Introducing Opera! The Fastest Web Browser On Earth! as they say..

[rayzoredge 2]

Uh-oh... dealbreaker!Opera 10 Alpha does NOT play well with GMail, in my experience. I just crashed twice with O10a trying to reply to someone, not to mention that it was actually kind of slow.Reverted back to Opera 9.64... doesn't crash with GMail (yet, anyway), but it's still slow and choppy.? It's weird considering that O10a supposedly fixed issues with GMail according to the developer blog... but maybe it's a work in progress still.Edit: Double-posted for some reason within the same post...Addendum: Argh. This seems too good to be true... and I'm starting to see the dealbreaker in more light than Opera's better features.I just escaped a crawling disaster with Opera taking up 90+% of my CPU processing power for a minute at a time... with no idea what's doing it. Maybe it's GMail, since I saw before that it didn't play very nicely. Maybe it's the fact that I had 10 tabs running. Maybe a lot of things.Anyone run into any similar issues with "the fastest web browser on Earth?"?

Edited April 6, 2009 by rayzoredge (see edit history)

[Alex Cicala 0]

Sorry to all Opera Fans, I don't like it....

Mabye you should look into Firefox 3.

Reasons why Firefox is good:

Simplified Privacy / Annoyance Eliminator Better Bookmarks and History
Accessible, Intelligent, Responsive
Customizable and Extendable
Modern Download Manager
Built for standards
KISS (Keep It Simple and Straight-Forward)

Also my personal reason why I like firefox is that it has Greasemonkey: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/

Also consider a download of Firefox: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

[truefusion 3]

Anyone run into any similar issues with "the fastest web browser on Earth?"?

Did any of those tabs have a page with some form of plug-in running (e.g. flash)? Were you visiting a Microsoft website? I realize that you may find it odd that visiting a Microsoft website would actually cause Opera to act funny, but it happens to me on my Linux system. Whenever it happens i find it to be very ironic, that is, being on a Linux system. It's interesting, though, that you had problems using G-mail in Opera 10, since for me it works better than it did when i was using the latest stable version of Opera. Perhaps the problem is specific to only the Windows version of Opera (assuming you're using the Windows version of Opera)?

[frozen.fish 0]

-opera has a much simplier privacy blocker.(you do not need any extensions for it.) http://www.opera.com/blogs/news/
-it has superior bookmark mangement than firefox, thas has been proven.(again firefox needs extension for easier use.)
-it is faster and more responsive than firefox. cltrl+alt+delete the two to see proof.
-it is not as customizable as firefox though.(but out of the box it has lots of features while smaller footprint vs. firefox.)
-download manager for opera is great!
-It has been built for standards
-it is fairly simply and straightforward. MUCH MUCH SIMPLIER and easier to use than firefox.
-also opera has been proven more secure than firefox.(cause little user base=smaller hackers.)

the only con i find in opera is that
-e-mail client lacks encryption support.
-e-mail client cannot compose HTML emails.
-no web developer extensions like W3c validator and such.
-little support cause firefox has more user base.
-no auto update like firefox has.

[truefusion 3]

-no web developer extensions like W3c validator and such.

Have you checked the right-click menu, that is, "Validate"? Also, look up DragonFly. I've used DragonFly and it is a very good web developer tool—i can edit almost anything on the page i choose, whether it be text, CSS, or whatever else. The only thing about it, though, is that it appears to not be built into the browser itself but, rather, is queried through the browser after opening it up. However, i haven't tried opening DragonFly without being connected to the internet, so perhaps it works offline as well.

 

-no auto update like firefox has.

This will be introduced in version 10 of Opera for what appears to be every operating system that Opera supports.

