Comparing Firefox 3 With Opera 9.5 On Linux 489
Joe Barr writes "Mayank Sharma has two recent stories on Linux.com; one evaluating the performance of Firefox 3, and the second comparing it to Opera 9.5. Which is better? For most people, it's probably more a matter of familiarity or personal preference, but these stories provide hard performance data to consider as well. Sharma notes, 'In terms of rendering JavaScript, Firefox 3 had the edge over Opera 9.5 in the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, which has an error range between +/-0.8% to +/-11.3% depending on the type of test. In the JavScript Engine speed test, Opera 9.5 scores over its peers when it comes to error handling, DOM, and AJAX.'"
Slashdot shares a corporate overlord with Linux.com.
Re:awesome bar = f u bar (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Easy. (Score:5, Informative)
Frankly, with as many features Firefox has copied from Opera, it'd better be good. Don't get me wrong here, I love FF, but there's no denying that some of their "latest greatest" features are ripped straight from Opera.
If Opera was FOSS, the Firefox team wouldn't have had to write nearly as much code. (insert smiley for people who will inevitably think this is completely serious)
Re:Choice is a Good Thing (Score:4, Informative)
Re:awesome bar = f u bar (Score:5, Informative)
Re:load gmail! (Score:5, Informative)
Opera loads old version of GMail and that works fine, if you want the new version you need to navigate to this link: https://mail.google.com/mail/?nocheckbrowser [google.com] (which also works fine in Opera)
Opera screen real estate vs Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
I've been organizing the bars like that since I started using FF, and I find it makes for much better use of that space than just a gray, blank area.
Re:Choice is a Good Thing (Score:4, Informative)
What, no w3m?
In all seriousness, I've been stuck without X a few times (for several weeks at a time), and w3m blows all other text-based browsers out of the water. I used to like links, but w3m has spoiled me too much...
Re:Opera screen real estate vs Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Opera screen real estate vs Firefox (Score:2, Informative)
So I have to grant a small point to Firefox for UI configurability. I still prefer Opera's look overall, though.
Tip for you to save more space, though- get rid of the Google bar and just set up a search shortcut.
Re:Opera screen real estate vs Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
Excluding the Menu Bar (Opera uses the standard/forced top one) Opera can do that aswell, you can drag/drop any button/checkbox/dropdown/etc to any other bar (excluding the main side panel buttons)
You can also quicky drag a webpage, or an image onto a toolbar, to create a temporary "favorite" of sorts... its not particularily useful, but ive used it, mainly so i dont accidentally close the tab.
Re:awesome bar = f u bar (Score:2, Informative)
The fact that you have to download a third-party add-on to even resemble the original functionality shows how little respect the Mozilla Corporation has for its users.
Firefox without extensions is ridiculously barebones. I'm glad I'm an Opera user.
Speaking of stuff that's not in stock Firefox, one of the things about Opera I almost can't do without is Tools->Quick Preferences->Edit Site Preferences. So bloody useful. Oh, and the Cookie Manager in the regular preferences dialog is pretty awesome too.
That way it's just Quick Preferences->Edit Site Preferences
That way you don't have to navigate through so many menus.
I rarely ever use the menu as the panel or various shortcuts provide the same function (Ctrl-F12 for Preferences, Shift-F12 for Appearance, etc).
Nice thing is that I can completely eliminate the menubar from the application, saving even more space vs Firefox. All I have currently is the tab bar and the URL bar.
Re:awesome bar = f u bar (Score:1, Informative)
If I type "c" guess how many sites Awesomebar shows that begins with "c"?
If you guessed "none", then you're correct! It does match ".com" a ton.
"CN" comes up with a ton of URLs that are apparently what Google does when it redirects you to your final search result.
Once I type "CNN" it finally realizes that, hey, "cnn.com" just MIGHT be what I'm going for. Given that it, like, it's the only URL that starts with "CN".
"Sla" comes up with Doonesbury. See, it's hosted at "Slate.com" - even though the URL doesn't contain "slate" anywhere in it.
"Slashdot" comes up with the Slashdot story on the Debian SSL key fiasco. I guess I visited that story a bunch while trying to figure out exactly how vulnerable our systems are and now it's considered more correct than slashdot.org, despite the fact that the URL starts with "it" since it's a story from the IT section.
I'm sure I can come up with more examples, there are 26 letters in the alphabet, after all. And this is ignoring the fact that the autocomplete list is now three times larger than it needs to be. At least you can fix that with extensions. The brain-dead autocomplete algorithm you can't.
Re:But what about plug-ins such as Flash? (Score:3, Informative)
RightClick, Edit Site Preferences
[Network] Tab:
Browser Identification:
MASK as FireFox | MASK as Internet Explorer
Which is different than just "Identify as..."
Re:awesome bar = f u bar (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the best example I can think of for this awesome feature.
1) Go to this page in a new tab [myth-weavers.com]
2) Now close that tab.
3) In a new tab start typing "Warlord Tiefling" in the location bar.
4) Notice how a link is coming up and how it is highlighting the word as you type it. But if you select it and hit enter, you'll see that the words "Tiefling Warlord" do not appear in the URL.
This is the awesomeness of the awesome bar. It doesn't just search the URL of your history and bookmarks, it searches the page title as well! So while trying to remember the URL for the Warlord Tiefling page would be impossible, the awesome bar means you don't have to.
Re:Easy. (Score:5, Informative)
Opera can disable scripts per page or globally, and you don't need a plugin to do that.
