Google says speed is king; so says Opera
16 CommentsPublished November 13th, 2006 8:21 AM EST By Daniel Goldman
One of my readers, Kamalesh Thakker, pointed me to a Cnet article where it cites Google executive Marissa Mayer on the importance of speed.
During a talk at the Web 2.0 summit, Marissa spoke about an experiment Google did by including 30 search results by default instead of 10. “But it took, on average, a half-second longer to get those results than when the default was 10 results, she said. Out of frustration, people conducted fewer searches.”
An additional half-second, is half a second too long. Google thinks so, and so does Opera.
That’s why Opera is so focused on speed. Speed is one of the biggest advantages for using the Opera browser. Just yesterday, The New York Times mentioned Opera and recognizing its superior browser speed over Firefox and Internet explorer (IE). (See browser speed comparison and JavaScript speed test).
I use Firefox here and there, but not enough to really notice its memory problems and speed issues, but I read and hear about it all the time. Just today I read another blog post by an unhappy Firefox user who’s given up Firefox in favor of Opera. According to that user’s estimate Opera renders pages at least 2-3 times faster than Firefox and IE. I’m not sure about its accuracy, but suffice it to say Opera does render pages quicker than others.
Now that all major browsers have tabbed browsing and IE is catching up to Opera and Firefox, I think speed (and low memory resources) is what really differentiates Opera from the rest of the pack. It’s something we, as Opera users, should be proud of and openly boast about it.
Opera, the fastest browser on earth!
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using
I have to disagree with this statement:
“I’m not sure about its accuracy, but suffice it to say Opera does render pages quicker than others.”
I was an Opera user for a solid straight year and I recently forced myself to switch to Seamonkey simply because I was sick and tired of websites not rendering correctly. When I was an Opera user I persuaded a lot of my friends to switch to it as well. They quickly reverted back to whatever else they were using cause they all complained it loaded webpages a lot slower. And I tend to agree with that. Seamonkey is blazing fast.
using
rendering pages and JS is indeed faster in opera.
but opera often gets “stuck” when loading a page (like that js speed test page). reloading helps with a 15% chance of success. that’s annoying, since every gecko based browser handles most sites perfectly (i mean, 512kbit connection should be enough for a browser to load a site, right?)
and no, i don’t use a proxy, and my connection is fairly reliable. i didn’t tamper with opera’s network settings at all, maybe there is an answer for my problems.
using
If Opera only could improve their Linux browser I would still be using Opera. Now I am stuck with Firefox. There are just too many bugs, problems and features in Opera that does not work with Opera… And did I mention that Opera is really slow on Linux?
using
There are just too many bugs, problems and features in Opera that does not work with Opera…
That guy has no idea what he is talking about. “Paste and go” and all shortcuts work fine here. The alpha transparency thing has nothing to do with Opera, it’s a Gnome thing. Oh, and the pop-up problem is just that he doesn’t know the difference between a window, a page and a pop up.
Just another misinformed blogger moaning on the internet.
And did I mention that Opera is really slow on Linux?
Funny, I find it much more faster and reliable on Linux than on windows. I much prefer Opera on Linux, especially since they removed the motif dependency.
The Linux version has improved a lot with Opera 9 and it’s by far the best browser on Linux (I won’t comment the Firefox 2 fiasco; apparently they forgot to test on Linux and FreeBSD)
using
I would immediately switch back to Opera (I used it for 2 years before switching to firefox) if only opera supported some kind of extensions. I need google sync like service.
using
Opera on Windows is indeed a LOT faster than Firefox. Both in rendering, start-up AND GUI responsiveness – especially under high tab loads you notice this. But…
Firefox’s Adblock extension with http://www.fanboy.co.nz Adblock filters is too useful, and makes Firefox browsing VERY nice. Add to that many other extensions that you just can’t get in Opera.
There’s a urlfilter.ini file for Opera on that site that I use to block useless ads in Opera just like Firefox, but there’s no easy way to switch it off when you want like you can with Firefox. Or view what rule has blocked what. Or whitelist sites, or…
But Opera is MILES ahead of Firefox/Seamonkey ON THE WINDOWS PLATFORM. Not only in rendering speed but window/tab responsiveness, features out-of-the-box and general usability/ synergy. I think Opera should disable the useless Tab Preview feature, cluttered and overgeeked Start Bar and rework their Preferences/Customize dialogues as well as adopt a new far more likeable default theme to win back more users.
