I need help picking a browser!

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I’ve been using Opera since version 6 and it seems to be getting worse. I loved the old Opera. The new one does more but is a memory and processor hog and doesn’t work on many of the pages that I go too. I like the way the wand works, the new tabs open at the end not next to the tab you’re on, I can put the tabs on the bottom. I have IE8, Chrome and Firefox on my machine but none of them work like Opera. Yes much of this is because I’ve used it for so long.

Any help or suggestions to get on of the others to be my new Opera?

Thanks

Marc

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I use IE8 on all the systems at home & work. It is stable and seems fast enough to me. You are going to have an adjustment period with any new browser.

Joe

--Joe

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Each browser has its advantages and drawbacks. I like Firefox for its very large set of extensions and I am pretty sure that there is one to put the tabs at the bottom. I am also using Chrome which seems to be very fast, especially when you have many tabs using JavaScript scripts. And when I need to access the Microsoft web sites, I usually use IE8.

What is very good is that this intense competition will make 2010 very exciting in this domain with IE9, Firefox 4 and Chrome 4!

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You don’t have to use just one browser, as Stephane says, they all have things you like and don’t like. You can use a different browser for different tasks, so try them all. I use Firefox primarily because I like the add-ons, but I use IE on occasion. If you like speed, Chrome is at the top. Don’t limit yourself to one browser, take advantage of them all.

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You don’t have to use just one browser, as Stephane says, they all have things you like and don’t like. You can use a different browser for different tasks, so try them all. I use Firefox primarily because I like the add-ons, but I use IE on occasion. If you like speed, Chrome is at the top. Don’t limit yourself to one browser, take advantage of them all.

MrMoonlight, you said it.

I use multiple browsers. I research sources from hard science, social sciences, arts, and eclectic et cetera subjects and interests. Some wise man said, I don’t remember his name, use the internet as your office.

I use SeaMonkey (default), Firefox, K-Meleon, Google Chrome, and IE 8 because all, save K-Meleon, support multiple home pages; so each browser has home pages of the subjects I am interested in and use often.

I use K-Meleon with its home page an online dictionary by clicking a button on my word processor, Jarte. I don’t have to surf to the most used research pages, I just open the browser with those home pages. I consider these browsers the most secure, except for IE 8 (Check Secunia).

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… because all, save K-Meleon, support multiple home pages.

K-Meleon has a very useful multi-alternative – Sessions.

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Try Maxthon. Things that I like about it are mouse gestures (for me mostly navigating forward right-click slideto the right and backward right-click slide to the left between visited sites , tab browsing, tabs could be dock at the bottom as well, paste and go, drag a link to open on another tab, select drag a word or phrase to do a search, plugins, skins, closing a tab by just double clicking it, closing other tabs except the last selected, multiple home pages, inserting a blank tab allows you to create thumbnails of favorite sites for easy access, easy zooming, re-open accidentally closed tabs, split views, fullscreen with autohide menus, screen capture, Magic Fill username:password manager, easy cleaning history, configurable shortcut and mouse clicks, multi-lingual, in my experience quicker loading than most browser that i’ve used (IE8, Firefox, Safari) in other words my preferred browser unless it is not available on a puter i’m using. Of course not perfect but for almost all the sites I’ve visited it works well.

Free as well.

Give it a whirl you may like it.

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Greetings, I upgraded to the new Maxthon V 3.1.1. This does not seem to have, under FILE, the command SEND, either the page or the URL, with all the selections, including by email. How do I get this into Maxthon, please?

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Thanks that looks like what I’m looking for. I like Opera’s wand and multiple names and pass words for the same log in page, speed dial, tabs on the bottom and this seems to be the toughest to find when you use open in background it opens the tab at the very end. I’ll give Maxthon a try.

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Thanks that looks like what I’m looking for. I like Opera’s wand and multiple names and pass words for the same log in page, speed dial, tabs on the bottom and this seems to be the toughest to find when you use open in background it opens the tab at the very end. I’ll give Maxthon a try.

Maxthon is a shell on top of the IE rendering engine. It is fine if you want to use it. If you do, I strongly recommend you install IE8 and keep it updated.

Joe

--Joe

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I have used Firefox for quite some time now on XP, Vista and now Windows 7. I do prefer Firefox with the extra security addons I have choosen. I use IE8 as well, but I prefer to use Firefox when doing online Banking etc. I have recently tried Chrome on an XP computer where Firefox was slow opening up etc and I am impressed with the speed of Chrome. So as mentioned above, it’s all about preference and you don’t have to stick to just one.

