I was having a little fun today doing an unscientific Opera vs. Firefox comparison. We always see the feature-by-feature comparisons among the top browsers; let’s try another kind of comparison. Unfortunately for Opera, it lost badly. 
Articles on Digg’s homepage with the term “Opera” or “Firefox” in the titles over the past year:
Firefox: 301
Opera: 113
Articles that were posted on Slashdot over the past year containing the term “Opera” or “Firefox“:
Firefox: 146
Opera: 45
Blog posts containing the terms “Opera browser” or “Firefox browser“:
- Technorati:
Firefox: 200,752
Opera: 68,584
- Google Blog Search
Firefox: 192,964
Opera: 75,453
Webpages that were updated during the past year contain the terms “Opera browser” or “Firefox browser“:
- Google
Firefox: 145,000,000
Opera: 83,700,000
- Yahoo
Firefox: 34,300,000
Opera: 24,100,000
using
What is good not necessary to be commented.
using
Umm, what exactly is the point of this post? It does not have any relavance to which browser is better, only how much press it has potentially received. And we all know how the press can be a “bit” biased. Of course, it does show that you will have a busy year next year.
using
You should include “wii browser” too
using
You can try to divide your results by the respective percentageof use of each browser (1.5% for Opera and 29.9% for Firefox).
For instance, the number of articles on Slashdot becomes:
Firefox: 488
Opera: 3000
Now, Opera wins :p .
using
I think you can cut the number of times people have mentioned Firefo in half, as it is probably just mentions like the once you just did…
using
Although FF gets more press in the above stats, how much of it is useful press. Take the FF fanboy postings and what are we left with?
Dava
using
Umm, what exactly is the point of this post?
Ryan, as I said above, I was just having a little fun. Obviously this comparison means absolutely nothing.
using
Well, the comparison does mean something, I think. Opera still needs some serious awareness-lifting. Its undoubted qualities need to register in the general computer user’s mind much more often and more deeply.
As Ryan said – you have a busy year ahead of you, Daniel!
using
Surprised you didn’t include Google Trends, another somewhat interesting but mostly useless measure
using
If Opera came preinstalled on Windows Vista computers, Opera would get a lot more use. Unfortunately, Opera’s pocketbook isn’t as big as AOL’s.
If it didn’t cost an arm and a leg, Opera could consider making a deal with Dell to be a potential browser to preinstall on computers, along with Firefox, maybe. Dell might just be an option…
using
Hehe. I guess that’s alright. I’ve done searches like these before too. It’s just that I always hate finding the results.
using
Try searching for the term “browser” in Google and you’ll certainly know which browser is Google’s favourite.
using
While wii are including the “wii browser”, wii should also add “DS Browser”, “Opera Mini”, “Opera Mobile”, “Opera Community”, “My Opera”, “My Opera Community”… too be fair wii could also add “Firefox Community” too.
using
Oh and we also need to do “Nintendo Wii browser”, “Nintendo Wii Internet Channel”, “Nintendo DS browser”, …
FF comes first!
using
Try searching for the term “browser” in Google and you’ll certainly know which browser is Google’s favouriteYou make it sound like google is ‘rigging the search. The search is based upon popularity and relevance. I’m sure if Opera was very popular and holding a bigger market share than firefox, the search results would be different.
using
In France, the first search result is… Avant Browser
(on a download site). Followed by Firefox, Crazy Browser, and then Opera.
But it’s known that Google supports Firefox (for financial reasons?), since it’s included in the Google Pack.
using
Opera is for professionals.
using
I think that the proper gauge of how the browser is fairing out there in the world is how many times Opera as of late has been mentioned in the press, without the explanation
“another alternative to Internet Explorer, which includes tabs, rss feeds, and email right inside the browser”.I think that the number of times Opera is mentioned without that tidbit of information is growing, and that means that Opera is becoming more and more recognized, at least like that of Safari and it now has a name for itself – and its work cut out for 2007.
Good luck!
using
interesting!
using
after trying all browsers….. i can’t use other browser beside opera its like a swiss knife
yea maybe ff got tons of useless feature but for idiot like me that browser took ages to open and render so slow
Opera ROCK
using
Well the stats just show that firefox is more popular and more talked about that opera – which is no surprise. In fact I’m sure internet explorer would have alot of posts and/or articles (probably about past security vulnerabilities). And in no way should anyway equate popularity with quality. I’m happy using a real alternative browser.
Although that would be awesome, Dell are strongly connected with M$ and I doubt would be able to promote one of their competitors. I have a friend who works for dell and he has m$ written on the back of his t-shirt and they all use ie7 on the computers. I even asked him why they didn’t install another browser and he looked at me as if I was crazy.
“browser” is such an ambiguous term try searching “web browser” in google and see what comes first.
using
http://www.google.com/firefox%20is%20bad%20opera%20rulez
using
I’m posting this here, because I can’t do it anywhere else. For some reason, the page gets cut off immediately after the YouTube video.
Anyone knows what the problem might be?
using
I typed “web browser” in Google and Opera came up as the first and second result.
using
@Dan: same here. For the record (since results change over time), the results I see today for “web browser” are:
1. Opera home page
2. Opera download page
3. Firefox
4. Mozilla Foundation
5. Wikipedia entry for “Web browser”
6. IE
7. Old location for IE (which really shouldn’t be in the index, since it redirects to #6)
8. Netscape
9. Safari
10. Konqueror
Plus Google seems to randomly advertise their Firefox+Toolbar and IE7+Toolbar combos.
I tried some related searches, and was astonished to find my own site the first hit for “alternative browser.” Definitely a thrill to that! (Though it drops down to #6 if you add “web” to the phrase.) Also surprising was that 4 of the top 10 results for “opera” were related to the browser, not to music—including the top 3.
using
It always down to person prefrence, ive tried all and opera has been my browser for over 1 year keep up the good work