know why it does, but it's never really bothered me since it doesn't typically seem to make other things perform noticably slower.

That's really the one single downside to Firefox, if you want to call it one.

Firefox's basic security is great. As to whether it's better than Opera's, I really don't know enough to comment. But it's definitely better once you factor in NoScript, that's for sure.

Which is the other great point: customizability. There are plenty of other nifty extensions for all sorts of things. If you like mouse gestures (I find the concept to be utterly gimmicky, pointless, and stupid, but to each his own), no worries, there's an extension for that. So it can't be used as an argument in favor of Opera.

[DioAngel 1]

Thank you all for the replies... I guess I'll be sticking with firefox instead. Speaking of Opera, they do got a lack of addons and information on the site. thanks for the information you guys!

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: DioAngel

they do got a lack of addons and information on the site.quote>

You may take comfort in knowing that your misuse of words has inspired this bit of randomness:

[Zelgadis 638]

I always keep two standard browsers at all times.  I use Firefox for some things and Opera for others.  

I keep both because neither does everything I want it to do.  Opera works well on some sites where FF goes to pieces.  FF works better on some sites where Opera goes to pieces.

Hence, both.  

BTW, ST is one of the sites where Opera goes to pieces, in case you're wondering.  At least, for now anyway.  ST probably just hasn't been optimized for it yet.

ISF

 

[ExiL3 10]

Wow, really Zelgadis? I only run Opera at the moment, though I used Firefox before, and the old version of opera before that again, and I rarely have problems with opera. Simtropolis works just great for me, it might be some amin tools that don't work for you Zelgadis, hence I wouldn't know of them...

As for security, from what I have read in the past Opera tend to fix what ever bugs and secutiry holes they have faster than Mozilla (firefox), but all in all they have the same level of security. Though always remember to have security software installed no matter how secure your browser is

I jumped to Opera for the fact that it leaves less junk on your harddrive, and uses less resources. Many of the addons I needed to get Firefox to run the way I wanted, I don't need in Opera. Simply because it runs the way I want to "out of the box".

As the rest said though, it really is all about preference, but I would recommend Opera

,take care

[screamingman12 30]

Originally posted by: ExiL3

Wow, really Zelgadis? I only run Opera at the moment, though I used Firefox before, and the old version of opera before that again, and I rarely have problems with opera. Simtropolis works just great for me, it might be some amin tools that don't work for you Zelgadis, hence I wouldn't know of them...

As for security, from what I have read in the past Opera tend to fix what ever bugs and secutiry holes they have faster than Mozilla (firefox), but all in all they have the same level of security. Though always remember to have security software installed no matter how secure your browser is

I jumped to Opera for the fact that it leaves less junk on your harddrive, and uses less resources. Many of the addons I needed to get Firefox to run the way I wanted, I don't need in Opera. Simply because it runs the way I want to "out of the box".

As the rest said though, it really is all about preference, but I would recommend Opera

,take carequote>

Same here, Opera is a great browser. I started at 9.00 and haven't switched yet. ST works fine as far as I can tell, and a lot better than the old ST did. I tried FF for a while, but it uses too much memory, I'll use it if I have to (or if I'm desperately trying to convince somebody to switch from IE). 

[djrules5454 5]

Either one is fine, in my opinion. FF has a far larger share of users, and theoretically could be targeted more as a result, but I use it myself. If the browser process stops running when you close the browser, it's fine with me (none of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browsers stop the iexplorer.exe process when you close out of it). IE also has huge compatibility issues when compared to the other four major browsers (Chrome, Safari, FF, and Opera). FF 3 scored a 71/100, lowest of the non-Microsoft major browsers. However, the beta version of Safari 4 and the Alpha version of Opera 10 scored perfect 100s on the test. Chrome wasn't much higher than FF 3 (79/100), and Safari 3 mustered a 75. FF 3.5 did manage a 93/100. By comparison, IE 7 managed a 12/100, and IE 8 scored a 20/100.

Basically, any of the aforementioned browsers except any version of Internet Explorer.

[J. Doe 0]

Originally posted by: djrules5454_simtropolisedition

Either one is fine, in my opinion. FF has a far larger share of users, and theoretically could be targeted more as a result, but I use it myself. If the browser process stops running when you close the browser, it's fine with me (none of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browsers stop the iexplorer.exe process when you close out of it). IE also has huge compatibility issues when compared to the other four major browsers (Chrome, Safari, FF, and Opera). FF 3 scored a 71/100, lowest of the non-Microsoft major browsers. However, the beta version of Safari 4 and the Alpha version of Opera 10 scored perfect 100s on the test. Chrome wasn't much higher than FF 3 (79/100), and Safari 3 mustered a 75. FF 3.5 did manage a 93/100. By comparison, IE 7 managed a 12/100, and IE 8 scored a 20/100.

Basically, any of the aforementioned browsers except any version of Internet Explorer.quote>

Are you talking about Acid 3? That doesn't test compatibiltiy but support for newest standards, it has no significance at all for the end-user.

[hym 358]

Originally posted by: Duke87

Firefox does, for whatever reason, consume a substantial chunk of CPU activity. I don't know why it does, but it's never really bothered me since it doesn't typically seem to make other things perform noticably slower.quote>

There are multiple reasons for this:

1)  Up till FF3, Firefox had literally hundred of memory leaks in it and the development team wasn't really putting much effort into fixing the problem.  Even with the hundreds of memory leaks the team plugged for FF3, they still felt they needed to add a garbage collector to help alleviate the memory leakage problems.

2)  Most FF plugins are written by people will little to no knowledge of how to write good code, and consequently, their plugins are huge memory leaks.  While I don't think it's been conclusively proven, tests have suggested that a bunch of poorly written plugins running together can cause FF to consume several dozen more megabytes of RAM than it should.  This becomes a major problem for people short on RAM.

3)  Mozilla designed Firefox to find out how much RAM is installed and to allocate somewhere between 20%-25% of that RAM for itself.  Testers have seen FF allocate up to 500MB of RAM for itself despite the fact that it'd never use all of that.  In contrast, IE was designed to operate efficiently using only 2-3MB of RAM.