P.S. I like Firefox too, as on occassion I have had a couple of my 13 computers running Linux and or Ubuntu and then everything was still familiar to me.

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Just use Opera.

On my Win2K machine now, Opera 10.10 (53860K) is sitting between Firefox (69344K) and Iexplore.exe 6(49592K) as seen by windows task manager. All browsers have the same tabs open.

The new Opera 10.5 pre-alpha, while rough round the edges, hasn’t crashed for me and a) opens pages much quicker than its compadres and b) opens *almost* all pages I go to. The same story as the other two browsers.

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I am the webmaster for a couple of web sites. The primary one is http://www.amcnarragansett.org. I use Opera 10.20 Alpha 1 as my primary browser right now. I have been using Opera since ver. 3.x when it fit on a single floppy. I liked it back then, relative to the others available, and still like it, relative to the ones available now. I find that even though a few web pages don’t work in Opera (usually due to pages running some specific MS app), in general Opera has so many little handy features, such as the password Wand, mouse gestures, etc., that I prefer it as my default browser. Opera is highly configurable using the opera:config” command and customizable with the “Customize” option. Over the years I find that Opera has been the innovator in browser features. I believe that Opera was the first to adopt tabs. It also has a nice built-in mail client that is integrated nicely to the tabbed interface. Firefox might be nice but I don’t want go through all the plugins at this time.

Not specifically relative to the end user, but an indication to the browser itself, I find that Opera and Firefox cause me less trouble with my web pages than any of the IE versions. I have had such a bad experience with making simple changes on my web pages (generally hand coded with nothing complicated) has caused them to fail in IE. All the browsers have bugs of some sort, IE 6 being one of the worse, so I have to check my web pages using; Opera 10 (default preview when coding), Firefox 3.5, IE 6, IE 7, IE 8 (in non IE7 compatibility mode), Linux Opera 10, Linux Firefox 3.5, and Chrome (what ever is the latest). So far Chrome seems limited, just too sparse, and a few rendering problems. So for those who are only end users, there are differences under the hood for all the browsers, which is another reason to support/reject one browser or another.

Example: My latest issue with wrapping long URL addresses in a column (or iframe), failed in all IE versions and Chrome, and worked OK in Opera and Firefox. I am finding out how difficult it must be for the professional webmasters.

So my vote is for Opera (latest incarnation) with Firefox second. Using IE only when necessary, and of course when checking my web page changes.

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I have Opera, Firefox, and IE8 installed. I primarily use Firefox because of it’s extensions, but because of how many extensions I have in Firefox I’ll sometimes switch to Opera which in my experience has the best built in ad blocking and speed boosters. IE is an absolute last resort as it tends to ignore a few of the safety protocols third party browsers swear by. I’ve honestly never tried Chrome though I’ve heard people swear by it (3 browsers is actually enough for me).

If you do switch to Firefox then I’d suggest the plugins Fasterfox, Adblock Plus, and WOT (I really wish Opera had built in support for this one).

I notice that you mentioned Opera getting slower, when it comes to that I honestly can’t say either way since I started with Opera 10. I do know that you must be careful about it’s Turbo feature. If you read far enough into it, it actually says that the Turbo can have a negative effect in certain situations (I don’t remember the details).

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Try Avant briwser. My whole family loves it.

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No one has mentioned K-Meleon yet. Reported to be very fast but it’s a long time since I used it so I can’t give it any particular recomendation.

I’m a FF person, except for visits to Windows updates, where IE is required.

stuck

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As a webmaster myself, I have to keep quite a few browsers around just to make sure website modifications work across all browsers.
Opera seems pretty good, I do have IE 8 on most of my machines. Sometimes when editing, I need to do something a little different and IE 8 may portray
certain sites better so I do use it, however, I switched to Firefox about a year ago and use it primarily. Seems to have the most options and be the least
invasive of all.

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I’m really surprised that you find Opera slowing down. Increasingly, I’ve been turning to Opera because I find Firefox getting more and more sluggish. Opera 10 seems MUCH faster than Firefox 3.5+ (I’m currently using Opera 10.10 and FF 3.5.6). Opera used to be my default browser. I switched to Firefox several years ago because more web pages seemed to work well with Firefox and because RoboForm worked with FF but not with Opera. Now I’m tempted to go back to using Opera as my main browser, primarily because it seems so much faster. But I find myself wedded to several Firefox extensions.

