I was a Chrome user for some months now, happily using it with all it's extensions. Getting angry when mouse gestures extension didn't worked in new tab or in incognito and the lack of ads blocking before loading. Yesterday I found an announce that Opera has released it's new beta version 10.5. I gave it a test and man, was I impressed or what. After benching it a little I decided without any second thoughts to switch to it. Why ?
- Redesigned interface fully compatible with Aero
- Content policy included and with fanboy's list ads are history
- Mouse gestures
- Email client
- Private browsing per tab (not per window as in Chrome)
- Opera Turbo for slow connections
- Opera unite for sharing
And all this are out of the box, without needing a handful of extensions.

Here is an interesing article about it: http://www.betanews.com/article/Oper...d/1265934703/2

What o you think about it ?

this is my latest toy
http://www.fenrir.co.jp/sleipnir2-the-world/

Despite what has been written about this browser being faster or that browser being faster, Opera has always been the fastest for me.
And it crashes less than other browsers.
Also, like you stated, it has all the features built in.

Just right click on a page and select block content, no ad blocking extension required.

I use Opera from time to time, but for everyday browsing, I still use Firefox.
FireFTP keeps me from leaving. Plus I like the way I have firefox configured.

Originally Posted by Jedi Knight

...
I use Opera from time to time, but for everyday browsing, I still use Firefox.
FireFTP keeps me from leaving. Plus I like the way I have firefox configured.

And you're a mod!

Really though I haven't used Opera much, when I develop my site, Opera's given me nothing but problems. Though I do think Chrome could take a lesson from Opera and Firefox on the content blocking. It's not so much an ad thing as it is blocking obtrusiveness or annoying things. But I don't really think it's the browser's job to have mouse gestures, it's more of an extension thing.

Out of the box Opera has HEAPS of great features (facial gestures, hahaha), but I just dont like it. It might look great on Vista/7 but on xp it gets a horrible native border and top bit....and its just....I dunno, crappy
I gave Opera to a few computer illiterate people, explained some of its nice options, left them with it for a couple of days and they all went back to FF the next day....It fails in the Out of the Box "Experience".
I did the same thing with Chrome and they all liked it very much. People complain that Chrome doesnt have this or cant do that, but they can use it, it makes sense and doesnt confuse them. This is why chrome are so picky on what they add and how they implement that addition....it might be annoying at times but theres good reasoning behind it.
Also only one of those people use gestures, the rest (theres 5 people in all) found them annoying.
And what about extensions? does Opera have anything execpt the user script?....I couldnt find anything.
Do like the widgets idea tho and their dam lucky to have the File IO stuff.

FF is the king by far, but you have to customize it to hell to really get the most out of it. The people I know that use fire fox have had me come over and spend ages rearranging/removeing everything till its more a beginerers browser, but the fact that you can do that and pretty much anything else you want is why I love it. Its just alot more complicated to make extensions in FF and thats why I love chrome.

Well, I was a Firefox hardcore user for years. As you said, I customized and tweaked it until it performed and looked the way I want it to. But the start-up times are simply annoying. For God sake, it takes more then 5 seconds for the browser to start and I have a quad core with 4 GB of Ram. So, instead of adding all kind of new crappy features they should optimize start-up times. The interface also feels heavy. Chrome starts in a snap, that's why I went to it. Opera takes like half of second more. In the end, it's everyone's choice. I love mouse gestures and they make my browsing experience complete. Ahh, I forgot to mention the crappy password management in Chrome, I simply hate it. On some sites doesn't even ask me to remember the password. Opera's wand (password manager) is absolutely fantastic, I got a small button on toolbar and with a simple press my credentials get filled in.
Not to mention the fact that when I delete my private data all extension settings get lost in Chrome. Now, how lame is that ?
I opened Opera and Chrome each with 30 new tabs. Opera took about 4 MB of RAM, Chrome was about 80 MB.
I agree with the thing then making extensions for Chrome is piece of cake. I even made some testing myself (I don't have js knowledge) and it all came to light pretty fast. I know that for security reasons Google disabled extension in Incognito/New tab/Secured pages but that should have been as an option for user to set. Imagine that you have an Ad hiding extension and you use the incognito mode... paf, no point for the extension as it doesn't do anything.

But I say again, I am not recommending anything to anyone, I am just writing my impressions. I have been a hardcore user of Firefox for... I can't even remember when I started using it, then I used Chrome (basically ChromePlus and Iron) for the past 7-8 months. Now I use Opera 10.5 beta couse it fits my needs better then any other browser. In the future who knows...

I updated Opera and running this version;

Version
10.50 Beta

Build
3257

I visited one site and the Frontpage was distorted lol

Wow, no IE users stepping up? LOL.

The wand feature in Opera was my personal favorite feature, but I think it is gone in 10.5, not sure about that.
As for Opera's appearance on XP, yeah it kinda sucks, but it has improved since I first started using it.

FF is still king, even if the start-up lag is annoying.
Hell, I'm on dial-up, what's a few seconds more waiting going to hurt.

I can't say much about chrome, because I don't know much about it.
I only use it for testing themes and testing code.
If I were to use it enough to get used to it, I might like it better than ff, but I'm happy with what I use now, so maybe later.

Originally Posted by Jedi Knight

Wow, no IE users stepping up? LOL.
...

I don't think people that defend IE exist. o.o

Surprising the number of Mods we have that don't use Chrome as their browser of choice