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Opera: Firefox’s Better? Top 10 List
Well, here we are. The last post I made was about why Firefox is better than Internet Explorer. And its true that Firefox may be the best browser. May be.
The fact is, Opera has been around for far longer, and incorparated features far ahead of Firefox. It had tabbed browsing before anyone, and is still faster than firefox.
So why is it so unknown?
For one, Opera was originally supported by having a banner at the top of the page for all users. This was quite frustrating, and led to many rejecting it entirely. However, this banner allowed opera to pay developers great amounts of money to make nice features, like tabbed browsing. Another reason Opera is not well known is because of low advertisment. They do not go to any great effort to advertise themselves, or really encourage users to do so. Why? Well, I dont know. I do know that the users they do have are a loyal bunch at that. Opera even has a blogging function on their site that is rivaled by few. Let me give you a list of 10 of the options that are present in Opera that are not in Firefox (not taking into account addons of course)
1) Above URL bar tabs. If you have used this before (like on chrome) you know its better.
2) Integrated Bit Torrent client. One of the best.
3) Task bar on the side that is not intrusive, but easily accessible.
4) Community and Opera made Widgets.
5) The single BEST mail client built in. Support for any email host.
6) Download manager. Better than any seen on Firefox.
7) Built in advertisement/popup/flash ads prevention.
8) Simple quick note taking ability.
9) Great speed and compatibility of web pages.
10) Built in webpage shrinker/resizer.
And trust me when I say that these are just a few. Most (if not all) of these options are available from the sidebar mentioned. The interface also is far better in my opinion.
Now after all this, you would probably think I use this as my standard browser. I don’t. I use Firefox. Now before you opera fans crucify me, allow me to explain. Opera incorparates enough things to get me to use it instead of Firefox. Unfortunately, in order to really take advantage of all the nice features, you need to only be on one computer. Things like the built in chat, mail client, and RSS feeds are cumbersome if your consistently use more than one computer. Such is the case for me. When I secure my own laptop that is half decent, I will use Opera standard, but for now I will use Firefox. However, I encourage all of you to at least give it a try and download it!
What do you think? Do you prefer Firefox, or Opera? Why? Comment below, you dont need to register, and you can be anonymous.
-Trenton Stahl
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
10 Firefox Addons You Should Have
If you haven’t already, you should get the best browser around, Firefox. It has many features that are nice, with not the least of them being the addons you can use. Here is a list of the top 10 I use.
1) Adblock Plus
Adblock is easily one of the most downloaded, and liked addons for FF. Once downloaded, it blocks virtually all ads you see on web pages. Annoying flash ads, gone. Fake warning messages, gone. Banners trying to get you to think they’ll give you a PS3, gone!
AIOS is an organizing tool that puts all addon controls, history, downloads, and favorites into a convenient and discreet sidebar that can easily be configured to your standards. Getting this allows for much easier content control.
A very simple collection of Greasemonkey scripts in the form of an addon. Allows for easy downloads of YouTube videos, a clean theater mode for watching, and the option of making it so videos don’t start until you actually press the play button (instead of auto playing when you open the video link).
There are many things to love about FF, one of them not being the download manager. It opens a window when you download, and makes it inconvienient to see the status of a download. Download Statusbar gives a very nice and out-of-the-way status bar in the corner with controls for downloading a file.
When your googling, wouldn’t it be nice to see a preview before loading the site? That’s what Google preview gives you. Every time you do a Google search, a thumbnail of the site appears to the left of all the search results. Trust me, it’s incredibly helpful.
6) Lazarus
Ever been filling out a large form or registration page on the internet, and pressed submit only to have it come back saying you didn’t do so and so right and you end up having to fill it all in again? Well, Lazarus solves this problem. If you ever have to go back to a page you just filled with text that is now gone, just right click on the field, and you can restore the entire entry!
7) StumbleUpon
This addon changed my life. Where before I would spend meaningless time looking for something to occupy my time, I now stumble. Stumbleupon has a community of over 5 million, and if you’re one of them, you know why that is. When you get the addon, it will prompt you to get an account, do it. When you do, you fill out a form of things your interested on the internet, and then it lets you “stumble” pages it thinks you like. The more you use it, the more it knows what you like. Its incredably addictive.
Many times have I too hastily started closing tabs, only to accidentally close that one tab with a page on it I wanted. Your history is too full for you to wade through it to find, so what do you do? Undo it of course. Undo Closed Tabs gives you a button to the left of your tabs to allow easy recovery of any closed mistake. Also, the sunglasses guy is there because wordpress automatically makes all 8 with a bracket this 8)
Too often have I been researching something in the wee hours of the night and had to hastily head off to bed only to realize I need to exit my browser for one reason or another. Session Manager allows for easy saving, and recovery of any session of tabs you may have at that moment. You can even save multiple sessions for different reasons.
10) Aero Fox
Choosing a theme for your FF is a very personal thing, one which I suggest you don’t take lightly. Aero Fox is (in my humble opinion) one of the most good looking of themes. It also has never interfered with any of my addons, and shows little to no strain on the browser speed. A good choice overall.
What are your favorite addons? Leave a comment below.
-Trenton Stahl
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
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Advanced Apathy by Trenton Stahl is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. In addition, all moral rights are reserved.
Firefox Vs. Internet Explorer
Too often I have had a friend, or a friend of a friend, contact me asking for help with a computer problem. Usually this has to do with viruses getting into their system because of poor protection. I also get complaints because of slow internet, and decreased system performance. To all of these, there is a simple answer: Firefox.
Firefox is the brainchild of Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross. They wanted a browser that was not proprietary and closed off to the public. They believed that an open sourced-model for a browser would promote a community to benefit itself by making and maintaining add-ons for the program. They were more right than they imagined. Firefox is now the leader of innovative and powerful feature-rich browsers. Many of it’s competitors see what it offers, and copies the features to win over Firefox fans.
But now down to what we all want to hear, what does Firefox offer that IE doesn’t? Here is a list of things:
1) Open Sourced Programming
In the world of big business, most companies prefer to keep their source code closed off to the public. Microsoft does this with IE. With Firefox, you can get a multitude of good add-ons. And with the community as devoted as it is, YOU CAN GET ANY INTERNET EXPLORER FEATURE YOU WANT WITH FIREFOX.
If you use Firefox, you can be assured of your safety. It offers multiple niceties including: effective pop-up blocker, malware shield, flagged website warning, and data encryption options to name a few. IE claims to have the most secure browser, but if you do a simple Google search, you continually get these and these. Also, with IE being the most widely used browser, it is the most targeted by hackers and virus writers.
3) Speed
In the most recent release of IE, Microsoft claims that it loads pages faster than Firefox. An interesting thing to note is that this test was made just after installing, which doesn’t take into account the massive amount of slowdown Internet Explorer experiences over a very short period of time. Also, it’s easy to see why IE 8 can be so fast, it’s stripped down to the bare bones of security and features.
There are many other issues involving the two browsers. However, the gist is stated here. Questions, comments? Leave them below.
-Trenton Stahl
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.