Comments on: A Day at the Opera

A Day at the Opera

revgeorge — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 08:55:37 -0800

Free Opera serial numbers. Want to try a new browser? For their 10th birthday, Opera is giving away free serial numbers for their web browser to anyone who registers. The codes are available today (August 30, 2005) only and remove the annoying ad bar. Opera is available for all major (and many minor) operating systems. You can learn more about the browser's features (like a built in BitTorrent client) or just go straight to the download page so you have somewhere to put that new registration code.

By: danb

danb — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 08:58:56 -0800

Damn, you beat me by a few seconds. :) I just got my code. I'll have to fool around for awhile before I make the jump from Firefox, though.

By: Plutor

Plutor — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:00:47 -0800

Request: Someone make a website that looks exactly like that first one, but claims to give out "free Firefox serial numbers" so I can effectively snark those damn Opera folks. Holy-war aside, I'm glad Opera exists. Competition is a Good Thing™, and both Opera and Firefox are better for it. In a couple years, even IE will be improved because of competition.

By: NinjaPirate

NinjaPirate — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:06:55 -0800

Happy Birthday! (is worth it - those on IE please just take a little look, it's a tiny download and everything) (please please please)

By: twsf

twsf — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:10:06 -0800

As a Firefox loyalist I now feel like a Southern belle, being courted by two such charming browsers, offering their blandishments and competing for my attention. How evah shall I decide...?

By: ArsncHeart

ArsncHeart — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:11:23 -0800

Okay...I downloaded Opera, and tried to follow the directions, but there is no "Register Opera..." selection in my Help menu. Only "Buy Opera". I'm on Tiger, btw.

By: danb

danb — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:15:02 -0800

Yeah, they messed up. It's under the Opera menu, all the way on the left.

By: soiled cowboy

soiled cowboy — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:44:35 -0800

Thanks, revgeorge, I just got my free code.

By: furtive

furtive — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:46:17 -0800

Don't be fooled. Free as in beer doesn't trump free as in source. On the other hand, kudos to them, any competition is good competition.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:50:15 -0800

their server is getting totally pounded.

By: tiamat

tiamat — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:54:19 -0800

I love Opera, but the massive amount of extensions for Firefox finally got me to switch. I still think Opera is faster in the raw, but I can't find an ad blocking tool for opera that doesn't make it much slower than Firefox with Adblock, and that had made all the difference.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:56:33 -0800

AFAICS, the Opera folks have never tried to "fool" anyone about the types of free-ness. The only "registered" version i've ever owned is the one on my Archos PMA430, and the UI there is a bit constrained for comparison. I've used the adware version off and on, though, and liked it. They did a lot of stuff that people now go to Firefox and Mozilla for, years earlier. (Of course, a lot of that stuff -- like scalable viewing and tabbed browsing -- were implemented quite nicely in Mosaic 3.0 back in 1997 ....) As for whether it's worthwhile: I don't know. If it supports middle-clicking on my Mac, loads in less than 45 seconds and doesn't crash a lot, it's already ahead of Firefox. My concern isn't beating the Fox, it's beating Safari; to do that, it only needs to give back RAM once it's not using it anymore. (I routinely find Safari hogging up 130MB or more of RAM.)

By: danb

danb — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:13:05 -0800

crunchland: "their server is getting totally pounded." This might have something to do with it...eep.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:19:54 -0800

So... if I'm on a Mac that runs Firefox, what's the advantage of Opera?

By: spacediver

spacediver — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:24:25 -0800

k i entered my email address and it gave me a code. Does this mean that any code will work for anyone? Coz in the registration box there is no place to put email (so they cant' cross reference) - just name and organization and serial #

By: mishaco

mishaco — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:25:30 -0800

if firefox did just a couple of features ( like the password wand and clicking a tab takes the focus to your previusly viewed tab ) i'd switch . though on the other hand if opera could reload all tabs by right clicking any tab , i could be hardcore about them too . i'm browser wishy - washy . a better adblocker than most ( win only ) : a hosts file

By: trey

trey — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:28:02 -0800

Hosts files are hardly "win only."