[rayzoredge 2]

Did any of those tabs have a page with some form of plug-in running (e.g. flash)? Were you visiting a Microsoft website? I realize that you may find it odd that visiting a Microsoft website would actually cause Opera to act funny, but it happens to me on my Linux system. Whenever it happens i find it to be very ironic, that is, being on a Linux system. It's interesting, though, that you had problems using G-mail in Opera 10, since for me it works better than it did when i was using the latest stable version of Opera. Perhaps the problem is specific to only the Windows version of Opera (assuming you're using the Windows version of Opera)?

Opera is now driving me nuts with me being used to FireFox. I just lost everything I was typing because I double-clicked on a word to replace it, which instead brought up a context menu and the next key I hit apparently searched for the word that I was about to overwrite.? I did this same exact thing yesterday, losing an entire post because I accidentally hit Ctrl+Left instead of Ctrl+Shift+Left.?

 

 

Anyway, at the time of my screenshot yesterday, I was running GMail, two Xisto tabs, a NewEgg tab, a Google Results tab, Craigslist, a CNet article, a Speed Dial/blank tab, and two Cracked.com articles. I think that there was a possibility of a Flash ad on the CNet and Cracked.com articles, but every other page seemed to be light. Opera 10a was taking up 55MB of RAM and 94% of my CPU usage.

 

And yes, I'm running the Windows version of Opera. It's too easy to blame it just on Windows... so I'll blame it on Windows.?

[frozen.fish 0]

Opera 10 still has problem with Gmail.. So wait for stable release..

Thanks for the heads up truefusion, dragonfly seems very promising.. only at alpha stage though..

https://dev.opera.com/blog/

great feauture! where have i been!? lol now let me take that back opera barely needs extensions, another great tool! with the help of debug mode im throwing firebug and validators away!

yey dragonfly and debug menu!

Edited April 7, 2009 by kerco (see edit history)

[rayzoredge 2]

Man... I am a complainer!? Opera also does not support GMail's signature "THUNK" sound when receiving an IM on GCHat or AIM while focus is away from that tab. Pity, because I rely on that intrusive sound to keep me from forgetting about my conversations with people...I might just have to run Firefox with GMail in it and use Opera for everything else... which just seems plain dumb.? Hopefully Opera snags a fix for GMail, although I'm surprised that it has any issues in the first place. Is it the way that Opera interprets what GMail has, or the way that GMail interacts with Opera?

[truefusion 3]

Is it the way that Opera interprets what GMail has, or the way that GMail interacts with Opera?

Opera already knows about the G-mail problems, you could see it in their change logs (though i've never experienced any problem with Opera and G-mail). If i'm not mistaken, most (or a lot) of the fixes for G-mail are found within the browser.js file in the Opera profile on your computer. I'm currently running build 4268 of Opera 10, and checking my G-mail runs well (though i don't use the chat feature—i disable it, it's a waste of loading time for me; i use Pidgin for Gtalk anyway). Although G-mail itself is still in beta (unless their logo hasn't updated to reflect the actual changes), assuming Google has all the AJAX working properly for G-mail, then it's probably how Opera interprets G-mail.

[harrison858 0]

Cool... i always get tired of annoying download dialog boxes, slow downloads, downloading an extra torrent client, and slow processing or even freezing of internet explorer. IE uses too much fancy stuff and makes the browser run slow. Thank you for sharing this with us!

[zakaluka 0]

I think the only draw Firefox / Mozilla has is the plugins. Without them, Opera is definitely the better browser. Despite having more features built-in (bittorrent, mail / news client, mouse gestures, fast forward/rewind, and the best popup blocking selection I have ever seen), it uses much fewer resources. Plus, the tab system is extremely stable. I routinely have 60-80 tabs open at once, all the time. Any time I try that with Firefox, the browser crashes unceremoniously. In addition, it has excellent keyboard shortcuts (z, x, a, s, q, etc.).I'm not a fanboy (since I'm posting this message from Firefox). However, I can safely say that I use Opera as my main browser and just bring up FF when I needs to go to a quick site or something just refuses to work with Opera.Regards,z.

