My main problem with Opera is development support. When I want to find documentation about how to code a specific Firefox extension it is simply a matter of googling for it. Opera lacks this kind of detailed documentation/support for developers. The available documentation is good, but only covers very basic features and functionality.

Firefox 2.0 was disappointing to me because all of its features are already in Opera.

Opera is proud to call itself a browser for power users but the power users will be attracted to the open source and extensions of firefox. For example, I have the menu, buttons and address and search bar all on one row. I save lots of space that way. With the tiny menu and menu editor extensions, I save even more space.

But let’s not get so focused about firefox and power users. It’s still a relatively small group. The real challenge is to go after the 85% still using IE. They won’t care about tabs or mouse gestures but they will care if the browser is really really cool like the ipod.
I don’t think most die hard firefox and opera users will like this answer because it puts style over substance. But that’s the way to go to get tons of switchers.

(and on a related note, I wish Apple would actually show the mac in action in their TV ads instead of some grunge mac guy who thinks PC’s are only good for black and white spreadsheets)

Most people use the browser that comes installed on the computer. In most cases this means IE.

People who do switch to another browser are looking for two things.

An easy to use browser with easy to use features. Sorry but Opera fails on both counts.

It is so “customisable” that most users will look at it and walk away. It’s the KDE of browsers.

Regarding features, again, for techies, it’s great but for Joe user it does not measure up.

1) Adblocking – sorry Adblock does it better and more easily

2) Flashblocking – idem.

3) Toolbars, eg Yahoo/Google, forget it

4)Stumbleupon support – idem

5) del.icio.us support – pretty crappy really.

Do I have to carry on?

Opera is a bit like Betamax, technically quite good, but unfortunately it will never fly

Opera is really a good piece of software, perfect for Apple-Mac minds (now almost any platform): great looking, great programming, great features, no complications.. But tech-minds wants (needs)some “tech info food”..

a) Commodity: People & business buy computers with IE included. They don’t know about computers, and they don’t want to “complicate” their lives on browser’s battle. IE it’s there, it’s free, it comes included so, why bother?

b) Netscape users are loyal, old net navigators, they don’t like what MS did on past times to Netscape, so they continue to use it. Some may have switched to Mozilla. And some to IE because the job market required it.

c) Opera was not free, and then it became free, but it had ads.

d) Mozilla became popular among Open Source people and computer-minds, because of its concept.

d) Many computer minds are old net navigators who knew the first web, with more honest people, and not with such thrill of marketing of nowadays, where you can’t trust anyone.

e) MS invested a lot on marketing its products, including buying rights & part of some companies to enter the Mac platform.

f) Linux users are more into OpenSource, and so Mozilla comes..And they still remember your ads!

z)….. zZzz…

I first tested Opera long ago. Now I have installed and it’s really great, but I still have Netscape & Mozilla, depending for what.

I missed in your browser the old “Composer” feature that was present since Netscape 2.0 Gold.
In Netscape 8 they also took it out .
I’ve tried almost all Opera widgets, and none does it!.How about creating one? Just by using MENU – FILE – EDIT, one can send it to Composer on the fly, with no worries.

So, well, now I have four browsers installed! But I had to say that you are the faster one.

Problems with sites are true, as many websites were built for IE, and if doesn’t detects IE, it fills the browser memory, and it hangs, and eventually closes.

Also some sites close your browser even without javascript enabled option, when it detects that you want to save the page, or an image, for offline browsing..

Also, Adobe’s PDF’s takes a lot of time & resources, which possibly may eventually hang Opera or even the system. To use programs to clean the Ram is a wise idea to minimize this, though sometimes one may need to restart..

keep’up the good job!

I agree that the people who have heard of Opera are probably unaware that Opera has been ad-free since the better part of 2005. This needs to be stressed more in more advertisements of the browser. Finally, while the interface is different from IE, I don’t find it very difficult to use, and it’s amazing how much Opera can do and has built-in once you dig below the surface a bit. From first glance, would you have guessed that Opera also has a built-in e-mail client? Would you have guessed that it features mouse gestures, a huge time-saving system? These features also need to be known by people who know of Opera, but are either unsure if it’s right for them or are downright scared to try something new that’s “not IE.”

