Which will it be ? Opera ? Firefox ? IE ?

I absolutely agree with you, I don’t think people are going to change their main choice of a web browser anytime soon.
There’s a reason why things are as they are
The browsers standards are so much higher now and the new browsers are all competing and its much more even between them than before.
So I feel its much more what you are used to… then again its not
btw… Firefox rocks and Tuesday will feel like Christmas!

[...] Martin’s post about upcoming browser releases was something I had also been thinking about. [...]

My crude view on subject:

Firefox chases after market share and makes money on it (from google).
Opera chases superior technology and makes money on it, cares less about google.
Microsoft wants more money and less competition. Browser unrelated.

“Market share” is bit misleading, numbers are pulled pretty much out of air and extrapolated to whole world. Opera is indeed niche browser but in niche it is dominating. I had seen statistics posted by some sites in my region (software-hardware themed)… On those sites Opera has twice the share of Firefox - around 40% to 20%.

Opera may not gain lots of global market share… But Opera fans don’t care about that (very unlike some of firefox folowers). We like our browser for what it is, not for fashion and hype.

Opera’s interesting, and a very good browser, but still needs work in the user interface, and simplification of functionality. IE (any version) down right sucks on so many levels, and I think all that keeps people holding on to it, is habit and ignorance. Firefox, in my opinion, is superior to them all, simply because it runs awesome (FF 3), I can make it my own, and it’s fairly simple to use right out the box. As you can see Firefox is my personal preference, but quite honestly, I care not which browser takes the lead, so long as it kills IE.

In all honesty once I switched over from IE to Firefox (1.0 I believe) I never had a reason to go back. In my mind, firefox offered so many things that IE couldn’t even compare with, not to mention the security and stability of the browser. Lately however, with the release of IE 7 and even the IE 8b, it seems IE is trying desperately to catch up. However, they aren’t trying to catch up in numbers. Oddly enough, IE is actually the browser of choice for most people, simply because they don’t know any better. Most computer users don’t go around reading feeds and plurking and tweeting. They check their email through Outlook Express because it came with their computer. And they browse the internet with IE.

Firefox IS gaining ground as those more computer inclined prefer it and in turn pass it on to those who are less computer literate.

Opera on the other hand, has been around since forever. I remember being about 10 years old and testing out opera, which I never seemed to like at the time. Now however, Opera has become one of the speediest browsers out there, if not the fastest. The UI is a little clunky for my taste, but a skin can fix that. No amount of tweaking can make either Firefox or IE run like this.

And like Rarst said, Opera fans aren’t as die hard as Firefox users. They’re not waging wars on other browsers or trying to set world records. Opera just is.

>Opera’s interesting, and a very good browser, but still needs work in the user interface, and simplification of functionality

I had long post on software interfaces in my blog with some references to browsers. Got interesing comment on how it is easy to do something in Firefox, but oh-so-hard in Opera. Asked for example - got “setting home page”.

Interesting thing is - setting home page in Opera in Firefox is exaaaaactly same from placement in settings to number of clicks required.

In my opinion people who complain about Opera interface should really try using it. It’s good and it’s very customizable.

Not sure how to understand “simplification of functionality”. It’s web browser, not Microsoft Office.

>Firefox, in my opinion, is superior to them all, simply because it runs awesome

Deep argument.

>fairly simple to use right out the box
What happened to “50 must-have extensions” and such?

Opera has made some improvements and it was at one time my browser of choice even when it was a shareware not freeware browser. Now I tend to use FF2 for the site compatibility that I require. IE has never been used on my machine for over 2 years. So it may be FF3 or back to Opera 9.5 - have to see FF3 on Tuesday to make the BIG decision LOL

@Rarst I have yet to see someone running with Firefox right out of the box. Once I installed Firefox on my parents computer, a bit of snooping around from my dad led him to the extensions menu. A short google later and he was running a weather addon as well as the popular adblock plus addon. No doubt he was just rummaging around through the recommended addons by Firefox.

Opera and Firefox have a lot of customizability but they offer it in different ways. A lot of the stuff that you need addons to accomplish in Firefox is built right into Opera. Of course that works both ways.

What I DO enjoy about Opera is the notes feature. It helps to be able to jot down a quick note about something, such as a password for a rar file. Also a nice feature is the ability to relocate the address bar, I never much liked the idea of a status bar, so instead I just relocated by address bar to the bottom so that it’s out of the way and I can see my tabs right at the top.

IMHO Opera rules…then the rest!!!

I don’t care about market share and market at all

I already used to both - Firefox and Opera, I still want to use both of them, and will do.

And because I slowly moving toward Linus, I don’t care about IE .

Opera is the choice for me. The new UI is quite nice and it has quite a few features the other browsers do not have: mouse gestures, quick find (history search that searches all the text on your pages), fit-to-window, intelligent caching, etc. It is also a lot faster.

Do you want to browse faster? Browse without the mouse. Don’t force your fingers leave the keyboard when you want to reach the mouse to follow a link or to scroll a page. Try Vimperator.

