Post Archive
› March 16, 2004
Commander! Norse ships have been sighted off the coast!
Oh yes. The Norse are coming, their fleet is collected and preparing for invasion. Their viking longships have gotten a major overhaul, and can now meet your ironclad steamboats in both maneuverability, speed and seaworthiness. They have been sharpening their weapons and making shrewd plans for their raids, and are set on taking back the land they discovered several hundred years before Christopher Columbus first set his foot on a ship deck. Californians beware, you are their first target!
What is this?
Well, if you didn't realise that directly, I'm talking about Opera. Opera 7.5, more precisely. In fact, I'm talking about the fact that third preview versions for Linux and Windows have been joined by a first public beta for Mac OS X under the name of Opera 7.50 Preview 3 for Mac to signify that it's codebase has, like with linux did before, unified with the Windows version. The code base for the rendering and scripting engines and the HTML, XML and CSS parsers has been worked on to achieve unification over the platforms, making the UI the only real discrepancy between them evident to the user.
- Size
- The browser is small, 3.7 MiB to download and 9.4 MiB installed, compared to the 30.5/29.9 MiB of Mozilla Firefox 0.8, the 4.7/13.4 MiB of OmniWeb 5.0, the 26/31.7 MiB of MSN for OS X, the 6.7/13.6 MiB for Microsoft Internet Explorer for Mac 5.2.3, the 7.1/14.7 MiB of Apple Safari 1.2, and the 47.4/46.5 MiB of Mozilla 1.6b
- Features
- The browser is definitely the most user oriented one. It has tons of features for both the regular user, the power user and the web devloper. It contains a browser, a mail client, a usenet client, an RSS aggregator, chat client and more. It's skinnable and generally very configurable (almost too much so), there's very few things you cannot set in the preferences, and it's got easy switching of the most important preferences, such as Java, plug-ins (Flash comes to mind), sounds, gif animation, security, JavaScript, cookies, images, user agent spoofing and popup blocking.
- Standards
- The browser is standards compliant. It's DOM support has been brought to a level that seriously rivals that of Mozilla with additions of among other things namespace support, and it's CSS support is just as good. It's XML support is very good, but it sadly doesn't support more than the core XML specs yet.
- It's EcmaScript support is where you really see a difference from earlier versions though. It's ECMA-262 3ed compatible to about the same level as Mozilla. It is never especially much slower than any of the other browsers on any plaftorm, and is frequently faster for more complicated things. It's support for the Internet Explorer proprietary features is very good, and it's support for other de facto standards is no worse than that of Safari. It's JavaScript Console, while being less helpfull than Venkman or Microsoft Script Debugger, is THE best error reporting tool. It's tracing feature beats Mozilla's JavaScript Console, though it does not have an equivalent for Strict Warnings, and sure beats both the Internet Explorer and Safari jokes of error reporting facilities.
- Usability & accessibility
- Opera has a wonderful set of user configurations and accessibility features. It's got support for alternate stylesheets, user and author stylesheets, and has a number of preinstalled user stylesheets to chose from. It's got excellent Unicode support, whole-page zooming, small screen and full screen rendering. It's got very configurable mouse and keyboard settings and has the excellent mouse gestures feature. The user inferface is practically entirely under the control of the user, including window and tab handling, and is skinnable. It's got an easy-to-use external applications interface, MIME type based content handling, and strong security and privacy settings.
- Community
- Opera has from my experience, in difference to public opinion, a very responsive staff and a living and helpful community, if you know where to find it. It's easy to get help and support on the Opera forums and there are a number of pages out there that can be used for references if you want to learn the browser more in detail. The bugs database is not public, but alpha testers, elektrans, that have signed an NDA, have access to it for their platform. Opera are always on the look for alpha testers...
- Commercial
- Yes, Opera is a commercial browser, but unlike MSN/OS X and OmniWeb you can use it for free if you're prepared to accept some rather unintrusive ads. It gets revenue from Google AdSense or banner ads (you chose), as well as the built in internal search facility, and of course registred users who has bougt a licence.
