Comparing browser download size
Published August 12th, 2005 1:07 PM EDT By Daniel GoldmanSo how small can the size of the download file for the Opera browser get?
With the recent release of Opera Mini, the answer is pretty amazing, just 55KB. Compare this to the size of Opera version 2, which was about 800KB.
Opera’s programmers have been able cleverly add lots of features and functionality to the Opera browser, while keeping the download size relatively small.
Recently I wrote about the growth of Opera’s file size over time, but how does Opera compare to the rest of the browsers?
I’ve compiled a list of some of the major browsers with their download size.
- Opera Mini - 55KB
- Opera Mobile - 1.5MB/2.5MB
- Opera 8 - 3.6MB
- Firefox 1.0.6 - 4.7MB
- Internet Explorer 6 - 12MB
- Safari 1.2 - 7MB
- Mozilla 1.X - 11MB
- Netscape 8 - 12.9MB
As you can see from the list above, Opera is pretty impressive when it comes to their download size. What make it even more impressive is that Firefox, Mozilla, and IE don’t even have most of the features that come standard with Opera, and yet Opera is much smaller.
When Opera added BitTorrent support to the browser, it only added an additional 24KB to the file size.
Bigger is not better.
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How does Minimo compare to Opera for various mobiles?
To be fair, Opera Mini doesn’t actually contain much rendering technology. That is handled by a seperate server.
“Bigger is not better.”
But smaller doesn’t mean it’s better either.
And as stated above, pages displayed by Opera mini are prerendered by a server. Impressive nonetheless. I hope it will be available here in germany the next months.
The high memory version of Opera Mini is 98.7 kB (101,169 bytes).
opera uses a exe packer on the exe and dll’s, so comparing to firefox is not really fair
He’s comparing installer sizes, those are usually compressed.
I’m not much into exe packing, but my opera.exe is full of readable text, shouldn’t those get compressed away then? What’s your source?
Rather meaningless comparison… The feature set and degree/area of standards support are all different.
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minghong yes it is meaningless?!
Opera has more features then Firefox and still is smaller. Amazing isn’t it
All the comparison says is that Opera is smaller than everything else out there. We all know that Opera has more features.
True, Opera is small in size … but who cares? Everyone is has broadband connections nowadays. People download fullscreen, full length movies in a few hours. No one is afraid of downloading 40-50 MB anymore.
I like Opera and I think it’s the best browser, but don’t get too stuck on keeping it small.
”Everyone is has broadband connections nowadays.”
Wrong. Most people do NOT have broadband connections, as a matter of fact.
As for Opera being exe packed - even when unpacked it’s still smaller than Firefox.