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.
Opea is awesome! (Score:2, Insightful)
I've used Opera for more than two and half years on Windows and Linux. It is hands down the best browser and the most useful cross platform program available, for a variety of reasons.
9.5 is fine, once you move the New Tab button back to its rightful place on the LEFT!
Re:Choice is a Good Thing (Score:3, Insightful)
To the best of my knowledge there's never been a monopoly on Linux/UNIX web browsers. I think at one point Mozilla dominated, but it's never been like Windows.
Also: KHTML, Opera, and Firefox/Gecko are only three. Unless you're including ones based on those and/or text only browsers?
awesome bar = f u bar (Score:1, Insightful)
the lack of ability for the user to revert the behavior to the tried, true, expected behavior of FF1.0, FF1.5, FF1.8, and FF2.0 is ridiculous and will hamper the adoption of 3.0
absolutely stupid, just like IE7's totally unnecessary changes to its GUI
let's call a spade a spade and dish criticism to Mozilla just like we dish it to Microsoft
unnecessary and unrevertible changes to GUIs are MONUMENTALLY STUPID AND ANNOYING
Easy. (Score:2, Insightful)
They're similarly capable, but Firefox is FOSS. Win.
Re:awesome bar = f u bar (Score:2, Insightful)
I initially read this as momentarily. Perhaps this is more accurate?
Re:awesome bar = f u bar (Score:5, Insightful)
Replacing old features with new ones has nothing to do with lacking respect for users, it's about trying to improve the user experience. Not everybody is going to like them, sure; that's true of just about any change you make. The fact that it's possible to download an extension and get pretty close to the behavior people complain they no longer have isn't a strike against Firefox, it's a sign of the robustness of the extensions and community. Apparently extensions aren't permitted to drill so deeply into the core browser that they can change how things are looked up--at least I assume that's why the extension isn't quite the old behavior. That may be good or bad depending on your perspective, but it's certainly safer.
More to the point, most of the posts seem to be: "I just downloaded Firefox and I fucking hate this new address bar!@" I thought we were supposed to be reasonable people here? What happened to giving something a chance before you spit on it and declare Mozilla to be disrespectful of its users for ever having implemented it? For that matter, if these people ever bother to actually give details about what they don't like about it it seems to be basically the order it's returning the results. For example, lots of people complain that typing "en" is no longer bringing up "en.wikipedia.org" as their first result. For one thing, this behavior can be mirror even more closely with a configuration option. It's not in the GUI; bitch about that if you want, but it's there. Beyond that, it's simply more proof that they haven't bothered to give it a chance. The search results are adaptive. The more you type "en" and select "en.wikipedia.org," the more it learns that's what you want. Sounds like a feature to me. All it takes is patience, but clearly most people have none and would prefer to rant about it on forums like this one.
Or bloated, depending on who around here you ask. That alone should clue you in that it's nothing more than a matter of perspective. But let's play along and say you're right. All that goes to show is that there are two camps with regard to things like this: One who believes the best stuff should be merged in or included by default with the browser, and one that believes the browser core should stay as lean as possible and let this functionality be done with add-ons. Opera tends to the former, and Firefox is a bit of a hybrid but tends to the latter. So what? If you really can't be bothered to customize things to your liking, that's fine--use Opera or whatever else you find that suits you. That's really what it's all about in the end. That doesn't mean that the alternate perspective is wrong, though.
Well, you're certainly free to use whichever browser you prefer for whatever reasons you prefer it--I just hope you have better reasons than "default Firefox is barebones," which seems to be all you said here. That smells a bit too much of zealotry to me. At the end of the day I guess it doesn't even matter what it is. *shrugs*
Re:awesome bar = f u bar (Score:1, Insightful)
I say you're the most stupid, for not knowing how to let go of the past.
"copying" (Score:2, Insightful)
You're implying that Firefox is somehow inferior to Opera (or that their devs are somehow inferior to Opera's devs) because they "copied" features from them. I'm really tired of that sentiment.
