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Software The Internet

Opera Dominates CNET Survey of "Underdog" Web Browsers 173

Posted by timothy from the html's-great-blessing-is-heterogeneity dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Whether you consider Opera an underdog browser or not, it came out on top in a feature on CNet this weekend. It was up against 'underdog Web browsers' Camino, K-Meleon, Shiira and Arora in a piece loosely aimed at determining whether these browsers are yet ready to steal significant numbers of users from Firefox, Safari, IE etc. Interesting most to me, however, is that it transpires that Shiira, the Mac browser from Japan, is one of the fastest browsers on the planet, beating the original Chrome v1.0, Firefox 3.5 and more in its benchmark tests."
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Opera Dominates CNET Survey of "Underdog" Web Browsers More

Opera Dominates CNET Survey of "Underdog" Web Browsers

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  • Who cares how fast the browser is? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08, 2009 @02:40PM (#28997299)

    Am I the only one who finds that 99%+ of my time is spent waiting on DNS and data transfer and shit? I'm never actually sitting there, data downloaded, waiting for my browser to respond.

    • Just use your favorite browser, and forget all that startup speed crap and "My javascript is faster than yours D:"

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by CarpetShark ( 865376 )

        Just use your favorite browser

        Too often, this is the last excuse of IE-fanbois who've lost the security argument. Don't choose your favourite browser; choose a responsible browser. You're on a network with millions of machines. When experts tell you a browser is too vulnerable to use, stop using it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by internewt ( 640704 )

      Am I the only one who finds that 99%+ of my time is spent waiting on DNS and data transfer and shit? I'm never actually sitting there, data downloaded, waiting for my browser to respond.

      Depends on your browsing habits, maybe?

      When I am browsing forums I regularly visit, I ctrl-click in FF on all the new post icons, opening a load of tabs in a short period. I also tend to modify my forum preferences so as many posts as possible are on each page, so each page tends to be rather large.

      I find this kills FF for a while - it stops and starts responding, and if not responding and I go to a different workspace then FF will jump workspaces on its own when it does decide to respond again! This is rat

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by KDR_11k ( 778916 )

        I'm an Opera user and I don't have a problem with too many tabs loading the system down, I do get some times of no response but that's usually when I've done something else and the browser got paged out by the OS and needs to reload itself.

      • Re:Who cares how fast the browser is? (Score:5, Informative)

        by sznupi ( 719324 ) on Saturday August 08, 2009 @05:42PM (#28998659) Homepage

        You would really like the responsiveness of Opera in many-tabs scenario.

        If you do check it out, remember to turn on "Window" menu in options (lists all tabs in current window, and is actually usable - you don't have to scroll through it like in FF, no matter how many tabs), "hold down right mouse button and move scroll" (hard to explain...but its great), and list of all tabs (in all windows) in sidebar (with search)

        And yes, Opera has Adblock built-in, you just have to provide it with a list... http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/opera/ [fanboy.co.nz]

    • And Opera has no equals in this regard (yeah, it's not that much visible on pimped-up latest PC, or if not opening more than few tabs...but this is /., we don't deal with normal usage patterns here)

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by buchner.johannes ( 1139593 )

      Use an aggressive dns cacher. The web will feel faster.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by TCM ( 130219 )

        Care to elaborate what that's supposed to be?

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by buchner.johannes ( 1139593 )

          A DNS server that does just forwarding and caching.
          aggressive = caching for a week or so.

          While your browser also does some caching, the dns cacher holds the cache between restarts.
          As GGP mentioned, waiting for DNS to walk the tree can take seconds.
          The (unix) operating system does no caching by itself.

          The easiest to set up is probably dnsmasq. Point it to your nameservers, and let /etc/resolv.conf point to localhost. Set the number of cache entries and duration.

          Drawback: You will not be that up to date with

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's more about Javascript performance which is used in "Web 2.0" apps. Basically it's about making pages work more like desktop programs do with things like drag-and-drop, re-ordering of lists with a single click, advanced editing functions etc.

    • Re:Who cares how fast the browser is? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rs79 ( 71822 ) <hostmaster@open-rsc.org> on Saturday August 08, 2009 @09:35PM (#28999763) Homepage

      "Am I the only one who finds that 99%+ of my time is spent waiting on DNS and data transfer and shit? I'm never actually sitting there, data downloaded, waiting for my browser to respond."