Comments
1. March 16, 2004 05:44 PM
2. March 16, 2004 07:33 PM
David Posted…
I couldn't agree more about Opera 7.5; with the improved standards support and an overwhelming slew of customization options, it has really challenged (though not yet overthrown) my reliance on Firefox. I particularly like the integrated notepad, simple as it is, for quick thoughts while surfing.
3. March 16, 2004 11:06 PM
Immutably Me Posted…
So, tell us how you feel it stands up against firefox? It's all good that it stands up on its own two feet but how does it handle itself in an arena against the other gladiator browsers?
4. March 17, 2004 08:13 AM
Isaac Garcia Posted…
Iīm sorry to disagree (in part at least), but where are those program sizes coming from? My numbers just donīt add up... Firefox for Windows is only a 6.9MB download (and even if you add the size of Thunderbird at 7.7MB itīs nowhere near 30.5MB), heck even the complete Mozilla Suite is only 12MB. The only "Mozilla" branded program I remember at 30.5MB was Netscape Navigator, and it came bundled with Winamp, AOL IM, and many other programs.
Also, most of the features you mention are available in Firefox and Mozilla, either by default or as extensions. And as great as I think it is (as a web developer) to have the "web developer" and the "usability/accessibility" and "advanced" options available, does it really make such a big difference to the "average user"?
Which brings me to my next point; the Opera user base is quite more internet/tech savvy than "the average user". The fact alone that he/she is using something other that IE is already an indicator of this. Also, the famed "update-to-the-next-version speed" of Opera users also denotes more commitment/savvy. So it could be argued that while the Opera browser "is definitely the most user oriented one", it is *still* not for the "average user". Just like Mozilla is usually called the "geek browser", Opera could be called the "not-quite.geek but not-quite-average-user either" browser.
All things considered, I do think the Opera browser is a great program, but its interface is too cluttered and it has too many options to make it an easy transition "for the average Joe" (I know many "average Joes" that still use the same IE version that came with their Windows, chiefly IE5.5, but in some cases even IE5).
5. March 17, 2004 09:39 AM
liorean Posted…
You really have to split that up in parts.Let me do a feature-by-feature comparison:
Web DeveloperCSS: Opera and Mozilla are very close. Mozilla has more of a CSS3 support than Opera, but otherwise they are equals, and are pretty alike in rendering. They are both a bit, but not far, ahead of Safari and MSN/OSX.
EcmaScript: Opera is (believe it or not) in most cases faster. (Unlike Opera 6 or even earlier Opera 7 versions, which were noticably slower than every other browser). They are pretty similar in EcmaScript support, with Mozilla having more custom extensions. Safari is not far behind, while MSN/OSX, iem and iew are lagging.
Browser JavaScript, DOM0: Opera has a few DOM0 glitches and irregularities, but nothing that you will find unless you go rather deep into it, or test unlikely cases. Mozilla is no golden child in many deeper functionality cases either. I'd say Mozilla is better cross spectrum, while Opera and Safari are both more compatible with MSN/OSX, iem and iew.
DOM: Opera is now at the same level as Mozilla when it comes to [DOM2Core], [DOM2HTML], [DOM2Events], [DOM2Views], ahead of Safari. It is still lacking in [DOM2TR], [DOM2Style] and [DOM3], an area where Safari is at least trying. As usual, Microsoft is lagging, with MSN/OSX being closest.
XML: Opera is really good at XML, you can't feel any difference towards pure XML. However, it does still not have client side XSLT, XLink, XBL, XUL, RDF or other useful XML extensions, which means it lags behind here. The other browsers all have their glitches, ie6w being pretty good at handling but rather bad at following the specs and logic, MSN/OSX probably being pretty good but only for XHTML namespace and not using xml-stylesheet PI, OmniWeb a short bit ahead of Safari, and iem being terribly behind.
Power UserThe browser (the only component I use): This is Opera turf. Sometimes Mozilla or Mozilla Firefox is better (seldom both), but in the whole, Opera rules the arena. Safari and OmniWeb comes in well behind Opera, with a large gap to iew and iem, MSN/OSX trying despeately, but failing, to even reach the iem heights.
Joe UserFrom what I've seen, Opera Mail is the by far easiest to use mailing program, even if it does not quite have the features I require myself.