[rayzoredge 2]

I definitely had to switch back to Firefox... all because of GMail.Opera was usable, but with multitasking, it wasn't much argument when I was watching my CPU usage rise astronomically and, consequently, slow the crap out of whatever I would be doing at the moment. Until Opera can fix the issues it has with GMail, I'm going to have to suffer with Firefox's memory problem.There is no one winning browser... there's always a catch. I still give kudos to Opera, though, and I highly recommend it.

[miladinoski 1]

I definitely had to switch back to Firefox... all because of GMail.

 

Opera was usable, but with multitasking, it wasn't much argument when I was watching my CPU usage rise astronomically and, consequently, slow the crap out of whatever I would be doing at the moment. Until Opera can fix the issues it has with GMail, I'm going to have to suffer with Firefox's memory problem.

 

There is no one winning browser... there's always a catch. I still give kudos to Opera, though, and I highly recommend it.

You didn't give Opera, I think Opera gave up on you

 

hehe j/k

 

IMHO, Opera does a better job as a browser in GNU/Linux for some reason than in Windows, where Chrome is kinda more usable (on a faster machine) and faster, also Google's services don't refuse to support it, unlike they do with Opera — which isn't even in the supported browser list of GMail (nor in Y! Mail or Live Mail) — a thing that made Opera's devs to remove the option to redirect mailto: links to GMail, Y!Mail or Live Mail which was available in one of their earlier snapshots and instead add Fastmail.Fm and Yandex which clearly say that they support traffic comming from Opera. I haven't seen a Mac so I can't judge which browser is better for that environment.

 

Too bad that Google lately doesn't support it's own slogan "Don't be evil!" by not supporting a browser thats ahead of theirs in the market share.

 

ps. Maybe you should try to use GMail with the IMAP and SMTP client that Opera offers with its M2 mail client, which works fantastically for me!

Edited April 10, 2009 by miladinoski (see edit history)

[zakaluka 0]

Am I the only person who has had absolutely no problems with GMail on Opera? I have used it on both Windows and Linux (Opera 9.6x, most recently) and the site comes up perfectly. I guess I haven't tried using the latest beta for version 10.@razoredge: Using the Task Manager to check memory usage is not a good idea. Make sure you minimize Opera before you check the statistics, since shared memory shows up as separate usage for multiple threads, tabs, and so on.Regards,z.

[rayzoredge 2]

Am I the only person who has had absolutely no problems with GMail on Opera? I have used it on both Windows and Linux (Opera 9.6x, most recently) and the site comes up perfectly. I guess I haven't tried using the latest beta for version 10.
@razoredge: Using the Task Manager to check memory usage is not a good idea. Make sure you minimize Opera before you check the statistics, since shared memory shows up as separate usage for multiple threads, tabs, and so on.

Regards,

z.

Thanks for the tip. Again, informative and useful posting.

My personal usage of Opera (both Opera 10a and Opera 9.64) resulted in massive CPU-hogging by Opera... it was insane and completely unacceptable, ranging from 60% up to 98% of my CPU potential. I don't know what it was doing and why it was doing what it was doing, but I know that GMail was a tab I always kept up (as I like to keep an eye on my e-mail and use it for the AIM protocol). It's funny how with Opera, my memory usage (using my incorrect way of checking using Task Manager) halves the usage that Firefox normally takes, but the CPU usage skyrockets, and with Firefox, the CPU sticks around 15% to 50% during activity. (I'm watching it right now as I type.)

I know the computer I'm on isn't exactly spectacular when it comes to specifications (2.2GHz P4, 1GB RAM), but then again, no browser (with reasonable usage) should be making your computer crawl that badly... which puts an ironic spin on the title of this thread for me.

Addendum: To sum up what I forgot to add, people seem to be very happy with Opera under Linux. I know for sure that I'm not the only Windows person here using Opera... or am I?
Edited April 13, 2009 by rayzoredge (see edit history)