Why do you not use Opera?

[ethanp]

I am working on an article and doing a bit of research beforehand, so I'm posting this here and a few other places. I am not interested in debating, just gathering some quick information; therefore, I do not plan on countering any claims (different for me, eh?).

My question is why do you *not* use Opera? Just one main reason and try to sum it up in as few words as possible. Also post what browser and OS you do use.

If you use Opera please feel free to explain briefly the main reason that you use Opera.

[php_daemon]

I've been using Opera, it was all good except one little detail -- the connection speed. On any decent connection, it would probably not be a problem, but on my rather slow connection (256kbps) it was always suffering hiccups; especially when loading pages with lots of images -- that used to take several refreshes to load. I didn't like that, so I switched to FF -- no problems ever since.

Using Windows.

[php_daemon]

I've been using Opera, it was all good except one little detail -- the connection speed. On any decent connection, it would probably not be a problem, but on my rather slow connection (256kbps) it was always suffering hiccups; especially when loading pages with lots of images -- that used to take several refreshes to load. I didn't like that, so I switched to FF -- no problems ever since.

Using Windows.

Well, 3 months later, I've decided to give Opera another chance. You'd think that it has changed since the last time I used it, and indeed it has. It seems that it no longer has the problem I had with it before, and it beats FF 10 folds as far as the speed.

The biggest FF's strength -- variety of extensions is as well its weakness. With all those extensions that are simply necessary, FF overloads my poor laptop so much. And even though I'm about to buy a new one, I'd rather spare the resources for other apps.

So now I use FF for development purposes only (nothing can beat firebug). I've thrown almost all add-ons away and it almost regained the speed.

One thing that I miss in Opera though, is the spell checker like FF has. It has one and doesn't leave me, the illiterate on my own, but it's not as convenient by far.

[siradio]

I absolutely love Opera when it comes to personal use - its more of an 'internet suite' than anything else; and I make good use of its built in mail client, IRC client, widgets and download manager. As far as speed and reliability go, its second to none in my opinions.

Its major downside as far as I can see is a lack of widespread support. IE is still the most used browser, followed way back by Firefox; Opera barely gets a look in - so of course when people are developing sites, the order of priority in terms of browser compatibility obviously follows suit - so more often than not if I have a problem viewing a site in any browser, its Opera.

I'm guilty of the same thing when designing and developing, because obviously i'm more concerned with producing something that works well in the browser my visitors are using than in the one that I use - so while I despise IE, it takes number one priority when designing.

I do have to admit, however, that ever since I first download FF the only addons i've had for it were the pagerank viewer and the stumbleupon toolbar - so maybe i'm "missing out" on a something there.

[Raffles]

I like the extensions I use with Firefox too much to switch to Opera. I use FF 2 and Windows XP.

[RetroNetro]

I like the extensions I use with Firefox too much to switch to Opera. I use FF 2 and Windows XP.

I second this. There are several things I do with FF extensions that (as far as I know) cannot be done with Opera.

[DonTino]

I second this. There are several things I do with FF extensions that (as far as I know) cannot be done with Opera.

I third it. FF has the perfect extensions for me.

[kevinsmith]

I like the extensions I use with Firefox too much to switch to Opera. I use FF 2 and Windows XP.

im too, FF gave me faster to browse

[brothercake]

Opera rules my online world - no other browser even comes close.

It's the most user-centric browser, giving you far more detailed control over what websites are and are not allowed to do (you can even set display and behavioral preferences on a per-site basis), and giving absolute control over the UI. With Opera you can make the browser look and behave exactly how you want - button by button, field by field, image by script.

It has more comprehensive status information, more thorough script debugging, more sophisticated management of bookmarks, better keyboard navigation, built in user scripting, built in mouse gestures, easy options for things like disabling JS and images that you can put right on the toolbar.

And it handles history navigation properly - when you click "back" in Opera's history it doesn't reload the previous page, it literally re-creates its previous processor snapshot, which is invaluable for form-based interfaces, not to mention speeding up average load times by optimizing caching behavior.

And those "cool new" features in Firefox, like restoring a session when restarting the browser, and drag/restore of tabs - Opera's had them for years!

[php_daemon]

brothercake, I smell commission.

[vgarcia]

Because Safari is the nicest browser on OS X in my opinion.

[r937]

Just one main reason and try to sum it up in as few words as possible.

because my browser shows me the world wide web the way the overwhelming majority of people see it, which is important to me

[brothercake]

because my browser shows me the world wide web the way the overwhelming majority of people see it, which is important to me

Why is that important to you?

When it comes to development and design, perhaps it makes sense to treat Firefox as the norm - for all those minor quirks and variations, let Firefox get the perfect layout, and other browsers get the small-but-insignificant deviations (although I still favour Opera there too, but that's just me ).

As a development browser, I agree that Firefox has an invaluable range of features - Firebug, the DOM inspector, all kinds of extensions that are incredibly useful for development. I wouldn't be able to do my job as effectively without a copy of Firefox to hand.

But I'm not always a developer. Sometimes I'm just a user, and that's when I prefer Opera. Opera has no political agenda, and doesn't rely on a legion of third-party tools to be effective. It just works, and it's on my side

(And .. btw and slightly ot .. Opera Mobile is the *only* decent mobile browser. Pocket IE is just IE4 on a small screen, while Minimo [the mobile version of firefox] is laughably bad - worse than Pocket IE!)

[r937]

r937, I believe I recall you saying you use IE? Is this true? You just did not post this, so I want to make sure.

actually, yes, it is, however, that's not what this thread is about, is it -- just that it's *not* opera

Why is that important to you?

why does that matter?

