I’ve got to upgrade my browser (Navigator 4.61) because a site I visit a lot has become incompatible with it. What are the advantages and disadvantages of Opera, Mozilla, and Netscape Communicator 7.0?
Thanks in advance.
Ignore Netscape 7.0 (no longer Communicator), since it is basically an outdated version of Mozilla with a bunch of crappy programs taped to it.
Mozilla is slowly forming into a decent browser. It is compliant (though there are still a few things it doesn’t render at all, mostly due to them being coded for IE non-standards). It has a decent mail client now, but that’s about it. The main reasons people love Mozilla now are tabbed browsing, popup blocking, download manager, etc. It still has a fairly big footprint, though, and is still under development. Development builds are pretty stable (I haven’t had any problems with 1.3), but there are around 300 major bugs remaining in the code. The default skins are pretty ugly, but it’s all a matter of taste. :-p
Opera… well, it’s strongest points before were size and tabbed browsing. Size hardly matters these days, and Mozilla licks it in tabbed browsing and e-mail client. Still, Opera is a solid browser, if you don’t mind purchasing it. I just didn’t see the need for it’s features, since some of the interface is awkward. I did appreciate being able to completely change the skin, but I still didn’t like the interface.
I still use IE6 for most browsing, unless I’m opening a lot of windows or need security, and then I use Mozilla. I also use Mozilla Mail as my mail client. If Mozilla progresses just a bit more (and MS doesn’t change IE pretty quickly), I’ll eventually migrate to it.
I prefer IE for its, by far, cleaner and simpler interface, as well as the fact that every site is designed to be compatible with it. It also loads faster on windows and seems to take up less resources (and i know it’s because it’s already running from the start).
It also has a few features that i find completely indispensible:
[ul]
[li] CTRL+N opens a new window to the same page as the original one with the complete browsing history (back button) intact. It essentially clones the original window.[/li][li] ALT+D takes you to the address field and is an easily accessible hotkey. This is opposed to Opera which uses F8 (have to take hands off home row) and Mozilla, which i think merely uses Tab. The problem with Tab is that if a link is highlighted, it’s not gonna take you to the address field.[/li][li] CTRL+ENTER fills in the www. and the .com of an address. This may seem trivial, but you won’t realize how annoying typing .com is untill you no longer have to.[/li][li] It’s possible to set up shortcuts so that typing into the address field “gg SOCKS” will automatically connect you with the address www.google.com/search?q=SOCKS. I know that some other browsers have a built in field to search google, but that requires you to take your mouse, click on the field, and then type it in. This is opposed to ALT+D, gg SOCKS, ENTER, enjoy.[/li][li] Not sure about whether other browsers have this or not, but SHIFT+click opens the link in a new window.[/li][li] And, like i’ve hinted to before, it doesn’t take up half my screen like Opera does, and isn’t as bloated as any of them.[/li][/ul]
Other browsers have nifty features like ad-blocking, but for me it’s just not worth it giving up these. Also, all those nifty features usually amout to bloatware. As for tabbed browsing, it’s MUCH easier to simply use ALT+Tab in windows that try to navigate those tabs using built-in hotkeys.
You don’t need to go to that much trouble. Hit the “Search” icon, then choose “Customize” in the upper right corner of the search window. Now, click the “Autosearch settings” button at the bottom of the “customize” window that just opened. Choose “Google Sites” and “Just display results in the main window,” and you’re in business: if you now enter “Socks” in the address bar, you’ll be taken to a Google search for “socks.”
Only thing is that IE will first spend five seconds trying to connect to http://socks/ before realizing that it’s not a valid address and send you to the search page. Too annoying imo.
I alternate between Opera and IE. The nice thing about IE is everyone codes for it. Opera (and the others, for that matter) sometimes freak out on a site because the web designer added some IE-only code.
However, I still use Opera because it gives you information on how the download is going - is it slow because the site is down, or is it still downloading slowly. You can turn on/off images quickly and enable/disable JavaScript, which is nice for me. Finally, if you have an Opera workspace, you can see how all your pages are downloading - the title text turns blue when the download is complete.
Opera also supports SHIFT+click and “g SOCKS” for a google search, and you don’t have to type the www and com part of the address.
It’s personal preference, IMHO.
That’s true for a one-word entry, but if you enter “bunny slippers” in the address bar, it goes straight to Google. YMMV, but I usually find myself doing multi-word searches.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Alex_Dubinsky *
[ul][li] CTRL+N opens a new window to the same page as the original one with the complete browsing history (back button) intact. It essentially clones the original window.[/ul][/li][/quote]
Mozilla is even easier, and automatically adds the www and com when you hit enter.
