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Which is Better, Firefox or Opera?
Posted by
timothy
on Wed May 18, 2005 01:49 PM
from the fat-lady-slender-fox dept.
from the fat-lady-slender-fox dept.
Roblimo writes "Firefox and Opera are the two most popular cross-platform Web browsers. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Kris Shaffer tested them side-by-side on SUSE Linux 9.1, Mac OS X Panther, and Windows 2000, and decided that your choice may depend more on what you *do* with your browser than anything else, unless (as is the case for many of us) Opera is off the table from the start because it's not open source."
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Have you guys heard about (Score:5, Funny)
FireFox handles all my online bank sites. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:FireFox handles all my online bank sites. (Score:5, Informative)
Banque de Luxembourg and their Fund market [fund-market.lu] (try using the "Direct Access" option menu on the left hand side to view one of their "colored" funds (profiles) and weep...).
The idiots have implemented a check for visual-basic support in the browser, and refuse access to any browser that doesn't have it. The funny thing, however, is that the application itself (display of fund graphs) doesn't need Visual Basic at all, and works just fine [fund-market.lu] when you bypass the stoopid check by going directly to the final URL!
A similar thing exists in their Please let me know which banks DON'T work with FireFox
Banque de Luxembourg and their Fund market [fund-market.lu] (try using the "Direct Access" option menu on the left hand side to view one of their "colored" funds (profiles) and weep...).
The idiots have implemented a check for visual-basic support in the browser, and refuse access to any browser that doesn't have it. The funny thing, however, is that the application itself (display of fund graphs) doesn't need Visual Basic at all, and works just fine [fund-market.lu] when you bypass the stoopid check by going directly to the final URL!
A similar thing exists in their homebanking [fundmarket-services.com] application, even though the app itself, again, doesn't make any actual use of VB! However, in addition to the VB check, the homebanking also does a server-side User-Agent check, so you need to fake that one as well (for homebanking, but not for the fund graphs). Weird.
No IE, no VB, No service :-(
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Re:Have you guys heard about (Score:5, Funny)
True, but I expect that IE has some advantage too.
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Re:Have you guys heard about (Score:5, Informative)
Very true. Until MSIE [linux.lu] properly supports CSS, it's just not ready for the enterprise.
(Don't notice anything funny about the above link? Then try again with IE!)
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Re:Have you guys heard about (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Have you guys heard about (Score:5, Informative)
And on many points (not all of them though, there are lots of IE5/Mac specific bugs including some that were fixed in the last version of Tasman... which was never updated to IE5/Mac), it's still ahead of IE6.
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Re:Have you guys heard about (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because we all love vendor lock in. That's like saying "the choice of roads one can drive on SHOULD be a factor in car use." Why not make roads shaped like a puzzle, so only people with a particular brand of tires or cars will be able to ride on it?
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Re:Have you guys heard about (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft: No new versions of IE for Mac [com.com] - June 2003
As far as Win95/98/Me/2k/XP support
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Uhh... what? (Score:5, Interesting)
He didn't touch Notes, of the panels, or the hot bar, or the way they each handle tabs, cookies, the Wand, granularity of popup blocking, proxy servers, the Transfers window (and how Opera/Firefox handle downloads in general), the user-customizable CSS and link style in Opera (does Firefox have something comparable? I wish he covered it so I would know!), Opera's Zoom, quick enabling-disabling of images, methods of caching (including Opera's "delete private data" button), Opera's in-line search functionality, saving "sessions", crash recovery, little neat things like making a page printer friendly with one button...I could go on all day!
I mean no offense to Mr. Shaffer, but this article is really lacking in content. I expected something more along the lines of the 30 Days to Becoming an Opera Lover [tntluoma.com] site (which is for version 7) in terms of depth. Very disappointing. I hope that Slashdot's Opera/Firefox lovers can at least turn this into a nice discussion in the comments. I missed a ton of features, but you can use my little rant up there as a starting point.
Re:Uhh... what? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is stuff I thought of right after I posted the parent, and I know I am missing more.
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Re:Uhh... what? (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the most important features *for me* in a modern browser is how tabbed browsing works along with session management. One of the important features is where I want something like an "undo close tab" option. I had that in firefox with tabbrowser extensions (it's such a pain to have to find all the extensions I want after you install mozilla/firefox..i wish they would just dump the extension idea and build everything into the browser--it could be done without more "bloat".) In opera I can just click edit-undo when I close a tab by mistake. The killer was that all the tab extensions I had to get for firefox really slowed the feel of the browser down and made it unusable for browsing. I don't want to wait 2 seconds for it to load a new tab and I certainly don't want the whole browser to halt while a page is being loaded and rendered in the background. I also felt the lag when I was writing into a form--I like they letters to come up immediately without feeling any lag when I type.
