Opera 10 Wow !!

I believe people criticize Vista not only because of speed, but also other factors too. For example resource hogging, the vista user account control.

Yep, chrome is the fastest. Next is Firefox 3.5

It's a bit unfair and I would say it's a sad fact. Chrome still doesn't have an ad blocking addon. So loading an ad-burden page by Firefox + Adblock Plus vs Chrome, Chrome is actually slower due to the fact it wastes much bandwidth to load all those flashy ads. I wish Adblock Plus worked in Chrome (but I doubt Google wanted it)

 

This is what I think when we are looking for the *fastest* browser. When we talk about speed, we shouldn't just focus on how fast the browser loads or how fast the page loads. We should focus on how fast the browser gets your tasks done.

Well I don't know browser can help doing so many things on the day that I was still using the IE - isn't the purpose of a browser is to load a page per se. No, not at all until you reach Firefox. Firefox is superior in its flexibility. It also enlightened me on what a browser can do.

There are so many great addons which can simplify the tasks and help managing my life better. Naming a few:

1. Adblock Plus: Block aggressive ads, spyware ads, malware ads and just unwanted contents.
2. Noscript/yesscript: Take back the control of javascript in my own hand.
3. Stylish: Dislike how the pages look like. Change it by writing custom CSS. You can use it to configure your own browser and add extra features too. userstyles.org provides thousands of styles for you to use even if you have zero knowledge in CSS.
4. Greasemonkey: Write your own script to add features that you may never think of to the website you often visit. Userscripts.org provides thousands of scripts, Facebook scripts, gmail scripts, google scripts and more.
5. Autopager: A genius invention. It changes the way how you browse articles, search results, lists etc. which have multiple pages.
6. BetterPrivacy: Kill even the most hideous tracking cookies, flash cookies and more.
7. Linkification: Turn all text links into real links. It's smart enough to work for hxxp:// links (just one example). It can work for other types of links too. Mailto links, ftp links and more.
8. Web Search Pro: Change how you search. Very useful if you search a lot like me.
9. iMacros: Automate repetitive tasks you usually perform on a browser
10. BetterGmail: Google doesn't do it. BetterGmail do it for you. Enhance the features that gmail is missing.
11. RefControl, User agent switcher: Useful if you are concerned privacy. Some websites, mainly banks, still resist that you should use IE to browse their webpage. User agent could help.

Firefox 3.x has the new AwesomeBar. AwesomeBar is awesome. I nearly never need to browse in the bookmarks toolbar to visit a bookmarked page now. Type some words on the urlbar and it will return the result that you want. There is some AI on the urlbar. It takes into account the bookmarks and history when returning the result. It also remember the result that you select. Next time you find about the same thing and it will give priority to return what you select first. There are also a few commands for advanced user to refine the results. Saving me tons of time when browsing. Excellent.

There are much more but I think I should stop. There are over thousands of addons on Firefox. You must find some that you love. But you probably couldn't live without it once you get used to having those addons. I also create a portable version of Firefox so I can bring my lovely addons with Firefox when I'm travelling around.

Frankly it's hard for me to switch to other browsers now. I has configured my Firefox to become a super powerhouse. It's next to impossible to find all alternatives to replace all features I have added to Firefox. I can't live without all those lovely addons.



To me Firefox is the fastest browser to get the things done, even though Firefox isn't the fastest browser in terms of page loading (Chrome being number 1; Firefox 3.5 being number 2). Well it isn't a big deal when it's only some milliseconds loss only. I could live with that since Firefox has been helping me save days and days and days of time now, not to say many unique features and convenience which can't be quantified by time.

Firefox seems to be the way to go if you want to be an efficient browsing geek.

 

There is still no clear leader among opera and firefox.Opera is superior in its own way and so is firefox.

 

I have never encountered this before but then again I never tried to install anything other than a full update (no beta or alpha releases). Have you asked this question on the Opera Forum? I guess that would be the place to get a proper ans. I sure would not be happy if I had to manually move my settings across or worse set them up from scratch.

 

I have had to do that before. When you aren't updating or installing over the top you have to save the profile and replace the default profile with it. It's not bad IMO. I wasn't too surprised with that from a beta.

 

Of course if you are installing on a new PC (or perhaps a new install of an OS) there would not be any settings etc to be copied to a new install of Opera. I was referring only to an upgrade.

 

That's what I'm referring to also.
You could call it an upgrade from the alpha to the beta version.

 

The information required to migrate settings is here:

http://operawiki.info/MigratingSettings

 

New Beta Build 1631 just out !!!

Highlights :
New design for info panel, error pages, internal pages (e.g., opera:about), and fraud warning page
Skin fixes, including updated icons
Stability fixes
Unite fixes
Admin password is no longer needed when reporting crashes on Mac
Improved plugin detection on 64-bit Linux

Get it here :

http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/show.dml/

 

Thanks. That takes care of it.

Gary

 

Ah, understood, sorry

 

No problem.
I don't always communicate my point clearly.

 

Too bad they reverted to the darker color for the tab bar background. The last build made me go "wtf" when I saw it, but five minutes later I realized I liked it better.

The tabs themselves look better in this build though, sans the weird spacing, and the statusbar got a pixel or two shaved off its height as well. Nice.

Probably the best-looking Opera so far, though still cartoony compared to Fx/IE/Chrome.

 

You can adjust the tab bar colour under the appearance menu,colour scheme.