Favourite browser - 2012

OMG, opera took 200mb more RAM than FF out of my total of 6GB.... Today RAM usage is no longer what makes programs lite, it is the CPU usage that matters the most. Opera happens be less CPU intensive on my computer than Chrome, FF or IE10. It's by far the fastest browser for me. Of course if you have 10 core desktop, 6GB RAM then the fastest browser will be the one which actually renders pages faster, in such case probably IE10 or Chrome. Take same CPU but with 256mb of RAM and then Opera will be slowest. Seriously the speed of the browser depends on the system, desktop vs laptop, single, vs dual vs quad core, etc.

You cannot say that Opera is in trouble because it uses more RAM, we need more data. How much CPU usage? How fast does it render pages? And BTW, Im not Opera fanboy. I actually don't like their UI a lot. Im running Pale Moon 64 bit, which on my set up is the 2nd fastest browser. Most of the speed comes from using very little CPU. It renders pages much slower than IE 10 or Chrome but both of these freeze my laptop.

 

you can create a portable version from the installer itself.

just select Options in the lower left when installing and choose 'USB portable installation'.

 

Moontan, thank you. How could I miss it? Now I'll try all my browsers in portable version.

 

no probs.
glad to help!

 

Why the post of Wild Hunter was erased? I find it useful.

Wild Hunter wrote:
"Opera Portable from PortableApps.com is the official portable version of this browser.
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/opera_portable
"Publisher: PortableApps.com (John T. Haller) and Opera Software ASA
Opera, Portable Edition is packaged with permission from Opera Software ASA. Opera™ is a trademark of Opera Software ASA.""

The mentioned site is devoted to portable apps. I think it can be interesting for many users.
Thank you, Wild Hunter.

 

I'm not really sure it's an "official version" (although they have authorization from Opera Software to make it). I don't know if Opera Software gives any kind of official support to specific issues of Opera Portable from PortableApps.com. That's why I erased my post.

 

Very interesting. Thanks a lot for explaining. One question. How to fill in the gap of the SBIE unable to restrict tabs from each other, Javascript rendere(most exploitable area) from a web page,etc? And if I use NoScript and sbie on Firefox should I be worried about tabs open to exploitation and attacks due to lack of separate process sandboxing by SBIE?

 

There's no way to enforce tab isolation on Firefox. If the Firefox process is exploited, it's all compromised. You can supplement with NoScript to make exploitation more difficult, and I suggest using EMET as well.

I wouldn't be too worried about it as browsers aren't attacked too often in the wild anymore, other than IE.

 

Plenty of systems...

 

Sorry for damaging your opinion/"feelings" with fact. Considering Chrome and IE make use of hardware acceleration by default, you can bet they use less CPU. I don't need feelings to come to that conclusion, just logic.

 

The fact is that both IE and Chrome make my laptop crawl to a freeze while Palemoon works like a charm. IE is by far the worst offender. So hardware acceleration is pointless on my set up.

 

Ah got it. Thanks a lot. One thing though. If FF with NS is good for banking and Chrome is good for preventing system compromise, should we be worried about the fact that security apps like avast! base their banking/shopping security around a Chrome browser? Of course some of them like avast have secure vpn, dns, etc services available with their security. But.....

 

I'd have to know more about the Avast sandbox. I don't think sandboxing is too applicable to banking. But if they're also blocking key log attempts or some such thing it could help.

 

Here you go. http://www.avast.com/lp-safezone

 

Based on that it sounds like they might be using alternate desktop tokens, which Windows uses for UI Isolation, among other things. This would be a very legitimate way to prevent keylogging if they used a separate UID, and assuming that there aren't holes in the policy (there almost always are, but depending on the implementation it may or may not matter as much).

The link didn't have too much info, I'll probably look for more, but not today. Today is for food.

 

Here you go. https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2107170&postcount=5

 

Eh, still doesn't have much information. The most info given is that it has something to do with Chromium, which could mean quite a lot.

If I were to do an "inside out" sandbox it would be separate UID and desktop token. If they're doing that, it's pretty good.

 

Yeah you're right. I'm drifting this to off-topic. I'll stop it here. FF with NoScript is good for banking/shopping is all I needed to know. Thanks for that. I just wanted to learn it more elaborately. But as no substantial info is available.....

 

Have you tried Maxthon 3 Portable?

http://www.maxthon.com/mx3/

 

Thank you for a hint Maxthon really looks cool. I will try it as I see mail addons there. Unfortunately there is no inbuilt mail like in Opera.

 

I've tried it. Unfortunately there is no inbuilt mail here, and mail addons only for gmail and yahoo.

 

Opera with a custom userscripts folder and Fanboy's ad block list I've never used Maxthon but plan to try it soon.

 

Hm ... perhaps. But - have you checked if it also allows 3rd party scripts if you allow JS for a domain? I doubt that since the shortcut in the context menu points to the Chrome JS settings - and we all know that Chrome allows 3rd party scripting once you allow it for a specific site. And that's the advantage of ScriptNo: Although it's not always reliable (probably due to the buggy API it's using), it blocks 3rd party scripts by default

 

Since the PrefBar update for SeaMonkey was not much of a success, & I uninstalled the extension, I have been using Opera a lot the past couple of days. It is now the default browser on my notebook.

I have had a love/hate relationship with Opera for years. I usually love to hate it LOL!

So ... at this very point in time ... it is Opera.

 

I've switched from Firefox to Chrome. With lots of extensions, I really notice the increased speed and stability.