Another thing that is importart for me is that when the browser has to be closed or crashes, that I can restore my previous session. I tried extensions for firefox to do this but they usually didn't work or the extension was made for some other version of the browser and it just turned out to be a mess. Likewise for mouse gestures, you have to hunt down and find the best extension that does what you want rather than have a consistant implementation built in.
Well I'm sure there are things that are better in firefox but I'm not covering them here because I think most people here know more about firefox than opera.
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Re:Uhh... what? (Score:4, Informative)
You may wish to try out the 8.01 preview if you can. That is, if it's already available for your platform. It's in prerelease stage, but already considered more stable than 8.00. You can find links to it on the my.opera.com release forums.
What I like about Opera is that it's speedy, small and slick (at least in Opera 8), even smaller than Firefox, but with more features that don't really get in the way. Bloated UI was a problem in Opera 7, but that's simply not a factor for me anymore.
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Re:Uhh... what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The extensions can be written by anyone, so it means a greater amount of freedom and flexibility for Firefox. For example, there is a FarkIt! Extension which makes easy quoting on Fark.com. And then there's a Bible quoting extension which allows you to quickly reference biblical references.
Now, I'm a Fark.com lover and an Athiest. Having the ability to choose which extensions I want allows me to select FarkIt! and Adblock without having to get Biblemania.
So I'm happy, the bible thumpers are happy, and if anyone else has an idea for a firefox feature they want to write, they can write their own extension and be happy... it works well.
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Re:Uhh... what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead of a big browser which does many things, build a browser with an extense API, every function of that API does one thing, and only one thing, and does it well. How you combine them is up to your imagination, just like it's up to your imagination how to combine grep, cat, sed etc.
They move most of the "policy" completely to the extensions, and they can compete with other browser by modifying the extensions the defaults browser has. IMO it's brilliant.
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Well, maybe he didn't KNOW? (Score:5, Interesting)
My biggest problem trying to use Opera was simply the overwhelming amount of stuff it does. All that stuff you mentioned- Notes, Transfers, etc, I wasn't even aware of.
Opera seems to have a lot of bang for the (big) buck, which is good, I just wish there was an easy way to use it all.
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Re:Well, maybe he didn't KNOW? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Uhh... what? (Score:5, Informative)
I have found extensions to do most of the things I liked about opera. But there is still stuff missing, such as reorganizing tabs (supposedly taken care of next ff version). The quick prefs thing is a really big thing for me, but for some reason firefox users don't care. FF doesn't let you control cookies as easily as you are able to in opera. The disabling of images is something I used a lot more than I thought I would. Saving sessions was awesome. I'm sure there's an extension for that somewhere. Crash recovery was nifty, though crashes were rare. Opera also overrides the replacing of the status bar text, so you always know what you are clicking on before you click on it.
And the transfer window is a big pile of crap in mozilla. Seriously that would probably be my number one gripe. That and its habit of saving files as
Another thing that aggravates me is when I'll open a bunch of links in separate tabs to read in a few moments, then 2 minutes later a window pops up saying the server couldn't be reached. But when I go over to the tab, the url bar is blank, so I have no idea which links I clicked on that couldn't be reached. In Opera, even if the page doesn't load, the url bar still has the location you tried to visit, so you can see if the link was typoed or if you even care in the first place.
Opera never registers right clicks on web pages that pop up those copyright notices because it interferes with mouse gestures. There's no way to disable that in firefox that I'm aware of without finding the javascript options in prefs.
Lastly, I hate that firefox doesn't obey normal unix copy and paste rules. There's no option to right click in a text field and delete everything in it without highlighting the text that is already there. In opera you just click in the box and type ctrl+U. This is particularly annoying when I'm messing with phpmyadmin.
But at the end of the day, here I am using firefox. What can I say. The price is right.
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Re:Uhh... what? (Score:5, Informative)
Pike's Show Failed URL will take care of that.
http://www.pikey.me.uk/mozilla/?extension=sfu [pikey.me.uk]
1. install the extension
2. Type about:config in the addess bar
3. in the filter type xul
4. double click on browser.xul.error_pages.enabled to change to true
5. restart Firefox
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*All* your gripes can be fixed with extensions... (Score:5, Informative)
miniT extension does that
"The quick prefs thing is a really big thing for me, but for some reason firefox users don't care."
Care to elaborate what quick prefs are? The ability to adjust preferences somewhere different than tools->options? I really am clueless...