      If you try Opera you can actually see what it's waiting on in the status bar. Usually you'll find it's waiting for a response from some lame ass as server - which if you're clever you'll alias to localhost in your hosts file.

      Every time I use another browser I feel lost, staring at a blank page going "what is it DOING" as opposed to using Opera and saying "Oh it's stuck on googleanalytics. Again".

      If your browser really had all the data it needed, it would render the page. Honest. In fact they render before they finish downloading.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by damburger ( 981828 )

      How can someone post such a comment on SLASHDOT of all places? I am running the latest version of Firefox on a MacBook Pro 2.5Ghz dual core with 2 gigs of RAM, and I constantly get beachballed if I have the temerity to click on more than one thing in the span of ten seconds.

      This site has slowed down for me over the years, despite my computers getting faster.

  • Shiira (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xrayspx ( 13127 ) on Saturday August 08, 2009 @02:48PM (#28997349) Homepage
    I looked at that like a year ago, and it looked as if it hadn't been updated in years then. Are they back to work on it? It was quick, but it was also very crashy when I tested it out. Now that KDE4 is in Ports, Konqueror works nice and fast on OSX also, however it crashes way too often too.

    ...checks site... Yeah, looks like Shiira has seen some activity since February of this year. Prior to that the previous news item on their site was Jan '08, and before that, July '07. Could be nice.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Korin43 ( 881732 )
      Yeah I feel the same way about Midori. I read that it's significantly faster than Chrome, but I installed it and it crashes constantly. I'm sure it's easier to make a fast browser if you don't bother to make sure it works..

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by dhovis ( 303725 ) *

      Shiira is WebKit based, which means it is the same basis as Safari and Chrome. If Shiira is faster than Safari, it is probably using a more recent WebKit build than the currently shipping Safari. You can also get Safari with leading-edge daily builds of WebKit from http://webkit.org/ [webkit.org]. When WebKit introduced the Squirrelfish and then Squirrelfish Extreme Javascript engines, they were available in the WebKit daily builds first.

      If nothing else, WebKit has really pushed standards compliance and speed.

  • Smoke and Mirrors (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Redfeather ( 1033680 ) on Saturday August 08, 2009 @02:54PM (#28997389) Homepage
    The Acid3 test sort of bugs me. Yes, it's nice that browsers are fast, but even the most complex pages have lower kilobyte counts than most internet connections allow for, which means servers are the lag points, not your browser. I'd love to see a usability test sometime, rather than a flat-out speed rating. Webkit's neat, but with so many people using their browsers as a primary operating base - and we see proof of this approach in Google's development of the Chrome OS - usability is being sorely ignored in many technological benchmarks. I can't tell you how annoying it is to have Firebox' Live Bookmarks fail to load every ten minutes, it breaks the RSS experience. And while IE has its flaws and benefits, it's emulated, not inovating and old hat. Chrome is nice, I like how my computer treats it, but it's still in the works. Who's going to decide to pick up a new browser based on a speed test? Yes, CNet included some key features and noticed bugs, but Shiira and Arora both get termed works-in-progress, which does not make them underdogs now, it makes them next year's underdogs. And by the time they're ready for mass adoption, all of their good points will likely have been emulated as thoroughly as anyone cares for. Acid3 is like telling people your browser has 700 horse power, instead of the 300 horsepower their browsers have. No one cares if you top out at 200mph, the speed limit's still 60, folks.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      But Shiira is from Japan !! You can't just emulate that !! Japan is the greatest country ever !! Anime and stuff and super godly bandwidth connections !! Shiira best browser ever !! ...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        Exactly, fast connections, necessitating a fast browser...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ilgaz ( 86384 )

        Japanese developers have a unique style of developing, especially on open source. There are some really hidden treasures who aren't too popular because author didn't set an english page etc.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rolfc ( 842110 )
      I have 100 Mbit , two ways, and I'm not alone. Speed in browser is a factor. Remember, "640 Kb ought to be enough for everyone"?
      • I wish that meme would die a horrible death. It was never suggested that 640kb would be enough in perpetuity, anybody that was knowledgeable enough to know what a kb was, knew that it wasn't that long before that people were happy to have a whopping 48kb to work with.

