You know, I kind of like Opera...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| caitlyn Jun 23, 2009 5:20 PM EDT |
You know, I kind of like Opera, particularly on older hardware as it is faster and slimmer than Firefox. OTOH, it isn't Open Source and it's only free as in free beer. With so many new and interesting Open Source browsers out there now I have to wonder if there is any reason to care about or use Opera at this point. |
| techiem2 Jun 23, 2009 5:48 PM EDT |
I'll add it also doesn't have the memory leaks of Firefox (hopefully they'll track all those down eventually). :P I use it for the occasional site where it behaves a little better than Firefox (some sites with flash, etc). Opera always has been a fairly decent browser in my experience. Too bad it's not FOSS. |
| hkwint Jun 23, 2009 6:03 PM EDT |
Quoting:I have to wonder if there is any reason to care about or use Opera at this point. Personally, I'd say yes, because it's just a good browser. Normally, they fare better at supporting open standards than Firefox. Opera doesn't crash if you want to watch Flash-movies full screen, like Firefox. It doesn't stay in memory so the only way to restart it is using the killall command from the CLI, like Firefox from time to time. Also, from time to time, ideas / features of Opera are included in Firefox as well, leading to a better experience in Firefox. Examples of those are mouse gestures (addon in Firefox), RSS reader (addon in Firefox), and status bar (addon in Firefox). The M2 mail client is quite good to, in one case it was better in connecting with Exchange then IE in a particular case. Apart from that, it's nice to have alternatives. If somebody doesn't like the direction Konqueror or Firefox is going, they can migrate without too much hassle. So should you care? Well, as long as Opera is around and opes source browsers work for you I guess not. But if Opera disappears, it will be a loss of competition between browsers - leading to open source browsers becoming worse at innovating. |
| caitlyn Jun 23, 2009 6:13 PM EDT |
Hans: You are making it seem like there are only two choices: Opera and Firefox. Even Mozilla has other choices now (Seamonkey, Fennec), and alternatives like Epiphany, Midori, Konqueror, Conkeror, Kazehakase, Netsurf, SkipStone, HV3, Flock, etc... Some have limited feature sets but are lightweight while others are working to become full featured. I don't think that Opera disappearing would kill innovation. There are plenty of other innovative projects out there. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 24, 2009 1:45 AM EDT |
Opera = fast. I use it quite a bit. |
| caitlyn Jun 24, 2009 1:49 AM EDT |
Some of the others I listed also equal fast + FOSS. |
| azerthoth Jun 24, 2009 6:26 AM EDT |
you forgot a really fast one caitlyn, links in GUI mode (links -g). |
| hkwint Jun 24, 2009 11:23 AM EDT |
Quoting:Hans: You are making it seem like there are only two choices: Opera and Firefox. I guess you're right at that. Those are the two 'most full-fledged' browsers available on Linux in my opinion, though Konqueror made great improvements. Probably it has something to do with my love for Opera and its 'G/Ctrl+G mode' when I was still using Windows, it was far better and faster than IE. That means I still use Opera and read about it from time to time, and therefore notice the progress they made. But they might have gotten their ideas from other browsers indeed, I don't know. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 24, 2009 3:19 PM EDT |
If I want a browser for my 233 MHz-era machines running either Linux or Open/Free/NetBSD, and I want that browser to have working CSS and Javascript (even if the scripts run like crap), Firefox/Iceweasel/Epiphany really bog down. Opera is the only choice. If I'm running, say, Fluxbox, Fvwm2 or even Xfce, I'm not going to go the Konqueror route, although I think Konqueror is one of the great things in KDE. |
| caitlyn Jun 24, 2009 3:32 PM EDT |
@Steven: Would Kazehakase fit the bill? |
| flufferbeer Jun 24, 2009 3:38 PM EDT |
@Steven_Rosenber I've not only also found that Opera works surprisingly well on 233 MHz-era machines with Linux, but using older versions of M$-Winbloze as well in dual-boot mode. That's right! On ancient Pentium I and Pentium II PCs from 166MHz-333Mhz, I can get Opera to run in 9x fine where I cannot do so as well with FF or even with NS's Navigator/Communicator. AAMOF, Opera seems to perform a little bitty bit better on these antique PC than does the default version of M$IE. Cannot recall seeing much a difference in speed on these pCs, though, between Opera running on Linux vs on Windloo$ |
| bigg Jun 24, 2009 3:55 PM EDT |
Have you tried hv3? |
| caitlyn Jun 24, 2009 4:10 PM EDT |
@bigg: HV3 is lightning fast on older hardware. It has some limitations but it is head and shoulders better than Dillo in terms of supporting more modern web pages. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 24, 2009 5:41 PM EDT |
hv3 -- never heard of it ... I'll look into it. http://tkhtml.tcl.tk/hv3.html Turns out there's a PET package for Puppy Linux. That might be a good place to start. |
| caitlyn Jun 24, 2009 6:26 PM EDT |
Vector Linux has it in the repository as well. The Vector package does include hv3polipo (customized proxy). |
| chalbersma Jun 24, 2009 10:27 PM EDT |
h3v is nice but it's not as polished as Opera. |
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