Opera 9.5 vs Mozilla Firefox 3?

Without support for Roboform - which I understand is down to Opera- then its Firefox for me. 3 looks pretty good and as soon as all my add ons work I will upgrade.

 

Odd....am not going to enter into a debate of what is better and what is not because quite frankly I only care about what I use, and I prefer Opera to Firefox, however I run 9.25 and have JS disabled on all sites by default and allow on a site by site basis.
Is the NoScript function better, quite possibly, but I like what I have.
Personally I don't really see it as is one better than another, more a case of my personal preference for one over another.

 

I don't think that's it Ellison... I have an older PIII 1 gig cpu PC here and Opera 9.5 beta is most definitely faster than anything else, certainly noticeably faster than Firefox and even faster than K-Meleon, which for me has always been fastest.. I'm on 5.6mbps cable. Anyway, my experience is that Opera 9.5 easily beats all the others in speed.. That is the primary reason why I use it now..

 

Well i am open to suggestions.I still have opera 9.5 installed and firefox 2.0.0.11..... and firefox is still faster opening webpages.Opera is not my default browser but this shouldnt make a difference.I have tweaked firefox ,but opera is on default settings.In fact the g/f used the stopwatch on her mobile while i openes webpages in both browsers and the difference between firefox and opera opening was in some cases 3 seconds.Not hugely scientific i know but i can see that firefox is most defintley faster on my os.
ellison

 

I use the latest versions of FF and Opera and for different functions one or the other will have an advantage in functionality but they are both very good browsers. For outright speed and security I prefer opera and for more media compatability FF does a better job. Heck I even use IE7 from time to time, it is not all the bad in secure mode.

 

I think it just probably varies on various machines... They are all fine, I use IE7 myself at times and like it too. But I'm sure there are many reasons for differences in percieved speed on different PCs. Even in Linux Firefox will vary widely on different distros for reasons I can't really fathom. For me here on WinXP, K-Meleon and Opera have always just seemed faster. Now in 9.5, Opera seems to win. I have used Firefox for years too, so I am not particularly biased. But right now I am just going with what seems best performance-wise on my PC...

 

I would like to like Opera. Do you have any suggestions as to programs that would replace NoScripts and Roboform for Opera ?

 

Opera was my browser of choice for a few years.
I even purchased it before it became free.

For the last 6 months or so though, Opera has been really slow.
I even tried again after a clean install but web pages no longer load with the speed it used to, it has also become something of a resource hog.

I guess it must be a software conflict somewhere although i have tried disabling them all one by one with no success.
I have spent weeks reading and trying different settings.

So now i use Firefox, less resources and i have grown to actually prefer it to Opera now i have the extentions i need.

 

Opera already has a script blocker built in. I don't use robo for so I don't know of an app that will replace it in opera. I just use the wand function in opera to remember logins and such. Opera does have a form filler of sorts built in as well.

 

Before completely jumping ship, you may want to try the newer opera 9.5 beta. There has been some members that noticed a speed increase compared to 9.24. i am using it on linux and it has been very stable so far.

 

Thanks - I will play for a while though so far I don't think wand is going to be able to replace Roboform ( credit card details etc)

 

It is possible wand might be able to hold CC information

 

Sorry Long View, I am still pretty new to Opera... I'd go with BigC's suggestions since he's more familiar with it..

 

Hello,

I'm trying Opera 9.5 beta right now, I have blocked scripts and plugins globally, and when I go to a trusted website, I hit F12 and click "Edit site preferences" to enable scripts for this site if not already done. I must admit it does the job too. As for cookies, I can set up Opera to ask so I can allow or block per domain too.

I have even tried to set up Opera on Vista with a Low Integrity Level (~= IE Protected Mode, more info here) as I did with Firefox, and it works well too.

These requirements apart, both browsers seem to fit my needs. To help me, and eventually others, to choose the one to use, below are the differences or similarities I have found between Opera 9.50 beta and Firefox 2.0.0.11 (on my system only) :
- Browser loading time : equal
- page loading time : Opera sometimes slightly faster
- Memory usage with 5 tabs open (RAM/Virtual): Firefox 31MB/141MB Opera 51MB/147MB
- Opera displays tab previews when hovering tabs with the mouse
- ASLR enabled under Vista : none

As you can see Opera uses more RAM on my system, but I don't really care as I have 2GB.

Security record for both browsers :
Number of security advisories (from Secunia) : Opera 8.x (17), Opera 9.x (11), Firefox 1.x (45), Firefox 2.0.x (19)
Criticality : Opera 8.x (0% Extremely, 35% Highly, 35% Moderate), Opera 9x (0% Extremely, 64% Highly, 9% Moderate), Firefox 1.x (2% Extremely, 36% Highly, 20% Moderately), Firefox 2.0.x(0% Extremely, 37% Highly, 11% Moderately)
Patch status : Opera 8.x (0% Unpactched, 100% Vendor patch), Opera 9.x (0% Unpactched, 100% Vendor patch), Firefox 1.x (9% Unpatched, 87% Vendor Patched, 4% Partial fix), Firefox 2.0.x (26% Unpatched, 74% Vendor patched)
From Where : Opera 8.x (100% from remote), Opera 9.x (100% from remote), Firefox 1.x (100% from remote), Firefox 2.0.x (100% from remote)

None of the two is far more secure than the other. Even if Opera seems to have less advisories, this number alone is not enough. However Firefox seems to have few unpatched vulnerabilities (3 not critical, and 2 less critical).