Re:Easy Install (Score:2, Informative)
The easiest thing to do is to use the Ubuntu software repository, but its only as up-to-date as the people who update it, which can be slower then the people who update the actual software.
Re:But what about plug-ins such as Flash? (Score:5, Informative)
You can enable it on a per-site basis.
Honestly, if a site is designed to tell you that it won't allow use of a browser that can render it perfectly, it is one developed by people who obviously didn't even bother to test the functionality of the site under those other browsers. Developers who are that lazy aren't going to look at weblogs and give a damn about removing meaningless browser restrictions.
Opera 9.5 is a good browser (Score:5, Informative)
Yet Opera 6.5 runs GOOD, whether Firefox 3 won't run or just takes ages to start. Only/main advantage of FF is that it's customisable, with all the addons to 'improve the browsing-experience'.
I really appreciate OSS but at the moment Opera is the best browser for my older machines. My 2 cents.
Re:Font rendering (Score:1, Informative)
The fonts in (and outside of) Firefox 3.0 are clear and crisp as can be on my Ubuntu 8.04 install.
This is using a TFT screen though.
Re:But what about plug-ins such as Flash? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Opera screen real estate vs Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
There's a back button, forward button and an addressbar next to help. Not technically what you said but close enough that it shouldn't matter. Probably technically cheating aswell as it's not the 'real' menu bar.
You're right that you can't put stuff in the menu bar in Opera though, and you should be able to. It is a waste of screen space. In order to make that screenshot (without manipulation), I used the custom buttons page on http://operawiki.info/CustomButtons [operawiki.info] to add each of those menu items to the "Main Bar" (after clearing it), then I added the back button and decided to go a step further and add the address bar and forward. I had already used the toggle menu bar custom button to hide the actual "Menu Bar" (I normally don't have a menu bar even, the panel is enough).
If you look closely I have the entire main menu as a button in the tab bar (labeled "Menu" with a black arrow next to it). If I click that I'll get a menu with all the main menu bar items in it. Over on the right I have a view button which will display the "view bar" where I've hidden the menu toggle button.
I could have combined everything on the menu into the tab bar instead but it wouldn't have looked like the main menu colorwise. I could have everything in one bar like the great-grandparent has in their firefox screenshot. Less than their screenshot even if I put everything in the tab bar instead of a seperate one.
Also there is a panel toggle on the left of the screen. I typically don't use the main menu except for the File-> Import/Export menu options so hiding the entire thing makes sense since all bookmarks, history, widgets, mail and newsfeeds are available in the side panel and most settings are accessible via keyboard the shortcuts F12+none, ctrl, shift.
If you really want to get bitchy about wasted space you could put all the menu options, the addressbar and everything normally in a toolbar into a custom panel and get rid of every bar (even the tab bar if you want) and just have the panel toggle at the edge of the screen. Hide it when you don't need it. You can't get much less wasted space unless you changed the theme for your desktop to use less space for the window decorations (I think that would be going a little far). The entire window would be space for the page except for the small scrollbar on one side and the panel toggle on the other (not necessary with keyboard shortcuts).
Re:But what about plug-ins such as Flash? (Score:3, Informative)
"My browser is fully capable of displaying your content, but I am unable to do so due to your restricted access. Please tell your overlords to consider using web standards, and checking compatibility at www.w3.org, so that users of all browsers and OSes will have access."
Except replace "overloards" with whatever term best fits depending on your mood and the site, like monkeys, poopfaces, or ree-rees.
Or, instead of all that, just tell them to please inform their webmaster that it's no longer 1998.
Re:awesome bar = f u bar (Score:4, Informative)
Opera's awesome bar goes a step further, not only does it search the URLs and the titles of your history, but also the content. If I type Warlord Tiefling in Opera 9.5's address bar, I get this page as one of the results, because you motioned it, aussie_a.
Re:Choice is a Good Thing (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Easy. (Score:2, Informative)
Opera searches the full text of the page as well as all those (well there aren't tags in opera but the description of the page in the bookmarks is searched as well). I can start typing in the text of a slashdot article I've visited a while back and it will display in the dropdown from the address bar. I can also assign certain bookmarks keywords such as slashdot being
I do admit that the learning feature that the awesome bar supposedly has (never used it enough to see) seems like it might be nice if it knows that a site you visited once doesn't have the same importance to you as one you've selected from the awesomebar 100 times. I've grown to like learning things like that once you get them trained (such as Launchy). I don't know if Opera does this (again, never used that feature enough to see).
Re:Easy Install (Score:4, Informative)
Not easy? Okay, so it has "extract" in there, but it's basically the same as a Mac:
Mac: dump application file in location, run application.
Firefox/Linux (since they mention tarball): extract application in location, run application.
Okay, so they used a couple of techie words, but it's not exactly rocket-science (or even make scripts) to use it.
Re:Opera screen real estate vs Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
Firefox has been able to do this for ages. In fact it gives you a menu with all the recently closed tabs and you can pick which one you want to restore.
Re:awesome bar = f u bar (Score:3, Informative)
Simple way to disable the horrible "awesome bar"
about:config
browser.urlbar.maxRichResults = 0
Re:Choice is a Good Thing (Score:3, Informative)
Opera.
When viewing pictures in an image gallery (warning: rather NSFW... that was the first link on The Hun that was obviously images) [teenagedecadence.com], the fast-forward button on the toolbar automatically changes to a mode that steps through the images in the gallery one by one. In short: one-handed browsing without having to move the mouse much.