UPDATE: Please Digg. Thanks!

I would like to thank everyone for their positive feedback on my Opera vs. Firefox article. I think there were some misunderstandings about the point of the article that I would like to clear up. I also feel there needs to be an amendment to the article, as I left out some key points that need to be put in the spotlight.

Over the weekend in the little free time I had between my brothers wedding and trying to catch up on sleep I tried to use Opera for all my browsing needs. This goal didn’t last as long as I wanted it to. There are a few select extensions that I live by in Firefox and not having those hindered my browsing to make me go back to Firefox. For more information on the Firefox Extensions that I use please visit my Firefox Guide.

I received several emails telling me about how this match up was unfair because Opera 9 was just released and Firefox 1.5 is from way back in November. Well this match up was for production versions only. I could easily go grab a nightly build of Firefox 2.0, but then I wouldn’t be comparing equal products so I decided not to go down that road. Once Firefox 2.0 is released I will do a match between the two.

Putting Opera up against an extensions loaded version of Firefox makes it almost impossible for Opera to win. There are countless add-ons available for Firefox that make it nearly limitless in its add-ons. I think that is what really separates the two browsers. I feel there are two separate audiences that these browsers are meant for. For an out of the box browser Opera wins hands down. For the power user, open source lover, and someone that wants to be able to customize their experience down to the last penny Firefox is the one.

Features

In Opera the user has the ability to bind keyboard shortcuts to any combination, I have started using this and it is a very cool feature and something that Firefox lacks completely.

True MDI - Users now have the ability to set different mini-windows in different arrangements; therefore eliminating the need to make new windows entirely. I am not totally sure how this feature helps because I believe having tabs eliminates the need to have windows within a window when the user can just switch tabs. Cool feature but I feel it’s unusable for most applications.

Drag and Drop Tabs - Both Opera and Firefox now have this feature, but Opera has taken it to one more step, allowing tabs to be drug between different windows.

Page rendering problems

In round one I didn’t fully understand how cool the fast forward button really is. I used Opera most of the weekend trying to give it a fair run for its money, even though this morning I am back on Firefox, I do miss the fast forward button. I did quite a bit of generic browsing, digging, and forum browsing and it seemed to speed up my experience as well as save some scrolling. Good job to Opera on this one.

RAM / Memory Usage

After a few comments about my RAM usage test being inaccurate which I will fully admit to, I have redone it. Using Opera 9 and Firefox 1.5.0.4, with fresh installs and no settings changed I went to Digg on both browsers and opened up all the front page stories. I started first with Firefox and it opened up all pages with no issues at all. Next was Opera, about half way through doing the whole middle click program to get each link to open in a new tab Opera started to leg on me big-time, when I got to the last link the browser legged for about 30 seconds and after that I had to click the link again to get it to open in a new tab. Once the dust settled the memory usage for Firefox was 79mb and Opera 76mb. They were bouncing around a few megs but from my findings there is no RAM savings between the two browsers in short term. Once themes, widgets, and extensions are added to their corresponding browser I feel this will tell a different story, but I am only trying to prove out of the box experience, other tests will be left for another day.

Monday morning I was updating software on my work computer. While downloading the latest versions of Opera and Firefox; I noticed that Opera’s installer size was larger than Firefox. There was a comment saying that they both were the same but I will argue that Firefox 1.5.0.4 is 4.9MB while Opera 9 is 6.17MB. This comes as no surprise to me, as I just wanted to make sure I have accurate data on here.

Rendering Problems

I’ve read a lot about how Opera has horrible page rendering problems. The most talked about problem is rendering most Google applications. Well I personally have tried GMail and Google Maps with no issues to report. It appears that some of those problems have been fixed. There are rumors that Opera also has issues with AJAX websites, I cannot personally confirm this but I am sure there are some problems. If you come across a website that has a rendering problem please leave a comment or shoot me an email.

Widgets

After messing around with widgets for a few days I feel that they are totally useless. I personally use Yahoo! Widgets on my Windows computers and the build in widgets in OS X 10.4 on my Apple Powerbook G4. Not only are they useless in Opera but not necessary. I think widget support was an attempt to compete with the extension support in Firefox, but was not well implemented, once Opera has an extensions system it will become almost unstoppable.