        The ACID3 isn't really a standards test, and passing it is about as useful as having the biggest dick in the room. Sure there's probably some utility to it possibly, but realistically it's not really going to make any meaningful difference.

    • What does the word "emulated" mean in your little screed?

      For example, in what way is IE "emulated?" Do you say that because it runs in a security sandbox?

      • Right, maybe emulated is the wrong word. What I meant by that was IE is the ultimate fallback - it does just about everything every other browser does, but doesn't seem to do any of it very well - it's inclusion for the sake of "me too" at this point.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sznupi ( 719324 )

      Well, if you say that you should love Opera - it really shines when it comes to UI responsiveness; lean & fast (where it counts; who here doesn't open pages primarily in background tabs?)

      • To be fair, I haven't used Opera on my main computer for about two years, so I should try the new release. I used it on my BlackBerry Bold for about two days, but after crashing my phone eighteen times in 48 hours, I figured I'd give up the ghost.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sznupi ( 719324 )

          Seems Opera for Blackberry isn't very representative...hard to blame them given virtual non-existence of Blackberries outside North America (at the least - it definatelly worked great, also ~2 years ago, on my mobiles...both Opera Mini on "classic" S40 Nokia and Opera Mobile on Symbian S60)

  • 5 browsers than render Slashdot with just as much broken CSS as every other browser! Download today and see what you can('t) see!

    • I don't think I'd rag on browsers for displaying a shlob of code as it's given to them, I'd rather rag on the shlob of code for being a complete mess.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rs79 ( 71822 )

        "I'd rather rag on the shlob of code for being a complete mess."

        So far that hasn't worked. Plan B?

  • Netsurf [netsurf-browser.org] is a little known, low resource browser that's worth watching. It started life as a RISC OS (Acorn) browser but it's now cross platform. The show stopper is that it doesn't yet support javascript, but they're working on it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It is a thin wrapper over WebKit. What else in that category? Midori, Arora, Tear (on maemo devices), uzbl, Rekonq...

  • Opera (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mxh83 ( 1607017 )
    Personally, I hope Opera doesn't gain any further market share, because it is not open source. It is becoming less and less relevant.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ale_ryu ( 1102077 )
      What? It's a private company, if they don't want to release their code you cannot force them, and there's nothing wrong with that, it's not like you don't have any alternatives.
      I personally don't care if a software package is open source or not as long as it does the job properly, and I don't think it's less relevant for not opening up the source

    • Re:Opera (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SteelRealm ( 1363385 ) on Saturday August 08, 2009 @03:14PM (#28997517)
      Right, closed source and still more secure and less vulnerable then Firefox and dedicated to privacy and quality. Open Source is good as a concept and should obviously be furthered, and maybe Opera will eventually go Open source, but to want a company to burn and their quality product to die off simply because they want to remain closed source is probably the most childish thing I can think of.

      • Open Source is good as a concept and should obviously be furthered, and maybe Opera will eventually go Open source, but to want a company to burn and their quality product to die off simply because they want to remain closed source is probably the most childish thing I can think of.

        He's a Stallman baby, what do you expect?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Just because other browsers have caught up with Opera's features, doesn't make Opera "less and less relevant."

      Despite not being open source, be thankful for their innovative ideas.

    • Re:Opera (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Saturday August 08, 2009 @03:20PM (#28997579) Homepage Journal
      Probably most of what you enjoy today from your browsers have some origin in Opera. Not remember if was my main browser ever, but had been using it since 1996. Small, fast, secure, multiplataform, usually the most innovative in its own time (tabs, gestures, fast javascript, starting page with captures of your preferred sites, i think i saw all of that in opera years before than in any other browser, open source or not).

      Would be great that it become open source (originally was commercial, then ads sponsored, then free, the evolution looks like going in that way), but anyway they did and keep doing a great work as they are, and you owe a lot to them even if never used their browser.

      • Re:Opera (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08, 2009 @03:54PM (#28997785)
        Open source seems unlikely as Opera's main business is browsers for mobile devices and other devices that do not run normal OSes (like the Wii). I assume their various browsers share a good amount of source code with their desktop browser.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by mxh83 ( 1607017 )
        My post was misunderstood probably because it was incomplete. Due to Opera not opening up their browser, people can't make addins like Firefox. Useful things like Roboform don't work either. If they made it open source, it could have grown faster. Now even Chrome has overtaken Opera, because it's open and people are developing cool stuff for it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hkmwbz ( 531650 )

          Due to Opera not opening up their browser, people can't make addins like Firefox.

