12-04-2009, 08:33 PM
I used to use Firefox, but these days it's Opera.
There are lots of reasons out there to like Opera, but here are mine:
1. The latest version looks slick. I use Karmic's Human theme (the brown one a lot of people seem not to like) and Opera using the standard appearance, but setting the colour to "gold" looks great with that theme.
2. Sometimes the text is small on a site or I am not wearing my glasses (more likely the case), so with Opera I just hit the + key on my keyboard a few times and up everything comes font-size. I know you can do this with Firefox, but it's CTL-+, a little harder.
3. If you've got Flash or whatever installed for Firefox, it works on Opera too.
4. Mouse gestures started on Opera and they are built in from the start, no plug-ins like in Firefox. In fact I first encountered them in Opera and then, back when I used Firefox more, I found the plug in.
5. Opera starts quicker on my system than Firefox. I don't know why.
6. You can minimise it to the taskbar. I know you can get a Firefox plug in to do that in Firefox, but I had problems with that plug in on Firefox 3.5. I had to start Firefox two or three times before it would actually start. Anyway it's a feature that means I can keep Opera going and not clutter the panel on the bottom of the screen.
7. I haven't tried Opera Unite because I don't know too many Opera users, but it looks like a cool feature for file-sharing of a private nature.
8. I can select text on a page and shunt it to a Note. This is like having a text editor right in the program and is very handy.
Two things I prefer Firefox for:
9. If I select text in Firefox and right-click, I can "Search with Google" and it opens in a new tab. In Opera, it opens in the same tab. Not as nice.
10. If I type a search in the Google search bar, a drop-down list of "common searches" appears in Firefox. It doesn't in Opera, unless I am actually already on Google's search page.
Anyway, Opera is cool. Thought I'd share my views.
There are lots of reasons out there to like Opera, but here are mine:
1. The latest version looks slick. I use Karmic's Human theme (the brown one a lot of people seem not to like) and Opera using the standard appearance, but setting the colour to "gold" looks great with that theme.
2. Sometimes the text is small on a site or I am not wearing my glasses (more likely the case), so with Opera I just hit the + key on my keyboard a few times and up everything comes font-size. I know you can do this with Firefox, but it's CTL-+, a little harder.
3. If you've got Flash or whatever installed for Firefox, it works on Opera too.
4. Mouse gestures started on Opera and they are built in from the start, no plug-ins like in Firefox. In fact I first encountered them in Opera and then, back when I used Firefox more, I found the plug in.
5. Opera starts quicker on my system than Firefox. I don't know why.
6. You can minimise it to the taskbar. I know you can get a Firefox plug in to do that in Firefox, but I had problems with that plug in on Firefox 3.5. I had to start Firefox two or three times before it would actually start. Anyway it's a feature that means I can keep Opera going and not clutter the panel on the bottom of the screen.
7. I haven't tried Opera Unite because I don't know too many Opera users, but it looks like a cool feature for file-sharing of a private nature.
8. I can select text on a page and shunt it to a Note. This is like having a text editor right in the program and is very handy.
Two things I prefer Firefox for:
9. If I select text in Firefox and right-click, I can "Search with Google" and it opens in a new tab. In Opera, it opens in the same tab. Not as nice.
10. If I type a search in the Google search bar, a drop-down list of "common searches" appears in Firefox. It doesn't in Opera, unless I am actually already on Google's search page.
Anyway, Opera is cool. Thought I'd share my views.