[brandaggio]

Off Topic:

(And .. btw and slightly ot .. Opera Mobile is the *only* decent mobile browser. Pocket IE is just IE4 on a small screen, while Minimo [the mobile version of firefox] is laughably bad - worse than Pocket IE!)

The version of Safari that is shipping with the iPhone may give Opera for mobiles a run for its money - and it's a good thing - competition in the mobile browser space.

I like Opera fine - but for troubleshooting and debugging I lean on my Firefox extensions a bit.

I do not like Firefox's instability - if it weren't for extensions I would probably not use at all. Even on a box with lots of RAM it still leaks and crashes quite a few times a day - it gets tedious to restore your session when it shouldn't have conked out in the first place.

If more sites rendered as the designer intended (cosmetically) in Opera, I would be much more gung ho about it, but most sites aren't that well built so they can fall apart in Opera a bit. I want to love Opera, but not enough sites love it back. That is why it is not my choice for best all around browser for daily chores.

[vgarcia]

I do not like Firefox's instability[/I] - if it weren't for extensions I would probably not use at all. Even on a box with lots of RAM it still leaks and crashes quite a few times a day - it gets tedious to restore your session when it shouldn't have conked out in the first place.

Ironically it's probably your extensions that are cauisng all the memory leaks/crashes. Most of the bugs in the core browser have been addressed and a lot of current problems are traced to badly written extensions.

[brandaggio]

Ironically it's probably your extensions that are cauisng all the memory leaks/crashes. Most of the bugs in the core browser have been addressed and a lot of current problems are traced to badly written extensions.

I've read that...

I try to use as few extensions as possible because common sense would lead me to believe more code, more potential problems (especially from, in this case, such disparate sources).

I still think it should crash less but I haven't run into with zero extensions in as long as I can remember. If I wasn't to use extensions but wanted Moz rendering, I might as well just use Camino (if on a Mac of course) no?

[Shpook]

Honestly, the lack of plugin support and the way that plugins integrate into the browser.

[Raffles]

To be honest, I "hear" brothercake. Other things I like about Opera are that you are shown useful information when hovering over a tab and the fact it uses a ridiculously small amount of memory - something like 10MB when Firefox is using about 100. How Opera does that and be so responsive, fast to load and on top of it all have instant back support galaxies better than Firefox's is beyond me.

It's just a very intuitive, well thought-out browser. Despite all that, I stand by my original post - I like my extensions too much. Firefox isn't a bad browser at all and I've becomed accustomed to it. I've also customised it to my heart's content and understand what's going on in its insides it fairly well. I can customise on a site-by-site basis with userContent.css and Greasemonkey (yes, I know it's built into Opera, like so many other things that are only available as extensions for FF). In fact, the only real gripe I have with Firefox is its enormous memory footprint (I only have 352MB of RAM according to Windows, 384 according to me) and its annoying unresponsiveness. This is especially true when, as a page is loading, I click on another tab and it doesn't actually show me the contents until the original tab has finished loading.

[ethanp]

vgarcia, you're reason is a bit vague. Care to elaborate a bit on why you prefer Safari over Opera? I can think of a few (the lack of OSX like stuff in Opera is the top on my list).

r937, I believe I recall you saying you use IE? Is this true? You just did not post this, so I want to make sure.

Good stuff so far, and what I expected. Then brothercake sounds like my clone. Of course we were both mentioned in some recent sitepoint blog post as Opera lovers, lol.

[AnOmAlY_]

I run XP and use both Opera and Firefox.

Opera is the fastest browser.
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html

There are things I like and dislike about both browsers.
Since this post is about opera I will talk about Opera.

When I was first introduced to Opera it wasn't freeware.
I bought a student license and was up and running.

From a security perspective the developers of Opera are
serious about patching any vulnerabilities with there product.

For a reference look @ this:

Vulnerability Report: Opera 9.x
http://secunia.com/product/10615/?task=advisories

Note: The green check mark means the issue has been fixed.

Vulnerability Report: Mozilla Firefox 2.0.x
http://secunia.com/product/12434/?task=advisories

Firefox makes up for this with there extensions/add-ons initiative.

Opera has many features pre-installed:
http://www.opera.com/products/desktop/

Opera Security Features
http://www.opera.com/products/desktop/security/

Web Specifications Supported in Opera 9
http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/

From a web developer perspective I place this
browser on top of the others. When coding
and testing on other browsers something that
makes logical sense coding wise does not respond
well in other browsers. Firefox rarely has issues.
Its been awhile since working on a web project so
I can't speak for IE7.

...

[vgarcia]

vgarcia, you're reason is a bit vague. Care to elaborate a bit on why you prefer Safari over Opera? I can think of a few (the lack of OSX like stuff in Opera is the top on my list).

1. Keychain integration
2. Text just plain looks nicer on Safari than it does in Opera/Firefox
3. Better default interface. Yes Opera has skins but the default one doesn't have to suck so much. First impressions do matter.

[CaryD]

I don't like the way it handles cookies.

[AnOmAlY_]

I don't like the way it handles cookies.

What do you mean by this?

Opera's handling of cookies
http://www.opera.com/support/search/view/350/

Opera Cookie Settings Table
http://files.myopera.com/burnout426/...modified2.html

[Dan Schulz]

He's asking because he's writing an article, and would like some reasoning to back up the claims the people he is polling are making.

And yes, I'm a die-hard Opera user. Browse, develop, you name it. Now only if it could only make my meals for me...