          That has got nothing to do with open source. You can make addons for Firefox because it has an API for that. Opera could easily add one as well without opening the browser's code.

          Now even Chrome has overtaken Opera

          No it hasn't. Opera is still the #3 browser worldwide according to StatCounter. In Europe, Opera's market share is higher than Safari and Chrome's combined.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sznupi ( 719324 )

      Uhm, it is steadily gaining market share in some areas, even on desktop

      http://www.ranking.com.ua/en/rankings/web-browsers-groups.html [ranking.com.ua] - over 30% in Ukraine, similarly in Russia, and not bad at all in few other countries in central Europe

      But what's more, it dominates mobile browsing in developing markets with its Opera Mini. You might of course think that only smartphones in style of iPhone are relevant, but a billion people, or two, might disagree...

    • Opera grew beyond whatever you could imagine in just last past 2-3 years. Opera says they support web standards and they actually do, even in cost of market share. Their development model is nobody's business. As far as I have experienced as a user since 3.62, it works.

      Perhaps, one day, they may decide to follow Apple's model but I don't see a reason for it. Just 1 question: Where is Firefox for Symbian S60? If you check the reason and the fact that Opera has a S60 application since first S60 Device (NOK 76

    • Re:Opera (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rs79 ( 71822 ) <hostmaster@open-rsc.org> on Saturday August 08, 2009 @11:41PM (#29000365) Homepage

      "Personally, I hope Opera doesn't gain any further market share, because it is not open source. It is becoming less and less relevant."

      And there you have it. Open source has now been elevated from a cult to a full blown religion.

      "I don't care if it's the best, it doesn't mesh with my personal belief system, and must die".

      Choices are good. I'd choose Opera even if I had to pay for it. It's good that poeple have choices.

      http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_romer.html [ted.com]

  • Arora's reason for existence (Score:5, Informative)

    by David Gerard ( 12369 ) <slashdot.davidgerard@co@uk> on Saturday August 08, 2009 @03:01PM (#28997443) Homepage

    Woulda been nice to add the reasons these browsers exist - e.g. Arora was created specifically as a test wrapper for the Qt WebKit component. In fact, right now I'm compiling the current git of Qt so I can compile the current git of Arora because Ubuntu 9.04 only includes Arora 0.5, which is rather old and rickety ...

    Camino exists because AOL made an abortive move to make a lightweight Mac Gecko browser and it's still around from that. K-Meleon exists because there was no lightweight Gecko browser at the time, i.e. it's before the mozilla/browser internal fork that became Firefox.

    So what's the story behind Shiira?

    • But isn't Konqueror THE Qt WebKit browser?
      By the way: Why wasn't it in the list, while Opera was?

      • As a KDE user I can say that Konqueror sucks hard for modern webbrowsing and uses the KHTML engine instead of Webkit. I strongly advocate anyone using KDE use Arora, the difference in propering rendering alone is worth it.

        As to why Opera was listed and Konqueror wasn't I can't say. I'd guess though it has something to do with the authors probably deciding there was a good reason Konqueror wasn't popular ;)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zarel ( 900479 )

        No, Konqueror still uses KHTML, which WebKit was based on, but is inferior in many ways. There was some talk about switching it over to WebKit a while ago, but they eventually decided it was infeasible.

        I was surprised Konq and iCab weren't in the list, though; they're pretty important browsers. And I didn't really understand why they published things like Acid3 scores, considering the majority of the browsers on the list used rendering engines from the four major browsers (two Gecko and two WebKit browsers)

  • Fast, but with a catch (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chill ( 34294 ) on Saturday August 08, 2009 @03:01PM (#28997455) Journal

    Sadly, it's riddled with bugs. The current full release wouldn't run on our Mac, and although the latest developmental build would, it suffered frequent crashes, making it hard to recommend.

    I think that qualifies as a showstopper. It is, after all, a browser for a computer touted as "it just works".

  • We use Opera on a daily basis (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ducomputergeek ( 595742 ) on Saturday August 08, 2009 @03:04PM (#28997465)

    It has a few interesting features, like being able to have the browser refresh a page every x seconds instead of having to code that in. Useful for the web-based admin panel that lets users request 3 hours of internet time at the coffee shop. We use it with Google Docs and Gmail as well as Pandora. Seems to use less memory than FireFox and it's not IE. It also seems to be stable enough to last days before having to be restarted. It even has a bittorrent client built in.