“I will say Opera has a butt *** load of features in it, 70% most users will never use. While that does classify it as bloatware, the difference for Opera is, unlike bloatware, it’s not slowed down by it’s 70% unused feature set.”

The point is that you seem to misunderstand the concept “bloatware”. “Load of features” – as you call it – is not bloatware per se, bloatware is related to system resources, that is, how a program manages RAM, CPU, … Being loaded with loads of features does not classify a program as bloatware by any means. As an example, a barebones FF (very few features) with a huge memory leak does classify as bloatware; features have nothing to do with the term bloatware.

Opera does not classify as bloatware in the first place (exactly because of the reasons you said).
There’s no way you can remove it from a category which is not included in in the first place; that’s the contradiction in your argument.

That I can accept; however, more often than not, Opera users are passing it off as “Opera’s port” which is far from true. Moral dilemma of supporting/not supporting ads is what has hurt Opera in this department. Firefox gets away from this by the use of extensions.

That’s quite contradictory, how can it be bloatware if it’s fast, reponsible and everything is well integrated.

I’d suggest you re-read what I said. I did not call Opera bloatware. My “unlike bloatware” statement was meant as an exception in Opera’s favor declassifying it as bloatware.

Mozilla depends on extensions to provide basic functionality and this is the problem, once you install more than 20 extensions everything slows down, memory leaks are everywhere and the browser does not respond like it should.

There’s much debate currently about what’s considered basic functionality or not. This is why Firefox contains so little by default. It’s a core browser, simple as that. Very core. Stuff that 80+% of it’s user base will use. If you find a feature you feel should be core, build a valid argument against the Firefox devs explaining why 80+% of the users would want this feature. If you can’t, then it goes to the extensions pile.

Still use it though becasue it is the best around.

Keep in mind that the aim of the list is to provide similar features not exactly the same feature. If this would be the case, you could never compare two products since what you are looking for is a copycat.

That said, the content blocker is not Opera’s answer to Adblock, it’s just a gui for filter.ini, a feature that was already present in Opera. It does dot provide the same features as Adblock but does its job quite well. It’s good enough for most people who would never mess around with RegExp.

Regarding RegExp, the developer said it would be trivial to add it but there are some things that need to be sorted out in the ui. This is most likely to be included in future versions.

The current implementation slows down Opera if your urlfilter.ini file is 200k or more, which is insane, you can use * and ? in order to create patterns.

Gmail Notifier – Opera does not have an equivalent. Opera’s M2 can only check through POP3 or IMAP. Gmail Notifier does not do this. It checks Google RSS feed for new mail. When it finds new mail, you’re notified and clicking on the icon sends to you *Gmail* not another mail client. I want that, but Opera cannot do that. When I click on Mail in Opera, it opens M2.

You can do this by clicking on the RSS icon once you are logged in. Opera will notify you and if you click on the link Opera will send you to the Gmail page.

Couple things not listed

There are more than a couple of extensions not listed. The list is about the most popular FF extensions.

Spellcheck

Opera uses Aspell, if you have it on your system, it will pick it up.

BBCode

http://shoust.techwhack.org/?p=setups

You don’t know how to properly use extensions then. You sound more like your 100 extension type person.

50+ extensions and you’re gonna hurt yourself in updates. Keep to the key ones and you won’t have to worry.

Exactly, the extensions framework is limited, and that’s the point. You cannot install more than 20 extensions, otherwise you are doomed.

If I need to install more than 30 extensions in order to emulate some of Opera’s features and I can’t do it because everything is a mess – extensions fighting with each other and loosing functionality every upgrade because some authors deprecate their extensions -, that’s hardly my fault. I haven’t seen any note over Mozilla explaining that the extension framework is flawed and you can only install 10-15 extensions.

Mozilla depends on extensions to provide basic functionality and this is the problem, once you install more than 20 extensions everything slows down, memory leaks are everywhere and the browser does not respond like it should.

Personally, I’d much prefer user contributed options than bloating the browser with built in features. Then I can install only what I want to use.

It seems that Mozilla does not agree with you since they are including more and more features in FF by default (drag and drop tabs, sessions, …).

