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Poll

which browser do you prefer?

internet explorer 5/6
[ 18 ] (18.4%)
internet explorer-based browser
[ 7 ] (7.1%)
konqueror/safari
[ 1 ] (1%)
mozilla
[ 29 ] (29.6%)
netscape 6/7
[ 0 ] (0%)
opera 6
[ 8 ] (8.2%)
opera 7
[ 12 ] (12.2%)
phoenix
[ 23 ] (23.5%)
other mozilla-based (chimera/galeon/k-meleon etc)
[ 0 ] (0%)
other (omniweb, outdated versions of browsers, etc)
[ 0 ] (0%)

Total Members Voted: 114

Topic: which browser do you prefer? (Read 4552 times) previous topic - next topic
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which browser do you prefer?

The last one wasn't specific enough. My vote goes to opera 7. The new rewritten engine is brilliant; great output, and on many pages, like www.cdjapan.co.jp, it simply outpeforms the opponents on speed. My testing on random sites showed I can actually save many minutes daily on loading time alone by using opera. Besides, it loads more quickly than most, can open lots and lots of windows at once, and uses exceptionally few resources (memory, cpu, disk space). I seriously hope opera is doing fine economically, because there really is no other alternative for me.. moz and pheonix are great in many ways, but unfortunately, they lack the polish and speed of opera, not to say some vital features (for me) as well.

More important reasons I've fallen in love with opera 7:
- smart popup-blocking (just like mozilla)
- spatial navigation (great for us keyboarders)
- zoom (and it's not a lame relative text-size option like IE/moz)
- tabs (better than mozilla's because they're slicker,
have better keyboard shortcuts, and visual ctrl+tab)
- g search words in adress bar for google search (oh yeah!)
- search fields for several search engines you can place anywhere
- more customizable user interface than mozilla and the rest.. buttons can be added and removed and placed anywhere, bars on all sides of the screen, ini-files can be edited to give much improved customizability
- f2 for opening "new url" window.. beats shift+ctrl+o or whatever.. i don't like to have any adress bar on-screen all the time waste of space
- status bar only shows up when loading a page (more space saved!!)
- the href value of links shows up in tooltips
- mouse gestures (better than mozilla's plugin, especially love leftclick+rightclick and vice versa for forward and back)
- skins (the default one is fine, but some skins look great!)
- auto-reload function (handy at slashdot =D)
- multiple stylesheets thingy (useful on sites with dreadful design)
- love the download manager.. the one in mozilla is fine too, but has more of a linux-feeling to it..
- mm.. the wand (password "manager") is cool enough.
- throws away cookes at exit if you specify (really cool! bwahahaha)
- instant back and forward (memory cache)
- hotlist with customizable panels

Basically, opera is the fastest browser I know of, interface and renderer wise, has more features than most, and does all the little things better than most.. besides being very standards compliant and customizable..


which browser do you prefer?

Reply #2
I'm beginning to like Konquerer...

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #3
Opera 6.05.
I've tried 7.0 and didnt like it.

LIF
"Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life" (Art Blakey)

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #4
Quote
Opera 6.05.
I've tried 7.0 and didnt like it.

LIF

well, that's exactly why I seperated opera 7 from opera 6. Anyway, hopefully the only reason you're using the older version instead of the newer one is that there are bugs you cannot stand (because give them time and they WILL fix most problems), because otherwise opera 7 does have all what the old version had and more. Personally, I thought even beta 2 was bugfree enough for everyday use, but I can see on the opera forums that many differ from that opinion. I also think the 1.0 release was more than good enough.. actually, I noticed a noticable rendering speed increase from beta 2 to final 1.0, which surpried me a bit.

One more good thing about opera.. they take security serious!! When 3(?) pretty serious bugs were discovered with opera 7, they responded quite quickly. "
Quote
Opera once again lived up to its excellent response record and released version 7.01, only 5 days after initial notification. The new version appears to fix all of the reported issues. Upgrade as soon as possible.
This quote from the people who discovered the vulnerabilities. Of course, I don't really think opera's main focus is security.. BUT.. they do fix whatever is reported because in their position they have no other choice, but also, opera is not as big a security risk as some other browsers because the codebase is relatively small and therefore more easily managed, and it doesn't tie in with too much stuff. (the more complicated something is, the more likely it will break).