If fridge manufacturer A came up with this revolutionary technology ("not only can it make ice, it can make iced COFFEE!" or some other stupid idea like that), and if fridge manufacturer B likes the idea and puts it into their own fridges (let's put patents aside for the moment), is it still inferior?
This applies not only to Firefox v. Opera, but Windows v. OSX v. Linux, etc. I'm not advocating code "theft"*, but if some software devs implement a feature without stealing any code, are they still inferior?
Remember that the Wright Brothers didn't invent the airplane, and that Henry Ford didn't invent the car. Are they inferior to the original airplane/car inventors?
TL;DR Version: In the end, it's not who does it first, it's who does it better (in most cases, anyway). Of course, if some people "copy" the feature and still end up short of the original, feel free to laugh at them.
* Could you really call it that in the case of open source software?
Re:But what about plug-ins such as Flash? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just remember to switch it back when you don't need the option anymore, otherwise you are contributing to the various Browser Market Share/User Share statistics with wrong info.
I try to avoid using that, because then when some web admin looks at the logs, he'll see a slanted perspective of how many users are using which web browser, and just continuing the problem - "meh, not enough Opera users to really bother fixing it"
Re:awesome bar = f u bar (Score:1, Insightful)
If I wanted to search for page titles, I'd either search through my history or more likely use the search bar that's next to the URL bar.
When I type in URLs into the URL bar, I expect the damned thing to search for URLs and not page titles!
Re:Easy. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's nowhere near the functionality of NoScript. On this page there are 3 JavaScripts that want to run, but I'm only running 1 of them (the slashdot one).
Also wasn't the awesome bar suppose to be stolen from Opera as well? If so, where is it?
Anyone who's done any work with end-users.. (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, if you throw in too many of these you can simply kiss your user base good-bye..
I'll keeps on trying to get used to the awesome (??!) bar but I'm sure as I type this SOMEONE is creating a brand new shiny add-on to *truly* revert the behavior for those who feel the need it (oss, beauty eh?)..
I applaud the developers for the innovating work that they've done and wish them luck in their continuing success in finding the right balance between innovation and usability.
Re:Opera is awesome! (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe OSS has wised up and realize that 3 loudmouths bitching on the internet is not a mass-movement.
I'd bet if you surveyed the substantial Firefox userbase, 99% of them don't use any extensions. The popular benefits of having a clean/simple UI outweigh the flexibility found in extensions or plugins.
Re:My priority is not speed (Score:4, Insightful)
That's an elephant in the room that nobody seems to want to talk about. If you are praising extensions, then apparently it's a huge advantage Firefox has over other browsers, but if you are complaining about extensions, then they are all third-party developers that have nothing to do with Firefox. It's a win-win for Mozilla - all of the credit, none of the blame.
This is never more apparent than when a new major version of Firefox is released. Mozilla break compatibility and wash their hands of the mess, and if the extensions you use aren't maintained any more, then, well, tough.
Re:Choice is a Good Thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Elinks, elinks, elinks, and...
python -c "print __import__('urllib2').urlopen('$URL').read()"
Re:Opera is awesome! (Score:4, Insightful)
BAH! Who uses the keyboard anymore? It's hold right-click, move down, let-go. Mouse gestures all the way, baby!!!
Re:First post... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know what middle-click menu you're talking about, and the find functionality works fine for me, so it may be a bug specific to your system. How are the developers supposed know there's a problem if you don't tell them about it?
Re:Choice is a Good Thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Firefox == Mozilla == Netscape == the original (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Easy. (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, this is why all Firefox users run it on Linux, and there are no Windows or OS X Firefox users, because they prefer free software. It's also why whenever there's a story about OS X, it's full of people complaining that it isn't free software, so we shouldn't use it.
Wait, no that's not true at all. In fact, it's not true for any other commercial software company. It's only Opera that seems to have the long queue of people whining that it isn't open source.
Re:Opera screen real estate vs Firefox (Score:2, Insightful)