It’s also not accurate to say that Opera invented everything great about browsing. It didn’t, and Firefox does offer some innovations of its own, and good ones, too.

All I was saying was the discussion about what makes Firefox good or Opera not so good should not stop at looking to market share, for the reasons I have already mentioned. Discussing the merits of the browsers is worthwhile, but market share is what GM had and that does not necessarily inspire.

Don’t confuse “market share” with “quality” – the two are not synonymous. Surely you don’t think McDonald’s food is the best food in the world just because it has more restaurant locations than any other chain? And again, just because Porsche sells less cars than Mazda, does that mean necessarily that a Mazda is a better car?

There are several interesting reasons why Opera consistently flies below the radar, and none of them have to do with its quality. At the very least, if you look at the history of web browsing, you’ll find that most of the features that are very cool today were Opera innovations (mouse gestures, speed dial, easy page text sizing and of course, true multi-threading tabbed browsing – try cascading windows within Firefox).

I will admit that, ultimately, I use Firefox more, simply because it is simple. Opera requires some techy inclinations that the average user won’t have. All credit to Mozilla for seizing on the simplicity and stability that users want.

However, do recognize that most of the issues with Opera functionality is a result of a well-documented battle it had with Microsoft and how code is written to make it easier for some browsers and…not so easy for others.

In truth and fact, Opera is a champion for the values netizens really appreciate, an innovator whose work from desktops to mobile apps has made life easier for all of us, even those who use other browsers built on the innovations Opera introduced. Market share or no, they should get their just respects.

Obvioiusly, you can tell that I’m not a fan of MSIE, but then, most who would post to this board wouldn’t be and, in my opinion, rightly so.

Firefox Noia theme is pretty good for me.

Simakuutio
I switched to FF after using Opera for 7 years, and I won’t return back. Now Opera is just my spare browser.

It seems that my wife will convert totally to FF too: some .js menus don’t work in Opera, and she gets Opera infamous “100% CPU usage” error frequently.

If Iron had the add-on’s Firefox has, though, it would quickly become my default.