The browser may be confusing with a bit of featuritis, but it's got a far nicer interface than the Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox ones. Safari and MSN/OSX rules this corner ahead of Opera and Mozilla, but OmniWeb, iem and iew are still behind.
Of course, this is all my personal opinion...
6. March 17, 2004 09:57 AM
liorean Posted…
Isaac: Apples and Oranges. Or rather, Apple and Microsoft. Those are of course Mac sizes, since I was talking about Opera for Mac. However, I just saw something I hadn't calculated on: That was the disc image size. The actual download for Mozilla products is a gzipped disc image, and Firefox comes in at 9.5 MiB, while Mozilla comes in at 14.9 MiB, but extracts to a disc image of the size I wrote in the original post. My point is still valid, though, Opera remains smaller. (The other sizes seems to be correct, however.)
I can add that the Opera memory footprint is smaller than the equivalent from Mozilla, Mozilla Forefox, IEM or MSN/OSX, while it is larger than Safari or OmniWeb alone. However, Safari together with Apple Mail comes in at larger memory footprint.
7. March 18, 2004 03:16 AM
gdr Posted…
I'm a long time user of Opera and I'm always been fully satisfied with it. I'm still using 7.23 and it is faster than any other browser I tried.
Nevertheless, as I recently started to code for a client (after a very looong time) I found myself a little frustrated by the lack of "developer's tools" in Opera. Tools like the DOM inspector or extensions like the Web developer toolbar of Firefox are invaluable.
If you add the lack of simple integrated RSS monitor (an extension of firefox), I at once found myself to prefer Firefox to Opera.
I hope the new incoming Opera 7.5 version will introduce such needed features...
8. March 18, 2004 12:12 PM
hao2lian Posted…
The only thing really lacking in Opera, that keeps me with both Opera and Firefox on my computer is that it doesn't have an extension community like Firefox, mostly because it isn't in XUL. Opera has a lot of features, but for the nitty, estoric, weird, specific features, it's lacking, and rightly so.
9. March 18, 2004 03:42 PM
Moose Posted…
GDR, you can download a Technology Preview (#3) of Opera 7.5, which includes an RSS newsreader (with autoinstall recognition). Visit the Opera beta testing forum if you are interested.
M.10. March 20, 2004 01:58 AM
Rob Posted…
hao2lian: Opera doesn't have extensiosn per se, but there are extension like abilities you can add to it. Visit this website for more Opera info, help, tutorials, guides: http://nontroppo.org/wiki/Opera7
11. March 22, 2004 01:12 PM
Tomm Posted…
"Features
The browser is definitely the most user oriented one. It has tons of features for both the regular user, the power user and the web devloper. It contains a browser, a mail client, a usenet client, an RSS aggregator, ... snip"
Hmm... "tons of features" doesn't sound very user-oriented to me. More like "feature-oriented". Tons of features are in most cases in direct conflict with users needs (especially if that user is Mr. Joe-average).
12. March 22, 2004 06:33 PM
liorean Posted…
The question lies in what users are they targetting, and what features are they providing? I would say they are definitely user oriented - they allow the user more control. They aren't in general web developer features, that much is clear (some of them are, but not most). That is not to say that they are targetting regular, average users - these are power user features. Who else is going to change JavaScript settings, user agent or cookies settings on-the-fly? Many of the features are accessibility, usability, security and privacy ones.
No, Opera's features are user oriented. Their user demographics lies a lot above that of IEW and IEM, or even Safari. Users of Opera generally know WHY they use Opera instead of the other browsers - they prove that by not using the default browser. These are the users Opera are catering to. The tech savvy users. Those that know what mouse gestures are when they see it in the preferences. Those that know what it means to identify as IE6W or Opera. Those that know what the choices in the security preferences means.
Jon HIcks Posted…
You can use Omniweb for free if you're prepared to put up with the homepage always being a special Omniweb branded search page and the inability to save a window size. (sorry for being a pedant! ;o)
Interesting trying the Mac beta - great feature set, the panels thing is great - but generally, the interface looks like a nasty mess of icons and search fields.