The bottom line is that Opera is slightly faster at loading page, on my system, and seems very slightly more secure. However both browsers are really good, fast, and secure, and the differences for me are small. One thing I could add is that once a page is loaded, scrolling is definitely smoother on Opera (althought smooth scrolling was enabled in Firefox).

I'm still open to any suggestion

Regards,
gkweb.

P.S : I know this post is about Firefox 3.0, but I have only 2.0.0.11 at hand.

 

gkweb, I believe you pretty much hit the nail on the head. It just turns out to be a matter of preference.

 

gkweb,

I have both Opera and FF loaded, the max mem Opera would be showing would be no more than 60mb whereas in case of FF its always over 80mb.

 

I have often wondered about this. If a machine has enough memory does this matter ? By the way I can never get FF to use more than 50mb ( currently 42,744) - I wonder why our machines are so different.

 

I still prefers Firefox... ..its got almost everything that I ever needed.

Maybe Firefox is a Ferrari and Opera is a Lamborghini. Both are built for speed and looks, and of course, for oohhhh....waahhhh....wow....

 

Hello,

I really think it does not matter that our browser uses 30MB or 60MB of RAM if we have enough memory (1GB or even 2GB). Moreover, if a browser is optimized for speed, it should theoretically use more memory as it is caching some files in memory (faster) instead of the harddrive (slower). It is quite logical. A browser using only 10MB of memory and aggressively caching to the harddrive will be very slow. We cannot ask a very low memory consumption while asking the fastest speed possible.

Of course memory usage cannot be used alone to judge browser's supposed speed, as bugs or memory leaks can increase memory usage without gaining any speed. After that, if a browser is at the same time faster and using less memory than another one, the later is suffering from some serious memory leak. If memory usage is your priority above speed and security, then in this case it can be anoying indeed. I will just add that I never noticed such memory leak in Firefox on my system, but I must admit I'm not watching constantly my task manager while browsing

Regards,
gkweb.

 

to really check for memory leaks in an application,you would be a programmer who has access to the sourcecode to controll this. its always easy said that slowing down is due to bugs in software not to release memory, but its sometimes hard to tell what's really going on.In my experience photoshop is one of these ram hungry leakers.

 

Hello,

I'm testing Firefox 3.0 beta 2 right now, and I'm very happy with it.
I'm using 'NoScript' and 'Cs Lite' (cookie management) extension as usual.

The main difference I saw between Firefox and Opera was that Opera scrolling was really smoother. Fortunately it exists an extension for Firefox to achieve the same effect : 'SmoothWheel'. To be able to install it on Firefox 3.0 beta 2, you have to add a boolean value in 'about:config' -> extensions.checkUpdateSecurity and set it to false.

I have 7 tabs open and Firefox is using 47MB RAM.

The degree of customization of Firefox still amazes me.

Regards,
gkweb.

 

At this moment, I have IE 7.0.6000.16575, Firefox 2.0.0.11, and Opera 9.25 installed. Why not?

Since the beta versions of these browsers will not coexist with the GA versions, I do not have any of the beta versions currently installed.

 

To start off I like all 3 browser, although I prefer Maxthon over IE.

Opera 9.5 is faster, lighter and has everything out of the box I need without being bloated. It loads extremely fast, never crashes or freezes, and is just an amazing work of art, not to mention it's the most secure browser up to date.

Firefox 3 has improved a lot, but it's trying to catch up to Opera's features. Page load has improved, but still has issues with memory and feeling bloated. Other than that I like that fact that it comes bare bones, and you can install extensions to your preference. The only thing is I use adblock plus. If it didn't exist for FF I probably wouldn't touch it.

Maxthon using the trident engine is a great browser. Fixes a bunch of security problems with IE and comes with a ton of features. I like the way it looks and it seems smooth overall.

Now, the difference I see between firefox and opera is opera is dependable. Opera went from paid to free and has come out on top even though it's free. They haven't slacked off one bit. Not to mention the great community which is friendly and helpful. I like the fact of using user scripts, and Ospell which seems to exceed firefox's built in spellchecker.
The only thing which is a problem with Opera is it has a bit more rendering problems than all the others, but it has improved dramatically with each new release. Firefox 3 seems to have a bunch of problems as well, this is when I prefer maxthon over the 2.

I like firefox, and it's cool look, but I can't seem to get hooked. Most fanboys (dont mean to offend) always talk about the extensions. I don't blame them, nor hold it against them, but I wouldn't render that 1 reason to make it better than another.

Firefox 3 seems to have a lot of issues with plugins. Luckily adblock plus works with 3 but none the others do.

All in all I'd say Opera > Maxthon > Firefox. This is an overall comparison. I'm not trying to single any browser out, just my personal opinion based on experience.

Opera have being a paid product, shows me that they really put effort into it's product before and until now. While firefox is great for it's open source, you should keep an eye out for badly coded plugins.

Pick opera if you want a fast, light, secure browser and don't mind a few rendering issues (for now).
Pick firefox if you like a bare bone browser, ton of plugin choices also with a few rendering problems.

Pick Maxthon if you like an overall great product, more secure over standard IE, and works better than any other browser rendering poorly coded webpages.

The only thing I look for in the future is the page compatibility problems. Most blame goes to the web developers. A browser shouldn't have to worry about how to render a poorly written page. A page should be written to standards, while keeping in mind overall compatibility.

 

Opera DOES have extensions, and no, it doesn't require it to be open-source.

 

after many years with ff i changed to opera. ist much faster overall. the 9.5 version is even faster than 9.25. i was a little disappointed with ff3 because it didnt change that much in speed. i recently discovered the eye candy flock browser, its surprisingly fast and still looks great.