By: dig_duggler

dig_duggler — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:28:38 -0800

Thanks. I love the free.

By: sonofsamiam

sonofsamiam — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:31:32 -0800

Hosts files are hardly "win only." That's opposed to "lose only" solutions to resource diversion, like "trusted computing".

By: mishaco

mishaco — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:31:41 -0800

um , always easy to read the page , understand the instructions . if you know than hosts files arent win only then you hardly need the instructions i linked to . and much easier than telling a mac user that they do not have a c:\win* directory .

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:36:10 -0800

We have Operas. Actually, I don't - I got the code just fine, but attempting to go to the download page returns a 502 Proxy Error.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:07:08 -0800

Plutor writes "even IE will be improved because of competition" True that, without Opera and FireFox/Mozilla Microsoft wouldn't even be releasing IE7.

By: salmacis

salmacis — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:09:08 -0800

Hmm, just downloaded and registered Opera for Mac. All looks good - until I try and comment here on Metafilter. No matter how many times I log on, every time I click on the thread I'm logged off again. And yes, cookies are enabled. I can't really give Opera a good go until this rather important showstopper is fixed. I can't imagine using a browser without Firefox's Adblock and Flashblock and Bugmenot extensions though.

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:11:48 -0800

salmacis: Hmm, just downloaded and registered Opera for Mac. All looks good - until I try and comment here on Metafilter. No matter how many times I log on, every time I click on the thread I'm logged off again. And yes, cookies are enabled. I can't really give Opera a good go until this rather important showstopper is fixed. I can't imagine using a browser without Firefox's Adblock and Flashblock and Bugmenot extensions though. Baffling, have you tried refreshing? (Posting using opera.)

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:12:01 -0800

By: salmacis

salmacis — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:14:32 -0800

That seems to have done it. (posted with Opera, woo!) Weird. Thanks, KirkJobSluder. Have you tried not refreshing to avoid the double post? :-)

By: NinjaPirate

NinjaPirate — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:18:00 -0800

mishaco - If you're on Windows, Ctrl+F5 does this for you

By: newfers

newfers — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:19:29 -0800

I was pretty excited about trying Opera again, after all these years, and was ready to switch over to it full-time! But within 5 minutes of having it installed, I had stumbled onto 3 pages which did not load for me properly, and I had encountered a couple other quirks that I was not comfortable with. So, here I am again, with my beloved Firefox! I tried!

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:35:00 -0800

I tried! Me too. Only I couldn't get it to load any of the pages I pointed it to. Not one. I'm sure it has many wonderful features, but if it can't display web pages, I don't think it's the browser for me.

By: gyc

gyc — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:47:59 -0800

So... if I'm on a Mac that runs Firefox, what's the advantage of Opera? 1. Faster rendering engine 2. Middle click actually works 3. Contains many of the features that you need extensions on FireFox for 4. Ability to save browser state 5. Ability to "undelete" tabs (so if you accidentally close a tab, you can open it right back up again) 6. Oh and it's fast.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:54:18 -0800

klangstonklangston: So... if I'm on a Mac that runs Firefox, what's the advantage of Opera?

Middle-click actually works (on FF, that only works in the "Deer Park" alpha)
seems to load a lot faster
zoom-unzoom scales graphics as well as text (though that might be a disadvantage)
includes an email client (if that matters to you)
more Mac-like UI (again, if that matters to you)
Doesn't egregiously misuse Apple's misbegotten "sheets" widget (again, if that matters to you)
Changes the browser identification string natively, instead of requiring a plugin
supports mouse gestures (if that matters to you)

Nutshell version is that it seems to have most of Mozilla's features built-in, whereas you have to add those to Firefox. Disadvantages:

Sometimes need to hide/show page to make it re-render after scaling
doesn't support the usual javascript mechanism people use for select-on-choose in html SELECT elements
seems to use more RAM, though I can't be sure what it's using it for -- it mapped a ton of it right away, so I'm thinking it might be just the RAM cache.
No graphic-blocking capability that I can see.

Cool-in-a-weird-way: You can switch to the PDA version of the UI, which selectively ignores some HTML formatting to fit into a narrower screen.