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #5
Phoenix 
Can't deny Opera is the fastest browser, but... i don't like it

When web site that needs ....evil java runtime  phoenix will just shut down  or make my system hang! Urggh

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #6
I think IE (even if it's from MS) is the best because of its compatibility

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #7
Quote
I think IE (even if it's from MS) is the best because of its compatibility

So you think IE is the best simply because it can render some more pages than the rest? Sorry, sounds like a silly reason for proclaiming something to be "best".. with faster rendering speed, antipopup, tabs system, mouse gestures, better keyboard control, adress bar google search.. just with these feautures alone i can probably save 10-15 minutes daily by using opera instead of IE.. add all the other feautures on top of these, and I also gain a lot of convenience and comfort. And if some page doesn't work.. click.. IE loads instantly.. <ehem> it's not like I can remove it from my system anyway

plus.. the reasons some pages are only compatible with IE are often stupid ones.. that they (stupid webmasters) actively hinder opera from access, even though opera can perfectly well render the page. Oh, that, and microsoft blocking opera with "mistake". I mean, come on, IE cannot even render CSS on the level of opera and mozilla LOL

I do not dislike IE at all because it's from MS.. IMO it would be stupid to be moaning about MS while sitting on a MS desktop at home  I dislike IE simply because opera is so much superior. Otherwise, I think IE is "good enough" if all you care about is basics. From 1 to 10 where IE is 6, opera is 10.

ps: i really wanted to like mozilla/pheonix.. but.. mozilla is VERY bloated on this computer.. and even pheonix feels bloated compared to opera.. besides they both lack the finesse, functionality and polish of opera.. just my personal opinion of course.. why else would I actually pay for a browser if I didn't think it was clearly superior? Some people use pheonix instead of opera even though they like opera better, simply because it's free and open source.. call me a bitch, but I don't want to lose the superior product simply because someone wanted to be a little cheap.. considering how much a browser is used, I think a good browser is very much worth a little money.. cannot get much better value, actually. (not that opera seems to be in financial trouble or whatever, but I certainly would like for there to be more opera users, just so this excellent browser does not one day suddenly go bankrupt..).. oh yeah, and opera has the most potential on portables. =)

What I like most about mozilla/pheonix? Well, I really like the bookmark update/notification stuff..

One of the things that sucks most about mozilla/pheonix, not counting its inferiority in my eyes compared with opera: MY FRIGGIN' TRACKBALL SCROLLING DOESN'T WORK!! oh well.. some people have their scrolling issues with opera too for that matter, but it's even worse with moz.

sorry if i sound like such a fanboy, but opera simply does that to people when you open yourself up to it!!  uhm..  On a scale from 1 to 10, I can happily give pheonix 8.. even though IE still has the better "feel" of these two, pheonix is better in many ways, and my testing has showed its renderer, although not as quick as opera's, is still better than IEs.

On a sidenote, wonder how long antipopup will continue to work.. there are som clever methods there that non of the antipopups seem to be able to stop.

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #8
Opera 6/7 works fine for me. On old computer (like my older PC, P166MMX) 6.05 feels much smoother but on faster PCs version 7 is just perfect. Mozilla and Phoenix are also very good browsers but they don't have the "opera feel".

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #9
I'm using Phoenix these days. It seems a bit faster than Mozilla. The only feature I wish it had like Mozilla is the ability to type in the URL area and click or tab to a search button, instead of Phoenix's display of one spot for the URL and a different one for the search value. I can't see myself changing from Mozilla & related products anytime soon.

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #10
i would have liked to use opera, but it does not have BiDi support. i want to read some hebrew sites, but opera does not work properly at all. i was told when opera was version 5 that this will be added in version 6. it wasn't. then at version 6 i was told it will be added in version 7. it wasn't

right now i'm using mozilla 1.21. while it may be more "secure" than IE by not allowing certain things, mozilla is buggy like f*ck. sometimes when i check out news sites like reuters or bbc, half of the text in the articles wont be displayed. i'll have to "pass" over the text with the mouse to make it appear :/

i dunno.. maybe i'll just use opera for english pages. is javascript and DHTML rendering in opera ok? last time we discussed browsers i heard DHTML in opera was pretty crappy
Be healthy, be kind, grow rich and prosper

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #11
the browser i use is opera 7. its got better support for pages than 6 did so i don't need to turn to ie as much. as for dhtml or dom it's supported well in opera 7. take a look at the spec site.

i found a story on the opera website that says the msn microsoft site was sending just opera bad css files so the site would purposely display wrong. that explains why it was rendering bad all this time. its fixed now but thats low even for microsoft.

and yes, opera is the best browser.

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #12
Yes, opera version 7 has much improved internet standards support. The sites that fail with opera (and other non-IE browsers) are usually either poorly coded (like using some stupid IE-only code), or just not allowing opera in even though opera can render the page just fine. Some like to think that IE is the best browser for internet standards, but it is probably one of the worst.. first of all it has polluted the standards with code of its own that is not part of the specs.. anyone failing to recognize what's wrong with this is either plain stupid or too ignorant/naive. Second, it doesn't exactly feature the best support for the standards set by w3c.. i mean, just visit http://www.w3c.org/Style/CSS/, the official page for stylesheets.. IE cannot even render THAT properly.. opera and pheonix do, or at least close to it. The old page at that site was even MORE fucked up in IE, while working fine in both opera and moz-based browsers. Says it all.. okay so that is very less than a thorough test, but a browser that cannot even render the cascading style sheets page up at the site of the world wide web consortium, is NOT a good browser IMO, what little it says of the browsers support for standards otherwise.