Like it or not, you cannot rely on third party code to provide basic functionality -even more when the third party code is not tested-, this is browser’s job and finally Mozilla has learned it.

I will say Opera has a butt *** load of features in it, 70% most users will never use. While that does classify it as bloatware, the difference for Opera is, unlike bloatware, it’s not slowed down by it’s 70% unused feature set.

That’s quite contradictory, how can it be bloatware if it’s fast, reponsible and everything is well integrated.

That’s not the definition of bloat.

Mail,chat,feeds and BitTorrent are disabled by default, they do not use any memory until you enable them. They are just 500/600k of code – less than 3 extensions – and the complete Opera package is smaller than a barebones FF install.

You don’t know how to properly use extensions then. You sound more like your 100 extension type person. See, I use my properly. I still to actively developed extensions. I keep them updated and the most prominent ones are always updated within days /before/ a major release; unless there’s a major compatibility issue, then they are updated day /of/ release.

50+ extensions and you’re gonna hurt yourself in updates. Keep to the key ones and you won’t have to worry.

Personally, I’d much prefer user contributed options than bloating the browser with built in features. Then I can install only what I want to use.

Now, I’m not calling Opera bloat. I will say Opera has a butt *** load of features in it, 70% most users will never use. While that does classify it as bloatware, the difference for Opera is, unlike bloatware, it’s not slowed down by it’s 70% unused feature set.
(well, very large Content Block list is an exception)

Sure, I over exagurated a bit. Who doesn’t? I looked at a few prominent things and just turned the page. Cause if they felt these were “proper matches” than they are sorely mistaken.

The content blocker doesn’t compare to AdBlock. I don’t like how Opera users are trying to pass “Block Content” as Opera’s answer to AdBlock. Block Content works on piece of content at a time. It does not support true regular expressions. It does not have a white list. It actually slows down Opera if the list gets too long. Block Content as a long way to go before you can call it Opera’s answer to AdBlock.

Gmail Notifier – Opera does not have an equivalent. Opera’s M2 can only check through POP3 or IMAP. Gmail Notifier does not do this. It checks Google RSS feed for new mail. When it finds new mail, you’re notified and clicking on the icon sends to you *Gmail* not another mail client. I want that, but Opera cannot do that. When I click on Mail in Opera, it opens M2.

Couple things not listed: Spellcheck, Aadvark.

FxUser is the perfect example of why Opera marketing has failed. The browser has been ad-free since last fall and now includes a content-blocker, yet the word is failing to get out. I saw a number of folks on digg.com last week arguing against Opera because they thought it still included ads and lacked a content-blocker. This has to change

I can understand where you’re coming from there. I’ve known when Opera became ad free since day one it switched. I still have the “free serial” paper when Opera gave Opera 8.5 free for a day. But there’s two functionalities in Firefox I just cannot live without: AdBlock and Gmail Notifier (I want to use Gmail, not M2 — assuming that’s what Opera still calls their Mail client). Okay, add a third (I needed it typing this post. ) — Spellcheck.

I’m not any ol’ fan boy that’s knocking Opera cause I thought it was Adware. Believe it or not, I’ve been following Opera and it’s development since version 6.5. Opera is a very strong browser, but it’s missing things that would get me to switch and I’m really tired of people trying to pass off Opera’s poor excuse of implementation of these missing features as the real thing.

Get me Gmail Notifier, Spellcheck and AdBlock and I’ll switch. Until then, Opera is still just a play toy for me.
Other features that would be nice: Aadvark, Google Notebook, Del.icio.us buttons, SEO Extension, and BBCode. These are all the extensions I use on this browser (main reason I hadn’t updated THIS browser to 2.0 yet) that Opera does not have an equivalent.
(aside from Del.icio.us, kinda. You can get away with just using the Bookmarklets. Big plus about Fx is you don’t have to loose/reload the page you’re tagging)
– Better yet, build an extension API and the community will build these extensions.
Coming here in a few months (1/2 year?) Opera will be the only browser without extension capability. Yet another smack across Opera’s face.
(Actually, IE current does, somewhat .. more ActiveX or something — I just know Google Notepad actually does have an IE extension that works just like Firefox’s version)