Opera 10 Wow !!

I am a die hard Opera user since version 2.0 But I am using Chromium browser at the moment and on this computer it is much faster than Opera or Firefox on opening. It just doesn't have the extras that make a browser easier to use. I will be going back to Opera.

 

Although there is no doubt Opera is quite fast, I'm using Chrome now as it seems even faster, and I don't need all the extra's that you can have or get with the other browsers... Just give me fast, simple and safe.

 

I really like how you try to claim that everything is "purely opinion" simply because they aren't 99.999% accurate down to the last percentile and decimal. You remind me of creationists arguing that radioactive carbon dating is a sham because of the same reason.

Can the values change across different setups? Undoubtedly. But they tend to stay the same relative to each other on a wide majority of systems, and that's the whole point of such tests - not to find out the exact speed of a browser, but to find out how they perform relative to their competitors.

 

Yep, that's just my "Pure Opinion", which is 99.999% accurate to me, most of the time anyway

Sul.

 

Main difference i saw was the speed boost as compared to earlier 9.xx versions,i like that new engine.

 

Could you explain this, I don't understand what you are referring to.

 

Understandably this would be a deciding factor. In my case 99% of the sites I visit work fine with Opera. There are a few business related sites that simply don't and for these I break down and use IE. Not a big deal for me at all since I do not need to access these sites very often. I had tried Chrome and quickly went back to the comfort of Opera. I have it set up the way I like and all my bookmarks are organized the way I like. For me to change browsers I would have to find another browser that was clearly and significantly superior to Opera in a number of areas. A bit faster loading or rendering of a page will not be enough to induce me to switch.

 

Why should I care if a browser loads a webpage 0.5 sec faster than another browser?

You know,with the same browser,one website may load 1 second or maybe 2 seconds faster than another depending on certain sites.

What's the point of caring about the difference of 1 second?

 

Some people like it fast.....

 

I remember there is a conversation on the Mozilla bugzilla about changing the default value of a about:config preference (sorry I forget the exact name of that preference. It's related to networking and how it renders pages).

The guy over there suggested changing the value so the page is perceived to load faster but it would actually increase the total page load time. They also tried to compare the related settings of other browsers too. At the end the proposed change was accepted.

Marketing always suggest perception is always much more important than actuality. Here we are talking about 0.x sec speed difference between one browser and another (Firefox, Chrome, Opera). Human is not good at accurate measurement. The speed gain is so small that no human would really observe/realize it without resorting to some measurement tools.

In this case perception is playing a big role. A research has shown things look like speedy will make you feel it's speedy even if it's actually the slowest among other competitors. That's why companies spend time and money on design, packaging and advertising to make us believe what they want us to believe.

 

It depends on what values are you talking about? Absolute values, yes; relative values, no.

You shouldn't be worried about the testbeds and the setups unless the application has hardware-specific codes to optimize the performances.

You will find that the results are pretty consistent across different tests which use different testbeds if you read the tests carefully. When browser X is relatively faster than browser Y in page load test in Testbed A, the result still holds relatively when we test in Testbed B. The only thing you may want to notice is whether you have multi-core CPU and whether browser can take advantage of it. Other than that, the result will holds relatively no matter what RAM, motherboards, hard drives or DVD drives you have installed.

 

Remember the trend or relatives are what is important in the test. Again don't take the absolute values religiously. Your browser is not going to load within 2.53 seconds because a test says so.

I observe some interesting phenomena people have around the world. Let's say antivirus X got the highest detection rates in various reputable tests 3 years ago. People would still insist to think it's still the best even the same reputable tests show it's no longer the highest this year.

I would describe this phenomenon as "stuck memory phenomenon". Human seems to have a difficulty flash away old perception and refresh properly, especially when the new piece of information conflicts with what they previously perceive. The old memory is stuck so deep in the RAM and affect how they accept new information. It usually takes a lot of trials to refresh successfully.

Thus this is what makes first impression counts. A good first impression is 50% success. This is also why brand play, perception concepts and PR still plays a big role despite the fact information is more readily available in this Information era.

 

People are really odd when judging things in particular contexts: Vista has been heavily criticized only because it's not as snappy as XP, we can really talk about perception and milliseconds.

I don't care if others don't care about having a fast browser: Chrome is fast, and it's not an illusion, on my machine we are talking about differences close to 1 second, an eternity when browsing, and certainly more noticeable than the differences between Vista and XP.

 

Excellent point. This post made me think of something I read about a while back. It seems the authorities were having a lot of trouble getting motorists to slow down on a dangerous stretch of road. They tried all kinds of things but the one that worked was to simply pint stripes on the road. Here is how it worked. About 1/4 mile before the dangerous stretch they painted stripes that were a certain distance apart, then, as the distance to the dangerous stretch decreased they painted the stripes closer and closer together thus making it appear to the motorist that they were picking up speed. The result, a dramatic reduction in speed and a dramatic reduction in accidents. Studies done over time indicated that even motorists who knew from experience what was going on slowed down,,,,,,,thats how powerful perception is.

 

Could you give a couple of examples of these extras?

 

Here are a few examples
http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2009/06/03/

 

To be honest most of the new features introduced in Opera 10 seem to be useless. Turbo, Unite and tab previews certainly are, for me.

Improved speed dial, spellcheck and the new skin are nice tho.

 

How can I migrate my present opera profile and settings easily to Opera 10?

Gary

 

I like Opera Turbo.
Another nice feature is the spellchecker in Opera 10.

 

Turbo could come in handy. I tend to favor a basic browser though.

 

Does this link help?

http://www.niksaver.com/backup_opera_settings.html

 

Thanks but I guess was looking for the beta to do like all versions I have used, automatically pick up my settings without any problem. Guess I may just wait for the release.

Gary

 

In the past when you installed an upgrade/new version on top of an existing version you were asked if you wanted to migrate your existing settings or not. If you selected yes all user defined parameters (layout, passwords, etc) would be carried to the new install. If you said no you would get a clean install. I would imagine this will be the way it works on the latest version.

 

When I upgraded to the Opera 10 beta, I was prompted to uninstall the previous version. I didn't see any option to keep the profile.
This wasn't an update through the browser, but a manual install.

 

Learned today about Opera placing the "Unite" file server into Opera 10. IMO, a browser should not natively in any way, shape or form have anything to do with file sharing. If this is something they felt was/is a good idea, it should have been an additional download of a separate program/plugin. As soon as I learned about this, I disconnected from the web and uninstalled Opera. I do not want any part of a browser that could possibly do this. I don't care if it's the fastest thing ever or not...