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #13
Quote
i found a story on the opera website that says the msn microsoft site was sending just opera bad css files so the site would purposely display wrong. that explains why it was rendering bad all this time. its fixed now but thats low even for microsoft.

German readers may have a look at Heise online about this story.

Mafia$oft intentionally excludes Opera users from theit sites. In the past I also thought this was Opera's fault, but nevertheless I preferred it over M$ browsers.

When displaying big HTML files (>5MByte) Opera uses much less memory than IE or Mozilla.

And I like the mouse gestures! Close a page by drawing an "L", going back and forth by pointing left or right, that is really cool  B)

Edit: get the "Bork edition" of Opera7, visit www.msn.com and enjoy 

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #14
how much memory does opera 7, pheonix and IE use when having 16 sites opened at once??

**approach 1: load browser, open one.com, two.com etc up to sixteen.com (some of these sites are dead/empty, but that doesn't matter), minimize (makes the memory usage go to minimum), restore, AND CYCLE THROUGH ALL WINDOWS.

Opera 7: 6.5 megabytes!! I couldn't believe it.. but it's true! Opera uses VERY little memory if you do a minimize->restore.

Pheonix: 17.5 megabytes.. it's not too bad, actually.

IE: 32 megabytes.. hehe.

**approach 2: only opera and pheonix here, couldn't be bothered to do IE again. Open browser, open sites.. no minimize->restore, and no cycling of windows.

opera 7: 19.5 megabytes (far away from 6.5 megabytes, eh)
pheonix: 27.5 megabytes



Why? Because I felt like it  I also posted this at forum.doom9.org.
The minimize->restore thing is quite interesting though, isn't it?

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #15
Yeah, that's true. When I open all unread HA threads (to read them offline) on my daily forum walk, Opera 6.05 will often refuse to open any more than ~20 windows telling me that I'm running low on system resources - a minimize/restore allows me to squeeze the last bit out. [Closing Miranda, IRC, Outlook and foobar is the last resort to get those last 5 threads opened. ]

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #16
Well,
I run mozilla. It is as fast as I am, I never have to wait for it. I have more then 8 windows, and more then 40 tabs open. It has no compatiblity problums that I have noticed.

Why would I run anything else? As, memory is super-cheap, my boxes have 768mb, and 1024mb, work/home respectively.  With a 512mb stick of DDR costing only $75, why do you care about memory useage?

And, it is free software.

which browser do you prefer?

Reply #17
Quote
Well,
I run mozilla. It is as fast as I am, I never have to wait for it. I have more then 8 windows, and more then 40 tabs open. It has no compatiblity problums that I have noticed.

Why would I run anything else? As, memory is super-cheap, my boxes have 768mb, and 1024mb, work/home respectively.  With a 512mb stick of DDR costing only $75, why do you care about memory useage?

And, it is free software.

So the faster the computer systems get, the less we should care about good and clean optimized code? That's what you're indirectly implying. Believe it or not, even in this day and age where we have tons of cheap computer memory, many of us still give a damn about resource efficiency. Sure, software today can do a little more today than it could 5 years ago, but it still speaks of bad coding practices when much of today's software on 5 times quicker hardware seems as slow or even slower as old software on old hardware seemed to be. Had the coders today been optimizing like crazy like they used to do when system resources were REALLY scarce, computer programs would be much better in MANY noticeable ways.. but of course, it doesn't seem cost-efficient for today's software companies when they can instead rely on fast hardware to compensate for slow and even downright stupid code.

And for your information.. I run a fan-less (for far less noise) computer system running an underclocked duron at 600 with 256 mb of ram. I have nearly no programs installed besides p2p software and opera, and after heavily tweaking many aspects of windows xp, my system feels far snappier than a typical average joe setup of 2 gigahertz 512 mb ram system. And all that without making much noise.

And btw, remember I tested pheonix.. which is a good bit leaner than mozilla. And I don' t neccesarily dislike pheonix because of its memory print. I dislike it only because it fades in comparison to opera IMO, and opera has more features on far less resource usage, and basically, I don't want cheap people who don't even want to pay 30-40 bucks for a web browser that they would use dozens of hours monthly to win the browser race. And this is only a cheap shot, but.. and they wonder why commercial companies don't make more software for linux  Uhm, sorry about that. Sorry if this post sounded a little harsh, nothing personal at all. It's fine if you don't care about program efficiency and stuff, but.. just don't expect everyone else to think the same

(and of course, if you want to make fun of me, just look at how long the typical post from me turns out to be.. now THAT'S inefficiency).

Also, I may seem hostile towards mozilla and pheonix, but really am not. I would actually like gecko-based browsers to succeed as well as I would like opera to succeed, even though I wish a little more for opera . In the end anything's better than IE's dominance.