Vimperator is a Firefox add-on that wraps all actions you need on a browsing experience to a combination of keys. j to scroll down, k to scroll up, f to follow links, … I will never try Opera because Opera has no comparable add-on or functionnality.

That is, I think it will be Firefox. Because everyone is unique, everyone his favourite functionnality. This can only be achieved with a multitude of extensions, where you pick and install what you need.

>I will never try Opera because Opera has no comparable add-on or functionnality.

Sure Opera has no comparable add-on… Because Opera already has all of no-mouse browsing you described out-of-the-box. And if default not enough you can map pretty much any possible action to any hotkey.

In fact simple googling “opera without mouse” reveals whole official page on those hotkeys and such:
http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/nomouse/

Hm, not that Firefox fans and fair comparision had ever met.

>That is, I think it will be Firefox. Because everyone is unique, everyone his favourite functionnality.

My favourite functionality is fast, stable, out-of-the-box. These are things Firefox can’t deliver by design. Extensions are both advantage and flaw. So is all-in-one Opera way.

Exactly because everyone is unique Firefox won’t fit everyone.

[...] browser. I just wonder if businesses will be able to use this anytime soon, or if Internet Explorer or any other browser for that matter will be able to come off the bench and hit a homerun like Firefox 3 did. by Marinel [...]

For my browser choice, I never use Internet Explorer except for Windows Update (no choice there) or when web sites are so badly written they won’t render usably on a standards-compliant browser. I’ve tried Opera in the past, and will give Opera 9.5 a good look. I’m trying Firefox 3.0 now, since its release, and there are some really nice things about how it renders (and it is quite fast). But my standard-duty browser will remain SeaMonkey. It has more flexibility and features (customizable text zoom factor, which is displayed, separate Go menu URL list for each tab, MultiZilla!), and I really like the mail/browser integration. It is my workhorse; Firefox & Opera are for side trips.

Firefox is a memory hog! IE just ancient browser. Its Opera that is the best. Which browser has mouse geatures?

Mr. I
Which browser has mouse geatures?

Oh man, are you living in cave? Plenty of browsers have them, Firefox via extensions, some IE-based browsers.

opera is the pest prowser i ever see it’s fast too fast in every thing betar than IE and firefox

Opera is the best & fastest right out of the box & if you spend a couple of hours adding extensions to FF to make it equivalent to the default Opera it becomes a memory hog & is now even slower.
Plenty of ways to configure Opera try
Opera:config
want more tabs in speedial edit the speedial.ini
[Size]
Rows=6
Columns=5
only works in versions prior to 9.5 for now
hundereds of new skins available
widgets my favourite is touch the sky for weather forecast
how about notes great for researching
Try dragging a few tabs direct to your memory bar for instant acess
Saved sessions : allways opening the same tabs save the session & then select it on startup.
Firefox would be my second choice with IE a poor third.
ps
Opera is the safest browser as well.

Roman ShaRP, I don not want to day this but I have to!

Firefox has Mouse-gestures via extensions that are nothing but memory hogs and some IE based browsers

Does IE have them? And Firefox? Its extensions are only memory hogs. Does any of them match the out of the box functionality of Opera? I have used Firefox myself. Whole time, it gave me troubles. Extensions like Fasterfox slow it down. And anyway, does Firefox have cool widgets? I am sure Firefox supports them Via Extensions! and some IE-based browsers are supporting cooler widgets!

And my installation of Firefox had a cool feature that Opera can not and will never support. It was tab freeze. Tabs used to freeze in between and refused to close. It was a install-reinstall resistant feature that stayed across 5 installations. Opera still does not support it till now. I still miss it!

Mr. I, everybody looks for what better suits to him/her. As for me - it is better to give out some memory and receive more comfort, what I’m enjoying now with FF, switching to it after 7 years with Opera.

I like extensions architecture, and I don’t need out-of-the-box unreliable mail-in-browser and torrent-downloads.

I prefer memory hogs to out-of-the-box bugs.

Widgets are just fancy toys, they just sucks and will do. They don’t have powers FF extensions have. I can’t remember any really useful widget.

I have no any tab freeze on my FF. But I can say that last year I rollbacked about 10 Opera releases/updates for regressions and instability. And that was finally enough for me.

>But I can say that last year I rollbacked about 10 Opera releases/updates for regressions and instability.

Must’ve been hard cause Opera had only 6 releases last year. 9.20 to 9.25

I guess you rollbacked each twice.

*tries very hard to remember regressions and instabilities*

Must’ve been hard cause Opera had only 6 releases last year. 9.20 to 9.25
I guess you rollbacked each twice.

May be not strictly last year, and I installed some betas (one more thing that annoyed me with Opera was that some betas worked for me better than finals).

*tries very hard to remember regressions and instabilities*

They depend on your browser usage, how many site you visit and what sites they are.

Had you encountered “100% CPU”?

>May be not strictly last year, and I installed some betas (one more thing that annoyed me with Opera was that some betas worked for me better than finals).