Page Zoom

If anyone is running a super high resolution like I am there is always a website that is hard to read, due to some part of it being too small. In Firefox and Internet Explorer it’s really easy to make the text bigger, Opera has gone the extra mile and included the page zoom feature. Instead of making the text bigger, it just zooms in on the whole page.

UserJS vs. Greasemonkey

Many die-hard Firefox users are familiar with Greasemonkey scripts. Opera has built in support for javascript add-ons that do similar functions like Greasemonkey. I think native support for an add-on scripting system is necessary and a big thumbs up to Opera. For Opera scripts check out userjs.org and userscripts.org .

Complaints

The search box in Opera is very cumbersome and unusable. For everyone that uses Firefox and loves the find in page search style, please scroll down to the tips and tricks area of this article for find in page options in Opera.

One feature that I use on a daily basis in Firefox is form history; Internet Explorer also has this feature. I am quite shocked that Opera doesn’t have this feature when it includes everything else.

I am also very shocked the Ctrl+H doesn’t open the history by default, but instead hides all windows, this is a basic shortcut function that has been around in web browsers sense the beginning. This is of course an easy fix because the user has the ability to map keys in Opera.

Google Browser Sync is probably the best extension to come to Firefox in a long time. If (when) Opera ever gets this feature it will be a very happy day in Opera land.

Tips and Tricks

Turn off the Context Menu when Double clicking on text via Tools - Preferences - Advanced - Toolbars - Uncheck “Double click to display context menu.”

Remove the close button on the tabs, and place it to the right via Tools - Preferences - Advanced - Tabs - Uncheck “Show close button on each tab.”

Change the tab close button location via Tools – Settings – Tab

The “Close Current Page” button at http://operawiki.info/CustomButtons can be dragged into the top right if the user wishes to retain both buttons on each tab and one at the right to close the tab.

Activate the Thumbnail Preview function in CTRL-TAB via opera:config - UserPrefs - UseThumbnailsinTabTooltips

Web Developer Toolbar For Opera: http://operawiki.info/WebDevToolbar

When using the ctrl-tab menu, you can hold down the right mouse button and use the scroll to very easily scroll back and forth in the list. When your hand is already on the mouse this trick will save time by allowing the user to select the tab he wants faster.

Hold Ctrl while using Alt-Tab to scroll backwards aka Ctrl+Alt+Tab

Undo closing a tab with Ctrl+Z

To navigate between tabs I use the keyboard numbers 1 and 2 (previous and next tab).

To go back or forward in history, depending on the direction you want to go, click either left or right-mouse button followed by the opposite mouse button slightly after, i.e. back = right+left mouse button, forward = left+right button.

Find in page options for Opera, very similar to Firefox. Opera will also search inside of text boxes unlike Firefox.
- Ctrl-F gives a dialog as is familiar in most software packages, with options like match whole word only, and only searching when you click “Find”
- There is a Find-in-page entry on the search box next to the address bar, which finds as you type (it can also be added to other toolbars)
- Pressing ‘.’ or ‘/’ will popup a thing in the corner, sort of like FF, also find-as-you-type
- Pressing ‘,’ will find links containing the searched text, although this can be done differently from the Links Panel (Ctrl-9) or its expanded version Ctrl-J.

Customizing Opera: http://www.pallab.net/2006/04/12/extending-opera-the-ultimate-guide-to-customizing-opera/

Conclusion

Between this article and my last article it’s a very hard decision to declare a winner between these two awesome browsers. I feel that as an out of the box experience Opera wins hands down. For the user that wants to fiddle to no end in customization, and have the ability to build on an already awesome program Firefox wins, but Opera is not far behind only lacking extension support and a few other small features. Therefore I must say it’s a draw, to make Opera work the way I wanted to it required lots of unnecessary tweaking that in the end wasn’t worth it because I went back home to Firefox. I will still be using Opera for a side browser to try to learn more tips and tricks and maybe soon write a guide like I did for Firefox.

Comments(35)