    • Re:We use Opera on a daily basis (Score:4, Interesting)

      by TheModelEskimo ( 968202 ) on Saturday August 08, 2009 @03:11PM (#28997511)
      I used to use Opera for Windows a lot. It was really stable and generally just an awesome browser. Very fast. Then I found out it had an EMAIL client built in, of all things. Started to use it instead of Outlook, and it handled tons of mail via IMAP without a hitch. Wow! Then I found out it had IRC chat support. Another (though less polished) awesome feature.

      Then I moved to Linux. I've used it on 5 separate Linux machines, and I still can't use Opera for the length of a single day's web browsing without a crash. It hates Flash. It also seems to hate GMail, so I'm surprised you like it. Slashdot and Opera don't seem to get along now, either. Overall, it's a great browser, but for whatever reason, the Linux version just sucks. My wife still loves it on her Windows laptop, though she despises its weird interactions with GMail.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by richlv ( 778496 )

        i'm an opera user on linux for many years now.
        1. flash on linux is broken in any browser. that's why i don't even have it installed in opera - if i really want to see some flash stuff, i fire up firefox (haha). additional benefit - less ads.
        2. i didn't use gmail much, but i used it some more recently - seemed to work perfectly;
        3. slashdot, hehe. slashdot randomly breaks and them gets fixed again, although i'm not completely sure it has ever worked completely without problems ever since they javascripted it

      • And I despise Slashdot's weird interactions with Firefox. Did you know that in this text edit box, I can only enter text in approximately 80% of it? The final 20% is obscured by what appears to be a fully transparent layer, which intercepts clicks, meaning I can't select/replace/delete that text without using the keyboard to get over to it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Spit ( 23158 )

        Yeah the flash thing is an issue. I just keep it disabled most of the time and use Firefox for flash video. I don't really have problems with gmail.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by burni ( 930725 )

      I concur,

      + Sidebar, fast Bookmark organization with on-the-fly buzzword search, StickyNotes
      + Opera also has a nice eMail-Client(pop3/imap) built in, good adressbook features
      + quick settings like disabling/enabling plugins, java, javascript, cookies
      + very good cookie management

      ++/-- community feature my.opera.com bookmark synchronisation, not forced nor mentioned, has to be found File -> sync...

      (-) They should leave out the bittorrent client

      ++ I think it's more userfriendly than FF

    • I don't think that Opera does use less memory than Firefox. Perhaps if you're going really nuts with the extensions Firefox will use more, but all the figures I've seen indicate that the current browser has a really low footprint.

      http://dotnetperls.com/browser-memory [dotnetperls.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sznupi ( 719324 )

        Some weird people value the results of actual real life usage more than benchmarks.

        Try to run both browsers for a week or two, with 100+ tabs in several windows, and then you'll know which one's GUI remains responsive, which one treats your RAM gracefully.

  • Browser wars = Moot (Score:5, Funny)

    by clinko ( 232501 ) on Saturday August 08, 2009 @03:05PM (#28997471) Journal

    Do I get a Firefox prize in the mail if they hit 72%?

    This is the nerd equivalent of celebrity gossip.

  • Underdog? (Score:4, Informative)

    by SirJorgelOfBorgel ( 897488 ) on Saturday August 08, 2009 @03:17PM (#28997545)
    I'm not sure if a browser like Opera, which is available on many many [many many] platforms - from set-top boxes to game consoles to mobile phones to actual PCs - can responsibly be called an underdog browser by anyone - regardless of the opinion of the submitter. And it runs pretty well on all those platforms too. The only thing I've seen Firefox, Chrome or IE run decently on is a PC (Fennic? Mobile IE? Surely you jest!). (Disclaimer: I never use Opera on my PC's, but I do use it on all my mobiles)
    • Isn't it the case that Opera Mini is to Opera as the Android browser is to Chrome?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sznupi ( 719324 )

        Yes and no.

        Opera Mini has some relation to Opera Desktop, but is much further from it than Android is from Chrome; it is a JavaME app that requests Opera servers (running full Opera engine) to render/redraw/transmit pages to mobile phone in compressed & streamlined form.