By: bobo123

bobo123 — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:55:59 -0800

I remember a couple years ago I had an old Pentium 90 with 32mb ram that I would use as a sort of secondary computer, Opera actually ran fine on it (Mozilla did too but it was really slow). Great browser for older computers.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:00:37 -0800

jack-mo: What pages are you pointing it to, and what do you mean by 'couldn't load'? Did it fail to find them? Did it render incorrectly? I've seen rendering defects in Opera before, but they're usually pretty minor. OTOH, its JavaScript engine doesn't support some handlers, so if you were looking at heavy DHTML, you might have a problem.

By: fet

fet — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:17:03 -0800

I'm a browser nerd. I'll admit it. I've got Firefox, IE6, Netscape 7, and Opera all installed... but I tried AOLBrowser for the first time today, and it's pretty cool. Has all of the IE6 compatibility issues, but it makes IE (which, unfortunately I have to use for some work-related stuff) a bit nicer. http://downloads.channel.aol.com/browser/? Opera is way less leaky than Firefox, at least in my experience.

By: gramschmidt

gramschmidt — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:21:50 -0800

I'm sure it has many wonderful features, but if it can't display web pages, I don't think it's the browser for me. Ding!

By: alloneword

alloneword — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:22:22 -0800

By: exhilaration

exhilaration — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:29:09 -0800

Nooooooooooo, they don't give you a code for Symbian or Windows Mobile devices. Does anyone know if I can use the codes for the desktop versions on my Series 60 phone?

By: howling fantods

howling fantods — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:30:26 -0800

Sneaky bastards. It only gives you codes if you subscribe to their mailing list.

By: alumshubby

alumshubby — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:43:08 -0800

From which you can subsequently unsubscribe...no?

By: danb

danb — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:53:15 -0800

One thing I'd miss from FF if I switched: Greasemonkey. This page seems to say that it's possible to use a lot of them, but I'm not sure if it's worth figuring out. I haven't been convinced either way, really, but since I got it for free I can't complain. The IE spoofing in the Quick Preferences is hilarious to me for some reason.

By: AwkwardPause

AwkwardPause — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 13:20:03 -0800

Thanks, revgeorge! (Posting from now ad-free Opera).

By: davy

davy — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 13:26:34 -0800

"Opera is way less leaky than Firefox, at least in my experience." What do you mean by "leaky"? I'm really not that geeky.

By: Hogshead

Hogshead — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 13:42:30 -0800

The other reason to support Opera: innovation. Many of the features that people lauded Moz and Firefox, Opera did first. Anyone can copy, but innovation is worth supporting.

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:11:25 -0800

Posting in an adfree Opera. Cheers!

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:21:39 -0800

This gave me an excuse to upgrade, and hey! Looks like they fixed the Z-order problem with the Flash plug-in, where Flash always laid on top of other layers. Woo. And even Hoo.

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:22:16 -0800

Weirdly... I'm using 3 opera tabs (Mefi homepage, + 2 instances of this thread). I poosted the above comment in instance 1, and it remains hanging in post mode (made me think it hadn't sent)! This instance of the thread, I'm gonna post this comment in, and see if it does the same. Dunno if it's relevant, but the hanging thread has no mefi icon in the address bar - whereas the other 2 do. But who cares?

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:24:06 -0800

And there we have it: two hanging threads complete with eggtimers, implying the comment never arrived. And yet it did...

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:24:51 -0800

Didn't happen this the same way this time - I previewed first.

By: gleuschk

gleuschk — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:32:21 -0800

Known MeFi bug, dash_slot-.

By: Eekacat

Eekacat — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:52:45 -0800

OK, cool, I am now browsing with a registered version of Opera. Thanks! I still think I prefer firefox, but I'll be using this too.

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:53:34 -0800

Ah, I see. Apparently Opera is quite responsive to feedback...