Anyway, my main point is that you should probably not consider switching to Firefox because Opera is not as fast as it used to be. I find Opera is a LOT faster than Firefox.

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This is not about speed. It’s about resources both memory and processor. Opera has become a hog on my machine.

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This is not about speed. It’s about resources both memory and processor. Opera has become a hog on my machine.

Well, according to AnVir Task Manager, when I had both Firefox and Opera opened to this page and no other, FF was using more than twice as much memory as Opera. (On the other hand, I had a hard time using LastPass to log in to this site in Opera. I don’t tend to have such problems in Firefox.)

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I have been using mostly Opera, and IE on occasion when a web-site is designed specifically for IE, such as Microsoft Updates.

Having used Opera since V4.x (currently V 10.10), I would equivocally say that it is “the best browser”, and has always been ahead of the curve in terms of features and usability, and speed. Speed has suffered a little lately with the last couple of releases.

Opera is extremely customizable and has a whole slew of features that can be turned ON/OFF, customized, etc. – use the Tools > Quick Preferences menu, or the Tools > Preferences menu, or View > Toolbars menu (Panels, etc) to experiment with the features that can make it as malleable as you want. The Bookmarks feature is infinitely easier and much more powerful than IE’s Favorites.

It has a built in email client, as well as an RSS reader capability.

The previous writer was incorrect in saying that a new tab always pops up at the end. This can be customized so that it pops up next to the active tab. As I write this, I have 59 tabs open and no degradation in performance. Some features I like the most:
1. I especially like the “Start-Up” option to start from where I had signed off last time, and all my tabs that were open the last time I closed opera, open up.
2. Confirm Exit, if you accidentally click on the close button.
3. Speed dial option, to save and quickly open, up to 25 most frequently used web sites (used to be a max of 9)

Opera is the most innovative browser, and features usually are available in Opera first before you see them copied in/by other browsers.

Also Opera was behind the legal proceedings in Europe against Microsoft, when it was agreed that Microsoft would not pre-package IE in the version of Windows sold in Europe, but would package up to 12 different browsers along with the the license foe Windows.

The only beef that I have, is that the media and the press do not give Opera the due and credit that it deserves – unlike Chrome.

Try it out, you will never go to any of the other browsers. Also Firefox was the 2nd most vulnerable browser after IE, if you have been keeping up with the press.

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I have read several of the responses regarding Opera and would like to add that I was going to download Opera 10.10 using Chrome. What I got was the following warning: This type of file can harm your computer. Are you sure you want to download Opera_1…n_Setup.exe? This message has me a little concerned. I then went to Firefox and clicked on the download button and it accepted it. I didn’t go any further due to the warning by Chrome. I have not read any comments in this thread where someone has experienced this warning and the article in Smart Computing certainly doesn’t mention it. There was no explanation by Chrome as to how or why Opera would harm my computer. This may or may not be of help to you. Bob

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The Opera site and browser are certainly safe – probably safer than Chrome for browsing, but I guess Google would not claim that. Opera has been my browser for many years and is excellent. Go ahead and try it, you won’t be disappointed.

This sort of warning is really taking things a bit far. Yes, an .exe file can damage your computer if it is a real nasty. But flagging every single .exe as ‘potentially harmful’ is nonsense.

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The Opera site and browser are certainly safe – probably safer than Chrome for browsing, but I guess Google would not claim that. Opera has been my browser for many years and is excellent. Go ahead and try it, you won’t be disappointed.

This sort of warning is really taking things a bit far. Yes, an .exe file can damage your computer if it is a real nasty. But flagging every single .exe as ‘potentially harmful’ is nonsense.

I agree with you. I did send a note to Google Chrome and they agree to a point. They did not feel it was extreme, however I agree with you. They did admit that Opera was a good company and not malware. If that is the case, why the warning!. Thanks for your info. Bob

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I agree with you. I did send a note to Google Chrome and they agree to a point. They did not feel it was extreme, however I agree with you. They did admit that Opera was a good company and not malware. If that is the case, why the warning!. Thanks for your info. Bob

Let’s not forget that Google is the only search engine which has ever flagged the entire Internet as malicious! (It happened a few months ago, and all the tech news sites piled on about it.) So this does not surprise me in the least.

-- rc primak

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I’m stuck using IE at work but at home it’s almost all Chrome, it’s simple and fast if I was to choose another it would be FF.

G

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