"FF doesn't let you control cookies as easily as you are able to in opera. "
Have you tried cookie culler extension?
"The disabling of images is something I used a lot more than I thought I would. Saving sessions was awesome. I'm sure there's an extension for that somewhere."
To block _anything_ you can use RiP (remove it permanently), and you can use adblock to blocks images (specifically ads, but any other image too). Saving sessions is achieved through 'session saver'
"Crash recovery was nifty, though crashes were rare."
Session saver also recovers your browser from crashes.
"Opera also overrides the replacing of the status bar text, so you always know what you are clicking on before you click on it."
Firefox has an inbuilt 'annoyance eliminator' that does the the same thing.
"And the transfer window is a big pile of crap in mozilla. Seriously that would probably be my number one gripe. That and its habit of saving files as
Okay, I'll give you that one =)
"Another thing that aggravates me is when I'll open a bunch of links in separate tabs to read in a few moments, then 2 minutes later a window pops up saying the server couldn't be reached. But when I go over to the tab, the url bar is blank, so I have no idea which links I clicked on that couldn't be reached. In Opera, even if the page doesn't load, the url bar still has the location you tried to visit, so you can see if the link was typoed or if you even care in the first place."
This is EXTREMELY aggravating in firefox and made me exhibit great bouts of anger. Until I found the 'show failed URL' extension. Now it behaves like you'd expect it to.
"Opera never registers right clicks on web pages that pop up those copyright notices because it interferes with mouse gestures. There's no way to disable that in firefox that I'm aware of without finding the javascript options in prefs."
The extension you're looking for in this case is called 'allow right click'
"Lastly, I hate that firefox doesn't obey normal unix copy and paste rules. There's no option to right click in a text field and delete everything in it without highlighting the text that is already there. In opera you just click in the box and type ctrl+U. This is particularly annoying when I'm messing with phpmyadmin."
That's the only gripe I don't know an extension for. But I'm sure one's available
In conclusion, as long as you familiarize yourself with all the available extensions, firefox is great. But the fact that you have to manually add them, can be either a pain or a pleasure, depending on whether you like tweaking
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Re:*All* your gripes can be fixed with extensions. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Uhh... what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing like having Opera crap out while you have 60 open tabs on a 9.6k modem connection. Not that that's ever happened to me four times in a one hour period.
He also doesn't mention the HIGHLY obnoxious "best guess" rendering - Opera STARTS to render a page as soon as it has any data at all, then re-renders as more data comes in. Net result? You can play tag with the page elements as they move around your screen. In my experience, Firefox starts to render pages a tick or two after Opera, but tends to finish rendering a tick or two before Opera.
Opera also uses a widely different set of keyboard shortcuts, while most of IE's and Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox's overlap. Opera fans can then point out their goofy "mouse gestures" but after trying them, I didn't see the big deal and went back to my keyboard.
Opera doesn't have Adblock, Linky or Magpie. Right there, it's out of the running for my personal needs. The last version I tried (admittedly, version 7) wouldn't even import my Firefox bookmarks, which are in exactly the same format as Netscape's. A lot of the "features" Opera does have are things I don't consider particularly interesting or useful - whole page zooming, for example, or the "true MDI" nature of the program - if I wanted to manage bunches of little Windows, I'd go back to using IE.
You can say that the author of the article didn't cover your browser in the most friendly way, but in my opinion he left out some significant negatives as well. Maybe you should be thanking him for that.
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Why doesn't Microsoft buy Opera? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why doesn't Microsoft buy Opera? (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if they bought out Opera they'd spend forever getting it to replace some of the thing Explorer does, such as file management. Explorer and IE are deeply intertwined.
In addition, IE's core components are used in other places, like MS Help, and they're even made available to third-party applications. Making sure that the new Opera-derived browser supported those would be
Finally, it would be hard to make it bug-compatible. The one advantage to IE is that it's compatible with all those IE-only web sites. Replace IE with Opera and you're going to break a whole lot of web sites.
I'm not saying IE is better than Opera. IE sucks, and part of the reason it sucks so bad is that MS was afraid that Netscape (remember Netscape) would take over the world. So they tried to offer a free be-all-end-all browser that everybody could depend on having pre-installed, which would allow other apps to build on it. That made it a monstrosity. It also makes it nearly impossible to replace it.
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Because sometimes a browser is just a browser (Score:5, Interesting)
(say "security" and watch the firefox crowd blush) I hate to say it, but you have to be a real nerd to appreciate the miniscule differences between browers. All the new features do is detract from the web content. (after all, the web is about content, it's not a fashion show)
I will argue that content is king, and the ability to access that content without a hassle is the only selling point that matters. Look at google. It's a dirt simple interface, you type some keywords and you get what you want, no hassle.