Every site? Cite?
Not true. A professional web developer codes according to standards, and not for a particular browser. And in some cases, the incentive to code to standards is that the law requires it. In many circles, IE is such a security risk, it’s banned.
Getting back to the OP, go with Opera and Mozilla, preferably both. In my experience regularly using the above two, along with IE because I check for compatibility, Opera and Mozilla are faster, leaner and meaner than IE. I can control popups with a need for third-party software, the tabbing is great and I can customize my browser to suit my needs, and not what Bill Gates says is good for me.
In some tests, the amount of spyware and other hidden gems which IE downloads (without my knowledge or permission) is practically non-existent with Opera and Mozilla.
But don’t just listen to me, …
Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,715464,00.asp
When industry heavyweights start proclaiming IE has lost it, even with M$ pressure to say otherwise, yow owe it to yourself to see the light, too.
Uh-oh. I’m catching myself agreeing with Dvorak.
Count me as another vote for Mozilla. Opera 6 was pretty slick, too, but it suffered from more compatibility and rendering problems than Mozilla does. I’ve yet to download Opera 7, because 95% of my home computing is done in Linux these days.
If you’re moving from Netscape, Mozilla is definitely the way to go. It’ll have the most familiar interface and preference settings.
Things I like the most:
Setting the middle mouse button/wheel to open a new tab in the background when I click a link.
Ctrl+L to type in an address. If I want to search instead, I just hit the down arrow to search Google for what I’ve typed in.
The personal toolbar, where I keep my most oft-used bookmarks. I can’t remember if IE has the same feature or not, though I know Opera did.
The Composer. It complies to standards so well that I make the technically inept contributors to the site I run send me all of their essays, columns, and reviews as html pages typed in Composer. Beats the hell outta the mess that Word/Works make of html files.
YMMV, but seriously, give Mozilla a shot.
I would not recommend purchasing Opera until the first non-beta version of Opera 7 is released, and I’m a huge fan of their software.
I used Opera 6 at home for many months. I found it faster at rendering most HTML pages, loved the pop-up blocking feature and nice little touches like being able to toggle on-screen between the default and your own custom stylesheets, to toggle between image loading, cached image loading and no images and (surprisingly useful) the ability to open link in a new background tab in the MDI.
However, the bookmarks are fiddly (no IE-style right-click options) and some Java-heavy sites tended to crash it, so I couldn’t abandon IE altogether.
Opera 7 Beta 2 has addressed these problem sites to the degree that I now use it exclusively at home. I’ve not found a site that crashes it yet, and I do like the new “open requested pop-ups only” option that allows you to keep useful pop-ups (such as Hotmail’s address list). I still don’t like the bookmark system, mind.
True. However, when I use Opera, I find it hiccups on some sites because the web developers have used Front Page which uses some ActiveX component or something like that. In an ideal world, all web developers would test their site on Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, and I.E. using multiple versions and multiple OS’s, but it would also rain manna and our cats and dogs would get along, too. Because I.E. is so prevalent, if the web developers do test their site, they tend to use I.E. Bad news for non-I.E. users.
In the U.S., I think the only “standards law” is the ADA, which only applies to government sites through Section 508. Cites:
http://www.abanet.org/journal/ereport/n22ada.html
Note that I’m for standards, but it’s not law for most places in the U.S. Yet. What’s it like in other countries?
Clearing a bit of misinformation:
For Mozilla: [ul]
[li]Ctrl-l takes you immediately to the address bar[/li][li]With tabbed browsing enabled, middle-button click will open a link in a new tab. More on this later.[/li][li]Mozilla takes up exactly as much or as little of the screen as you want it to. Customized skins are available so that the controles are as big or as small as you like.[/li][/ul]
**
Firstly, Alt-tab makes you cycle through ALL open windows, not just the open browser windows, so people who generally have more other windows open benefit more from tabbed browsing.
Secondly, the code that creates windows and switches perspectives between different windows is noticably slower than the code that switches between tabs, so it is quicker to go trhough your tabs than it is to go through your windows searching for the one you want.
-lv
I am loving Phoenix, a cousin of Mozilla. Popup blocking, speed, configurability, and tabed browsing are all great.
Mozilla is the best.
I’m with Satasha, I LOVE Phoenix. If you want a full load of features, though, Mozilla is hard to beat. I don’t like Opera, primarily because of its ads (if you don’t pay), and in my experience it crashed a lot more than either IE or Mozilla/Phoenix.