By: Orb

Orb — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 15:03:44 -0800

It gave me a code without having to sign up for the newsletter. Not that it would have been an issue had I been forced to do so. You can always unsubscribe. I have had Opera on my computer for a while, but I never really started using it. Now I am addicted to Firefox. I might give it a try again now that I won't have to see the ads anymore. :)

By: salmacis

salmacis — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 15:31:10 -0800

salmacis - there is a good adblocker built into Opera, though the interface that makes it easy to use is a separate download. Flash is turned on and off, with all othe plugins, with a little button on the toolbar. I use it all the time. Bugmenot -- well, I use the wand, but it may be someone else has made a bugmenot plugin. There's a good adblocker in Opera? Where? And what seperate download makes it easy to use? My previous attempts at adblocking with an unregistered version were distinctly unimpressive, compared to Firefox's Adblock extension.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 15:51:40 -0800

There are a couple of firefox extensions that have pretty-much tied me to the browser, but I really wish

They worked on the speed/memory usage (aka optimized the shit out of it)
Fixed the random browser crashes (I get them all the time now... very annoying when you've just opened up a dozen tabs)

By: nightchrome

nightchrome — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 17:24:45 -0800

I've been using Opera for years now. I don't consider Firefox a viable option. That said, this latest release of Opera has been the buggiest and least stable ever, which is disturbing to me because ALL previous versions have been rock solid for me.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:18:34 -0800

... They worked on the speed/memory usage (aka optimized the shit out of it)... I agree, and find this problem rather ironic in light of the origins of the Firefox effort. It started with a bunch of young turks on the Mozilla team who thought that everything about Mozilla was wrong-headed, and set out to re-architect it from scratch with the particular goal of improving rendering speed. Fast forward: Firefox uses the same rendering engine as Mozilla, takes up the same amount of RAM, crashes more, loads more slowly....

By: purephase

purephase — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:41:02 -0800

lodurr writes "Fast forward: Firefox uses the same rendering engine as Mozilla, takes up the same amount of RAM, crashes more, loads more slowly...." Maybe I'm lucky, but after being a steadfast user of both Opera and Mozilla for years, I have found the exact opposite true for Firefox. It really depends on your OS, but Firefox is extremely fast for me (not just browsing, but loading as well). It gets worse as you pile on the extensions, but nowhere near as bad as the default Opera installation. It browses fast (very fast) but I find the user interface clunky. Browser start-up times (albeit, in the ad-based version) deplorable and a vast number of websites that just don't work. I barely ever experience these problems with Firefox. I think the developers were quite successful in creating a much slimmer version of Mozilla.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 20:37:16 -0800

Admittedly, my experience with Firefox is limited to version 0.9 and later on Linux, Win2K, NT4 and OS X. But on that limited profile of platforms, I've found Firefox to be generally unstable, slow to load, and very fragile with regard to extensions -- installing a bum extension, for example, can easily put you in the position of having to delete your profile and start from scratch. (It's only happened to me three times, mind you, but that was three times too many.) Mozilla, by contrast, has been solid and stable for several years now. It takes up about the same memory footprint at Firefox (though I've only compared them on Win2K and OS X). And I never experienced Mozilla breaking because of an extension. But then, technical virtues have never been what Firefox is about: Firefox is about COOLNESS. BTW, if you want COOL, play with loading and browsing themes in Opera. (What do you know, it actually lets you change themes without requiring a browser restart....)

By: nightchrome

nightchrome — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 22:48:57 -0800

I poked around on the forums and found what appears to be a solution to the instability issues in the latest version of opera. Some files don't seem to have made the upgrade well, namely global.dat and the session file autosave.win Since I deleted those, I haven't had any problems.

By: quarsan

quarsan — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 00:55:59 -0800

thanks. i'll still use firefox as i find it 'friendlier' to use. but i do like opera, and without this promo i wouldn't use it as who on earth wants a browser that piles ads on your screen. it's fast, reasonably pleasant and has some nice touches firefox lacks, but then again firefox has plenty of goodness and a simplicity opera lacks.

By: NinjaPirate

NinjaPirate — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 01:45:44 -0800

nightchrome - if you're right, I'm going to have to kiss you. Sorry about that.