Yeah, installing beta is really nice way ot improve browser stability. Opera is known to accumulate clutter with inplace upgrades without help of extremely unstable weekly builds.

>They depend on your browser usage, how many site you visit and what sites they are.

A lot. I only remember problems at sites that use heavily (to the point of stupid) ajaxed comments like Digg.

>Had you encountered “100% CPU”?
May refer to different problems, I do have occasional CPU spikes if loading few pages at the same time and high speed.

I just switched to Opera, and absolutely love it. between enhanced tab functions, speed dial, and widgets, i just cant see myself going back to Firefox. However, one thing i miss is my Add-ons, which i cant get in Opera (or i havent found a way). Firefox might actually pull me back just for that…

Rarst
> May refer to different problems, I do have occasional CPU spikes if loading few pages at the same time and high speed.

No. There are some sites or pages where Opera gives 100% CPU usage till closing tab with that page or site.

Zach B
> between enhanced tab functions

Did you use Tab Mis Plus in Firefox?

> speed dial

There are at least two extensions for that: one called Speed Dial, and second Fast Dial

> and widgets

I don’t miss them because now I have extensions

> However, one thing i miss is my Add-ons, which i cant get in Opera (or i havent found a way). Firefox might actually pull me back just for that…

There are two simple things you can do:
1. Explore. Opera is like a big box of toys.
2. Ask. People often miss features that Opera actually has.

Bonus advice. Don’t expect Opera to make you cofee, expect it to be great browser.

>No. There are some sites or pages where Opera gives 100% CPU usage till closing tab with that page or site.

I remember such issue because of very heavy flash banners once. But it was actually affecting all browsers pretty bad.

Could you please name pages where spikes can be reliably reproduced?

>I remember such issue because of very heavy flash banners once. But it was actually affecting all browsers pretty bad.

I’m using ad-blocker for 10 years.

>Could you please name pages where spikes can be reliably reproduced?

I didn’t record them, but Google can help

So, try http://iwhoilco.ru/ and don’t forget to save your session before.

>So, try http://iwhoilco.ru/ and don’t forget to save your session before.

800+Kb of text, 150+Kb of scripts, list with many thousands items.

Yep, hangs Opera but it’s hardly typical web page.

By the way your Google link has lots of Firefox CPU spikes in search results as well.

There is no contest. Opera Rules. There are lots of complaints that Opera is closed-source and doesn’t have extensions. It doesn’t need them. It works fabulously out of the box, and has more customization available than anybody could ever use.

Features like paste-and-go, backward and forward navigation by how you click the left and right mouse buttons together, resuming broken downloads, movable tabs, the list goes on and on. I have been using Opera since the ultra-buggy 3.61 (circa 1998) and have always loved it, bugs and all.

Did I mention it’s fast? When you go backwards, it fetches the page from the cache, rather than downloading it from the site like IE (and FF too, I think) does.

Opera on my Pocket PC makes Pocket IE look a real joke. But then, I’ve replaced all of the built-in M$ apps with third-party/freeware ones and they ALL work much better.

>I have been using Opera since the ultra-buggy 3.61

Those versions reaaaaally sucked… :))) You made me remember something bad.

>Did I mention it’s fast? When you go backwards, it fetches the page from the cache, rather than downloading it from the site like IE (and FF too, I think) does.

All modern browsers have decent caching. Opera is effective at that but it is something hard to reliably compare.

I, too have used Opera since version 3 on just about every OS including Solaris.
Now my computers only run (different flavors of) Linux. I have been dissapointed by Opera 9.5 because
1. It takes 100% of 1 processor even when nothing is happening and
2. There is a feature/bug I have been using for years which 9.51 eliminated/fixed and now it works like all the others. I need a work around or I have to go back.
My wife has already done ‘rpm -e opera’ and installed opera-9.27. We were using 9.01 before. For reasons unknown 9.51 kept crashing and wouldn’t do irc.
Mozilla/Firefox/Iceweasel has been more stable even if not as feature rich.
I use a mozilla mail POP3 client. Though Opera’s has been ok in the past.
IE sucks like all other M$ products of course and writing web pages that work on everything but IE is a major pain in the A$$.
Just my opinion. But, of course I am right

Rarst, I remember why I don’t choose Opera. I’m 100% of my time on Gmail, and I have a mouse that sucks. As I already said, I use vimperator, a Fx extension to browser without the mouse. Yes, you can do the same with Opera, with , , … but these don’t work on the Gmail interface, unless I opt for the basic HTML, which sucks.
It’s the fault of Gmail interface, but being open source helped Firefox here, as I could tackle the problem by myself by writing a little plugin for Vimperator.

>but being open source helped Firefox here, as I could tackle the problem by myself by writing a little plugin for Vimperator.

I guess someone could write UserJS for Opera just as easily.

And Google really hates Opera. They are very Firefox-centric.

Firefox works amazing for me… have tried Safari though but still Firefox is amazing for addons and stuff…