From my preferred stat provider, IE is actually back UP in marketshare [thecounter.com] to 91%. I think that this reinforces my concept that amount of hassle, not # of features, is what sells.
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Neither (Score:4, Insightful)
Saying one is better then the other is silly.
However saying both are better then IE is truthful
This just in this just in (Score:5, Funny)
This just in, this just in, in determining on which product in a category is best it depends on what the person/user does with said product...this just in, this just in....
Silly (Score:5, Funny)
People who refuse to use a useful piece of software simply because it isn't open source make about as much sense as an Ethiopian refusing food because it isn't Kosher. It fits your needs, use it.
Re:Silly (Score:4, Insightful)
With proprietary software I must prove myself to not be a criminal before I can use the program, the software is a locked down box which prevents me from having full control over my system. Should I unwittingly violate a draconian contract, my copy is as legit as a copy found off a P2P network. My data and programs are in the hands of another company, held to their whims.
EULAs generally restrict my ability to use my system in any way I choose, even if I am paying for each and every program on the machine. Should one of my employees get pissed at me, he or she can call the BSA and they'll send some nice armed marshals to my door to audit every nook and cranny of my system.
When I have a need, I like to scratch it. With free software, if program X doesn't have a functionality I need then I can have it modified. If proprietary program Y doesn't have a functionality that I need, then the only thing I can do is beg and plead for them to add it. (And don't even get me started with support running out when a program becomes "obsolete".)
When I use free software, I download, compile, and run. Boom, done, simple. With proprietary software, I must enter activation numbers, pray a dongle works, and/or call up the parent company and say "Can I please have the ability to use this software that I paid some damn good money for?"
Proprietary software does not fit my needs. Free software does.
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Re:Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
With free software I am a user, the software a tool. My data and programs are my own to do with as I please.
This just isn't true. Your data may be your own, but you still do not own the program or its source code. There's no difference here between proprietary software and free software. The author of the software is the copyright holder on the source code as an incident of authorship, and this has been the law since 1978. Unless that person specifically, in writing, transfers the copyright to the group of people defined as users of their code, it legally belongs to them, not you. It is not your program any more than Windows is.
This might suck, it might not be fair, it might not be right, but it is how copyright works. The contents of this post are copyrighted to me as an incident of authorship the instant that it's saved in Slashdot's database (unless of course Slashdot's Terms of Use include ownership of user-supplied content, etc).
As for your data, you don't own it only because you're using free software. You own it because your typical free software author does not claim ownership of it as part of the terms of use. There is nothing about the nature of free software that makes the data more yours than proprietary software does, it's the spirit of the userbase that brings this about. Quicken is proprietary software and they don't own my banking records.
What free software typically does give you is more control over where your data goes and how it's used. If you want to define that as ownership, then I am strongly inclined to agree with you on that point. I guess I'm arguing nitpicky linguistic semantics here, so biff me in the head and move on.
With proprietary software I must prove myself to not be a criminal before I can use the program
Bullshit. How so? Because you had to agree to a EULA before you could use it? And free software isn't like that? Then what in the hell is this? [themanpages.net] A warm hug and a milkshake? It's the content of the license that limits you, not the distribution model of the program. Nothing stops free software from having draconian EULA's, and nothing stops proprietary software from having generous and forgiving EULA's.
EULAs generally restrict my ability to use my system in any way I choose, even if I am paying for each and every program on the machine.
Yes! And any EULA can do that, regardless of whether it's penned by a billionaire in Seattle or a freelance programmer spitting out open source code in caffeine-induced dilerium in his mother's basement.
Should one of my employees get pissed at me, he or she can call the BSA and they'll send some nice armed marshals to my door to audit every nook and cranny of my system.
I heartily agree with you here, and it's incredibly difficult to control your users' systems sufficiently to mitigate this risk without locking them down to the point of being unusable.
With free software, if program X doesn't have a functionality I need then I can have it modified.
By who? The community of authors? You can only do this if either you have the time and technical skill to do it, or you can convince a member of the community of the need.
If proprietary program Y doesn't have a functionality that I need, then the only thing I can do is beg and plead for them to add it.
What's the difference? Other than, "I can code it myself if I want", I don't see any. Every business I've worked for has gotten features added to proprietary software that they wanted/needed. I won't pretend it's as cheap, or as easy, but it's possible. My quarrel here is with the way you paint free software as being a m
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Poor analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
A better analogy: People who refuse to use closed-source software are like those who refuse to buy products from companies that damage the environment/run sweatshops/ban unions/etc.