By: quarsan

quarsan — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 01:46:09 -0800

And back to Firefox. Opera is just too unstable. It crashes the PC whenever I load up metafilter. I've had a few crashes as I've been surfing around. I can't believe we were expected to pay for something so buggy and unstable.

By: springload

springload — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 02:06:21 -0800

First time on Opera in a long time. I really like the mouse gestures! Is there any Windows software that can give me this in other applications as well? Just certain gestures corresponding to keyboard shortcuts. Logitech should include that in their drivers.

By: paperpete

paperpete — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 02:07:46 -0800

I've been using Opera for the past 3 years without incident. I found Firefox to be far too basic in terms of what it could do without extensions, although I have yet to see an Opera which can handle ads like adblock can. A couple of points: Opera 8.02, the current version, does NOT have torrent support - that is currently in the 8.10 preview - and the MeFi posting issue is solved when you preview and then post.

By: springload

springload — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 02:09:26 -0800

Sorry, I didn't Google first. StrokeIt seems to do exactly this.

By: catachresoid

catachresoid — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 02:32:33 -0800

"Fixed the random browser crashes (I get them all the time now... very annoying when you've just opened up a dozen tabs)" I'd suggest trying the session saver extension (Yes, I know Opera invented this idea) if you're seeing lots of crashes. "I found Firefox to be far too basic in terms of what it could do without extensions" Yes. I also find that the Web is far too basic if I don't load any websites.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 04:30:28 -0800

Yes. I also find that the Web is far too basic if I don't load any websites. Yes. And I find that simplistic counter-analogies really, really enhance my understanding of an issue. I "get" that Firefox is built on the "philosophy" of starting basic and adding on -- which is to say, it's built on the "philosophy" of user-modding -- I "get" that that's inspired by the concept of loose coupling. I "get" that the idea is aesthetically appealing to geeks. But let's get real: In practice, user-modding is seldom more than a niche market, and that's especially true in mission critical applications like cars, cell phones, mobile computers, and yes, browsers. (Because, as you say, the web isn't very useful if you never load any sites.) So a browser that's built on the idea of user-modding, like Firefox, is really not addressing either user desires or (therefore) user "needs". (There's a fallacious counter argument that often crops up in situations like this that boils down to "but everyone [by which they mean x number of users, where they define x as 'everyone'] is doing it." The reason "everyone" is using Firefox rather than, say, Mozilla, or Opera, is because of marketing. And if you think you don't believe in marketing, I have a one word response for you: [Apple] / [Microsoft] [choose one].) Now, aside from the unsuitability of Firefox for most users' purposes, there is the small problem of that fragile extension system. I've had my Firefox install so badly hosed by a buggy extionsion that I literally couldn't use it; I had to burrow into directories that 90% of users (Mac or Windows) never know exist to delete directory trees in order to create a new profile. Then I had to go and re-aquire all the extensions I was using regularly. I've had that happen to me three times. I never had anything analogous happen with any other browser. Ever. Even back when I was using the old GNN browser on Windows 3.1. Fortunately, as a Mac user, I have a sound, functional, albeit slightly pedestrian alternative in Safari. The things I don't like about Safari, that keep me going back to Firefox (like the simple ability to right-click a file link and then choose where it's saved to -- oh, thank you, Apple, soooo much, for protecting me from directory browsing!) are addressed in Opera. So now that I can use Opera without the annoying ad, and now that I've played with it for longer than I ever have before (I mostly used it for browser testing before), I'll probably keep using it. It may even replace Safari for everyday use.

By: thataway_guy

thataway_guy — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 05:48:47 -0800

I've been an Opera user since version 5 and I've appreciated its mature interface for years. I'm glad to see so many people giving Opera a try because I believe its been unjustly ignored because its developers wish to get paid for all their hard work. Unlike a lot of shareware, Opera is updated very regularly and its never just for "security" reasons. Getting a new version of Opera is always lke Christmas morning, there is always something new to play with. I took advantage of this freebie to put Opera on an extra laptop and in the process discovered the inline page search function that I had not yet utilized. Its fantastic. I use Opera to handle my email, my plain text notes (yep, it has a plain text edit built-in), my To Do Lists and so much more. Sure there's a few Firefox plug-ins that can do some pretty cool things, but having a mature interface where all this extra functionality works side by side with great efficiency is worth the price. If you need a freebie, Firefox is great -- it has an amazingly progressive user/developer base. But sometimes solid quality is worth paying for.