That and something similar to Firefox’s extension system (no, Widgets aren’t it).
using
I agree with yoshi, Opera is indeed fast, but it locks me out of a page. It totally freezes and doesn’t let me click any links.
But other times, its awesome.
using
Extensions is the biggest problems for me too. I have tried to force my self to use Opera so many times. Last time I managed to hold out for two months. But there is just too many extensions I miss, where most of them will never be incorporated directly into Opera.
using
Memory consumption… How much is too much? How much is normal?
Personally, i’m willing to spend 100MB/512MB on the browser, but the system will run out of ram very quickly..
Currently Operas using 94MB of ram, with 3 tabs open(This, Mail, and digg) honestly that seems a fair ammount to me, and i’ve only just fired opera up and gone through all my RSS’s.
I can see how this would make an impact to some people.
D
(Using the latest Snapshot build of Opera)
using
Opera doesn’t seem buggy in Linux. Surely no more buggy than the gecko browsers here.
using
From my perspective Opera certainly has the speed advantage over FF and the efficiency in the memory usage. Opera’s current issue is with the crazy CPU-usage problems is seems to experience from time to time, this is only an issue with O9.
That said I won’t be dumping Opera any time soon, it has all I need in a browser.
using
I disagree a bit with the speed arguments. Try ymail beta in IE, Firefox and Opera. Opera is clearly the slowest, and it’s not due to the browser.js patch which is very light. There are some operations that Opera makes during the execution of the code which seem to very expensive, like chaging tabs or dragging views separators.
using
For me, speed is not so much of an issue. I don’t notice a few milliseconds – probably because I open most sites in background, and because most sites I visit contain enough stuff to read to have the pages in background load completely, be it 5 or 7 seconds. In other words: speed is nice and good, but it doesn’t define the quality of a browser – at least not for me.
And as a sideremark I’d like to mention that I find your (new?) style of writing “important” stuff in bold letters pretty annoying. It feels like low-niveau newspaper style…
using
Firefox takes a month to start up. And it’s a memory hog. Yes, I do use Firefox for some Google services that don’t work in Opera. But 0.5 seconds is too long for me. Opera’s all about speed, and that’s something that no amount of extensions will fix.
using
There are just too many bugs, problems and features in Opera that does not work with Opera… And did I mention that Opera is really slow on Linux?
That blog entry you link to is completely wrong and only shows how misinformed is the author(both about Opera and Linux in general).
Keyboard shortcuts do work so the problem is on his end, most likely a problem with his distro installation.
The Alpha transparency problem is not an Opera issue, Gnome doesn’t support the required transparency for some widgets so there’s nothing Opera can do there.
His last complaint is just that he doesn’t understand how window management works; it’s up to him to understand what’s the difference between a window, a page and a pop-up.
In sum, a misinformed blog entry that shows how bloggers who don’t do their homework can shoot themselves in the foot in very few lines…
Opera is by no means buggy on Linux, in fact it’s the best browser available by far; Firefox on Linux is the black sheep of the family, they seem to think that just because it comes installed on most distros all job is already done; even Konqueror is better than Firefox, at least it gets the job done and doesn’t suffer from huge memory leaks and random crashes at startup.
using
Where opera is a great browser and speed is important then notepad is a great text edit and is fast to load and render text documents but i rather see what was intended and the customization of FF.
If opera get to back to a point where theres enough invovation in browsing such as the mouse gestures features that hooked to the browser in the first place but now appear through extensions in FF and get there render engine and js back to a point where is as good as rendering simalar to gecko they could sway me back.
At the moment the only thing in FF i hate is the intergation of plugins such as quicktime where it is in the same process so it will take the browser out rather than just the plugin when they crash.
FF is not perfect but on either sides of the scales from quality(and standards) to the designed for IE sites it sits nearer the middle than opera and konquer.
Where i like to see all site designed to meet the standards at this point in time i dont think i will.
You can say to the browser produces dont add feature that are not in the standards but that would kill inivation in the web.
Last note fix opera to work 95% correctly with the latest sites and i will move back.