Get the Facts on Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer

Why use Opera? There are many cons to using Opera. One, you have to pay for it! Two, some major sites discriminate against it. Three, it's not Opensource, you can't add to it. [note from Louis: Technically you can through custom buttons, userjs, toolbar setups, and other features. I think he means like, repackage the entire browser with different features or something]

So, why do I use Opera then?

A few reasons. One, I don't want to tinker - I want to surf the web. Opera comes with most everything ready to go, and it remembers your customizations when you upgrade. I've never had the experiance of a feature (extension) not working after upgrading because it wasn't also updated by a third party.

Two, speed. At least until FireFox 1.1, Opera is the only browser that has instant history traversal and pipelining enabled by default. Opera just feels fast. The UI is responsive, loading is fast, and MDI is fast. You click on a new page, and you get a new page instantly, not in a few seconds like IE.

Security. The lack of extensions is actually a benefit to me. There is no way for some extra "feature" to get installed in Opera. No third party toolbars that are spying on me. No helper apps that redirect my browsing. I never have to worry about BHO's or things like the recent XPI vulnerability. Opera is also the only browser with no vulnerabilities listed on Secuna. None. They always fix any that are found, and do so fast.

Flexibility. Opera is extremely customizable. With userjs in v8 we can do even more. I love the right click, customize menu - I can change just about anything. And I don't need third party tools or to understand XUL code to do it.

Integration. Even though I only use Opera as a browser, I appreciate the integration. In IE, I can't get mouse guestures AFAIK, and there are no tabs. In FireFox, my mouse guestures weren't designed with the tab handling extension I use in mind. In Opera, the mouse guestures were designed to complement the rest of the application. This extends to many more features. IE has limitations that can't really be overcome at all, unless you count using another program alltogether that utilizes the same rendering engine like Maxathon. FireFox, if you use any extensions, feels somewhat hacked together - because it is. You have one person's design methodology and UI for tabs, another for mouse guestures, and another for panels etc... They don't "work" together, they all are just there.In Opera, the whole suite is designed as an integrated whole.

The last main reason I use Opera is support. I know, real geeks don't need support.

Well, occasionally I do. And I can e-mail the developers and actually get help.