        Android browser equivalent would be Opera Mobile - as the other poster says: same engine, different UI.

    • It is an underdog mainly because it makes up such a tiny portion of the browser market and because it failed to gain any meaningful traction against IE. Include Firefox on a list of underdogs right now seems to be completely innapropriate, it is in most places the number 2 browser and in some areas it's even the top dog. With the exception of South Korea, I can't think of anywhere that it couldn't conceivably overtake IE.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hkmwbz ( 531650 )

        It is an underdog mainly because it makes up such a tiny portion of the browser market

        Then Safari and Chrome are as well. Opera is bigger than Safari and Chrome combined [statcounter.com] in Europe. It's #3 and bigger than Safari and Chrome worldwide as well, but not by that much. Opera is the #1 browser in countries like Russia [statcounter.com].

  • Honestly... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Zixaphir ( 845917 )

    None of this speed thing matters to anyone but this small enthusiast crowd who actually care about a few nanoseconds of difference. I mean, seriously, have you ever switched to a browser because of it's javascript performance before... y'know, Chrome?

    But, in my opinion, if you switched to Chrome, your reasons probably included that Google was backing it, and therefore it stood a chance in a "market" (I use this term as loosely as possible) dominated by Internet Explorer and Firefox? Oh, and Safari if you ju

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sznupi ( 719324 )

      Since when "JS speed" is synonymous with "browser speed"?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rs79 ( 71822 )

        "Since when "JS speed" is synonymous with "browser speed"?"

        Since always?

        Facebook and slashdot made some rather painful markup/js code changes in the fall of last year and around new year. On large pages this caused the act of simply trying to scroll a page grind to a screaming fucking halt with near-second response times. Upgrading from Opera 9.whatsis to 10 made them instant again on this old laptop of mine.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sznupi ( 719324 )

          Sure, JS speed is part of browser performance nowadays, but isn't synonymous with it.

          As an Opera user, you should be well aware of this... (ability to handle gracefully large number of tabs, responsive UI, etc.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rs79 ( 71822 )

      "None of this speed thing matters to anyone but this small enthusiast crowd who actually care about a few nanoseconds of difference. I mean, seriously, have you ever switched to a browser because of it's javascript performance before... y'know, Chrome?"

      It's not a few nano seconds, and yes I swiched.

      I live in a very rural area. We got broadband *last year* and until then I was on dialup, and 28.8K dialup at that.

      Clicking the "back" button in any browser meant I had to wait for the stupid thing to fetch all

  • It's good to see Arora getting some more attention now. I've been using it now for more than half a year and I must say it's the first webbrowser I have actually liked in several. I would definetly consider it the best OSS webbrowser on linux right now, particularly if you're running KDE (although Arora is desktop agnostic, it is Qt). I've been fed up with Firefox's bloat (ever try comparing Firefox and Seamonkey these days? Guess which is heavier...) for some time and Arora is a nice change from that.

    • I've also been using Arora on and off for some time, and I can't help feeling it's just like Phoenix again. You know, the light and fast browser that was built out of Mozilla's codebase, that was supposed to be just a browser, nothing more.

  • Opera is 3rd biggets browser outside USA (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08, 2009 @05:06PM (#28998397)

    Opera's desktop has almost 4% market share and is bigger than both Chrome and Safari. Check the latest numbers at www.statcounter.com. Even Net Applications, which is more skewed towards US and western Europe, show Opera's global market share at 2%. CNET's visitors does obviously not represent the Internet population so it's a bit weird to compare Opera, the world's 3rd biggest browser, to small unknown providers.

    Besided this, Opera's mobile browser is the biggest in the world, still bigger than iphone. Worth mentioning is Opera as the only browser available on Nintendo Wii or DSi.

  • Opera, Firefox, Safari/Chrome ... these are the underdog browsers. Everything else is irrelevant, sorry if your random fork of something else browser isn't a major browser, but if you're a fork or use the rendering engine of one of the 4 main browsers then you are irrelevant at this point.

  • As with any set of statistics, it depends on where, when, and how the measurements are taken. Visit this page, and play with the various settings to see how well Opera does in different countries. It seems that anyone who uses eastern European languages prefers Opera.

    http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-RU-daily-20080701-20090808 [statcounter.com]

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