Even if a product is better from a functional standpoint, a consumer may not consider it better than another product for a variety of other reasons. For instance, a friend won't use Quicken. The product may be best of class but when he considers Intuit's EULA and privacy concerns, he'd rather go to a lesser functional product.
Considering whether or not a product is OSS is one way to say "I like a future where a majority of software is OSS and I want to help make that happen". It's standing up for a principle you believe in, even if you may have to suffer a bit (using beta-quality software or software with fewer features).
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Re:Silly and wrong religion! (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer, IANAM - I just read the book out of curiosity
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if Opera is out.. (Score:4, Insightful)
IS, Opera, Safari are all commercial, so they can't be compared if you're ignoring commercial products.
Re:if Opera is out.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:if Opera is out.. (Score:4, Insightful)
You, sir [?] are Not Part Of The Solution. I think we all know what that means... with the possible exception of yourself.
What you are saying is that if I really love my woman, I will say "who freaking cares" to hundreds of years of slavery and oppression, and to artificial diamond researchers that have been threatened or killed.
You have no morals whatsoever.
Even putting aside [for the moment] the atrocities committed to maintain the diamond monopoly, a woman who demands ridiculous shit like that for happiness isn't worth the trouble. Period. Second, it is not about the money. Stop thinking it's about the money, I explicitly stated that it is not about the money, and somehow you failed to grasp the meaning of that portion of my comment.
It's not about money, it's about decency, and human rights.
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Get some balls, man (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Get some balls, man (Score:4, Funny)
:x!
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Ads (Score:4, Insightful)
Firefox hands down! (Score:4, Insightful)
Summary was right for once (Score:5, Interesting)
The other side-advantage to using Opera for visiting less-than reputable sites is that chances are the site doesn't know how to exploit Opera, as it's (sadly) not really on the general populus's radar screen. I've waded though stuff that would require hip boots with Opera and came out smelling like a rose.
True, if it were open source it would be that much more wonderful, but as for closed-source programs, IMHO it's an example of a company Doing It Right.
Ho-hum... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you're not willing to consider software because it's not open source? Even when it might be (*gasp*)... better?
I love Opera. It's a sleek, fast, well designed browser with a terrific user interface. I'm also a full-time Linux user; while i like and support the open source "movement", i do it because it's simply a better OS (for me) than the alternatives. The price is right, of course, but that's not the main reason i chose it. At all. Just chose what's best for your needs. Then see if it's worth it's price. Opera is, for me.
I also like Firefox a lot. It's Mozilla sans-the-bloat, and renders pages very well. Still, it's much slower than Opera and the user interfase still needs polish. It does have some perks i'd love to see in Opera though (like AdBlock), but overall i keep gravitating to Opera. Specially because of the memory footprint and interfase (yes, i know FF supports things like mouse gestures via plugins, and that's why they are no good. Opera was built with that stuff in mind and integrates them perfectly).
Fire-what? (Score:5, Funny)
IE not in the race (Score:4, Insightful)
Opera superior in a Vacuum. (Score:5, Insightful)
But once you escape the comparison on pages that work, the stark reality is that many pages don't work.
I switched to firefox a few months back and while not as slick as Opera, it is good enough, and for the pages I visit gives me the better experience. So I can do my banking for instance.
Since switching to Firefox, I seldom have to call up an IE session anymore.
Also plugins offer fucntionality I can't live without, like selective flash blocking.
Pre-empting those who say it is the fault of poor web coding and not Opera, in that some pages block or serve poor code to Opera.
Yes that is correct, But it just doesn't matter! It doesn't matter where you point the finger, the result is an inferior browsing experience.
I'll try Opera again (if ever) when they get better spoofing modes, better flash blocking.
Forget the FOSS bit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering just how much money keeping "legal" with software sucks out of the company budget on a yearly basis (it used to be bi-yearly, but now Big Apps are shifting to variants on the subscription model...), more paperwork and POs for a web browser - when all the machines already have one - just can't be justified.
Opera better on older PCs (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, and may I recommend naim as an AIM client? Talk about efficient chat!
Re:Two most popular?? (Score:5, Informative)
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IE for the Mac? (Score:4, Insightful)
Since Safari was launched I have not looked back. When my bank did not support Safari... I changed banks. Go... Bank of America!
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Re:wrong question (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, think about what you've written before you hit the "Submit" button next time. You're either trolling or very, very stupid. I'll leave it to others to decide which of the two applies.
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Re:it's simple... (Score:4, Interesting)
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