By: thataway_guy

thataway_guy — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 05:49:58 -0800

By: thataway_guy

thataway_guy — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 05:51:10 -0800

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 06:17:51 -0800

jack-mo: What pages are you pointing it to, and what do you mean by 'couldn't load'? Did it fail to find them? Did it render incorrectly? Bit late in replying, but I meant that it didn't render anything at all - any website I tried to go to just didn't show up, all I saw was plain white nothingness. Restarting Opera didn't help, and I couldn't really be bothered investigating what the problem might be since I'm perfectly happy using Safari (with the Saft and Pith Helmet plugins) and, if I fancy geotagging a few pics on Flickr, Firefox.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 06:55:24 -0800

Interesting. Is it being blocked by your firewall?

By: mr.marx

mr.marx — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 09:11:41 -0800

Tangent: I recently got to try Opera Mini on my cell phone, and it's pretty excellent. Worldwide release - free - coming up soon.

By: catachresoid

catachresoid — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 14:55:08 -0800

"Yes. And I find that simplistic counter-analogies really, really enhance my understanding of an issue." Well played, lodurr! I agree that user-modding is a niche market. I would call that the power user market. I would argue that Firefox is better for the power user over Opera because it seems to offer more options and features. At the same time, I would also say that Firefox is better for the basic user. Why? Because it starts out simpler ( I will add though that Opera 8 was a massive improvement over Opera 7 in that category). You may what I'd call a "mid user". One who wishes for some advanced features, but not if they could potentially cause problems. I'd say that Opera is the superior choice for this group. Your aside on advertising is interesting. It seems to me that the overwhelming driver of Firefox growth thus far has been word of mouth. Even if you consider that to be a form of advertising, it's one where the advertiser has the targets' best interests at heart. Do you perhaps consider Firefox to be a fad, or the people doing the informing as ignorant of other options? I agree with your assessment of the fragility of the extension system. I believe that it's the cost of an open platform. I'd take a Linux that anyone could write programs for over a (hypothetical) OS X that only ran programs from Apple.

By: LittleMissCranky

LittleMissCranky — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 14:58:48 -0800

Okay, but how do I make my tabs open BEHIND the current web page? The whole point of having tabs is so that I don't have to leave the page that I'm currently viewing.

By: gyc

gyc — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 16:45:28 -0800

Okay, but how do I make my tabs open BEHIND the current web page? Preferences->Advanced->Shortchuts->Middle Click Options Select "Open in background page" Although I think it should automatically ask you about that the first time you middle click something. Alternatively, you could shift-command-click if you're on a Mac w/o a middle click button.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 07:24:50 -0800

Interesting. Is it being blocked by your firewall? How could it be? Maybe I'm missing something about how browsers work and how firewalls work, but I'd've thought that if both Safari and Firefox had access to the web at the time, then Opera would too.

By: catachresoid

catachresoid — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 08:48:31 -0800

jack_mo: in my experience, firewalls allow/block on a program by program basis. I don't think your firewall would have any way of knowing the purpose of the application making a network request. It could be a browser, or it could be something malicious.

By: purephase

purephase — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 21:38:38 -0800

lodurr writes "But then, technical virtues have never been what Firefox is about: Firefox is about COOLNESS." This comment is completely ridiculous. Firefox was never about COOLNESS, it was about creating a browser that addressed a lot of the problems plaguing IE. Opera could have been the browser, but the ads and registration costs were (IMO) not worth it. Firefox is cool if you want a free browser that can be heavily modified (both with extensions and source code) and is actively developed by people all over the world. It's far from perfect, as is most software, but it really is the best browser out there right now. In my experience, Opera apologists are just as bad as MS zealots. Your product is flawed and the primary difference between you and I is that I'm willing to admit it while you just sit there cheerleading without cause.