Opera 10 equal to FireFox 3 or even better ?

By Dan | Published: 08/28/2009

firefox-operaYesterday I just installed Opera 10 and after a few minutes of browsing told an associate of mine how great this Opera 10 was. He asked me what is my favorite upgrade. A rather normal question. Without any hesitation I replied “speeeeeeed”. I mean let’s face it, Firefox 3 doesn’t come close to that kind of speed and resources flexibility – I guess that’s the price paid for all those extensions and other stuff that overload the browser and transform it into a RAM hungry machine.

Also, the new look of Opera 10 is appealing and the interface is very clean and yet user-friendly. One of the reasons I wasn’t able to use Opera on day-by-day browsing was because I wasn’t just browsing. I was digging through the web with Firebug and some other Firefox extensions for developers and not only. Opera didn’t had that. However, Opera’s Dragonfly improvement is here to kick some ass. Didn’t had too much time to test it around and do a decent comparison between it and Firebug however it is good thing that the competition hasn’t soften.

I think you agree when I say that we are seeing slow but steady progress on Opera’s behalf as far as competition with Firefox. I think now they need to push those Opera Widgets in the next gear and encourage people to develop new ones and create communities around them. Anyway, I think that they are moving a little bit slower on this one because they don’t want to mess up the core of what they have now.

So, for example here is a list of extensions that I am using on Firefox and widgets I’m using on Opera:

Firefox Addons

Opera Widgets

Alexa Sparky

ColorZilla

Color Picker

Delicious Bookmarks

Firebug

FireShot

SEO For Firefox

Page Rank

SEO Toolbar

StumbleUpon

TinyUrl Creator

tinyUrl Widget

For instance, I was just searching the addons portal for “firebug” and noticed that there were actually extensions developed for Firebug itself. How cool is that ? Extensions for extensions. Now that’s just great if you ask me.

I found a delicious bookmarks widget for Opera, however it wasn’t installable on Opera 10. No screenshots maker on Opera as well.

Opera kicks in with some features like the built-in torrent client, Opera Turbo (helps you when you have a slow Internet connection) and the well-known Speed Dial. I will try to stay on Opera for as long as I can to test some more.

What do you think about Opera’s progress so far ? Is it a competitive browser ? Do you know of some more cool widgets for Opera ? Don’t hesitate to tell in the comments.

Social bookmarking:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Google Bookmarks
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • Mixx
  • Sphinn
  • Reddit
  • Live
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Bookmarks

This entry was posted in experiences, firefox addons and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
  • onlineshopping
    I absolutely admire the Opera 10 internet browser from Opera Software Inc. I firmly believe the Vikings have finally cracked open a genie out of the bottle.

    The Opera 10 internet browsers is so well thought and designed very beautifully so that even a beginner can have a crack at and have so much fun. After all it is a mobile browser design for the well connected mobile community from around the world.

    Source:
    cheap pay as you go mobile phones
  • mvk
    Hi,
    Nice post!
    There are certain features that made me stick with opera. Some of them are
    1) A very good mail client
    2)Mouse clicks
    3)Notes
    4)Custom Buttons (Like the one that allows me to download youtube videos)
    5)Features like duplicate tabs, save session and .mht support
    6)Block Content. Flashblock is now also available in opera
    7)Opera Turbo (It indeed helped me when I was on a slow connection of 5kbps. Browsing increased up to 3 times!!)
    8) Reloads from cache making browsing faster and also easier when offline
    These are just some of the features.

    Many of these features are available in firefox. But these are hardcoded in opera. I had to use a lot of add-ons to get the same functionality and that made FF unstable!!

    Am not really against any browser. Just like cousin333 says use opera like opera and firefox like firefox. :P And opera is not just a browser. Its an internet suite. And with all these features its file size is less and takes lesser time to start!!

    That said, the browsers are at war and are coming up with good innovations. This only makes web experience better for us!!
  • cousin333 said it...
    I like FF too. I've thought of Opera as the leading browser since I discovered it (version 6. it's come a long way). Flexible, compliant, secure, fast.

    Really flexible. My interface is sexeh - a few buttons that drop down and/or toggle stuff (like panels), next to an address bar, above a tab bar... everything one key/click away. I like the notes, M2 mail client, time-savers like select & translate/search with/go to URL/copy to note/etc..., dropdown mode/images button.. now "independent" widgets.. Yikes.
  • cousin333
    I think, that's a good and unbiased review. Hard to find them these days...

    "Is it a competitive browser ?"

    For me, it was always competitive. In fact not only that, but simply the best. :) I think of Opera as the Great Innovator. However, in these days they have to catch up in some areas, because there are some very tough competitor. I think by today, Firefox can be counted as one, for they finally managed to get the best out of extensions. There are many useful ones, and easy to install.

    On the other side, Opera may have its widgets, but the are not meant to be Firefox-like extensions, just some not so tight extensions easy to develop. The strength of Opera much more lies in its fully fledged capabilities right out of the box. Other source of more functionality lies in custom buttons (see http://homepage.hispeed.ch/ttt-o/button/h-bu-br... for some demo), user JavaScripts, userCSSs and some ini hacks. One can do a lot of fine stuff with them, the main problem, that they're not so easy to set up as extensions in Firefox. They should propagate and manage them better, but I never really missed the extension system. Which has both highs and downs.

    One thing to remember when using Opera. It's one of the oldest browsers, so it has its own tricks to many features. Don't ever try to use it as Firefox, but like Opera :). Like: you have this Delicious, I use Opera Link for that.

    The best thing with Opera, that you have so much to discover from Speed Dial to mouse gestures, searches and so on. And it gives you all out of the box in a very baked style, where features can rely on each other.
  • cousin333
    I think, that's a good and unbiased review. Hard to find them these days...

    "Is it a competitive browser ?"

    For me, it was always competitive. In fact not only that, but simply the best. :) I think of Opera as the Great Innovator. However, in these days they have to catch up in some areas, because there are some very tough competitor. I think by today, Firefox can be counted as one, for they finally managed to get the best out of extensions. There are many useful ones, and easy to install.

    On the other side, Opera may have its widgets, but the are not meant to be Firefox-like extensions, just some not so tight extensions easy to develop. The strength of Opera much more lies in its fully fledged capabilities right out of the box. Other source of more functionality lies in custom buttons (see http://homepage.hispeed.ch/ttt-o/button/h-bu-br... for some demo), user JavaScripts, userCSSs and some ini hacks. One can do a lot of fine stuff with them, the main problem, that they're not so easy to set up as extensions in Firefox. They should propagate and manage them better, but I never really missed the extension system. Which has both highs and downs.

    One thing to remember when using Opera. It's one of the oldest browsers, so it has its own tricks to many features. Don't ever try to use it as Firefox, but like Opera :). Like: you have this Delicious, I use Opera Link for that.

    The best thing with Opera, that you have so much to discover from Speed Dial to mouse gestures, searches, notes, UI customization and so on. And it gives you all out of the box in a very baked style, where features can rely on each other.
  • dan_vaida
    A very pertinent and interesting comment. Thank you for your insight. If all the comments were like yours the web would be a great place. You really made me reconsider Opera and changed the way I look at it. Thank you again.
blog comments powered by Disqus