Firefox vs Opera
From WikiVS, the open comparison website
| Firefox | Opera | |
|---|---|---|
| VS
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| http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ | http://www.opera.com/ |
Firefox and Opera are both freely available web browsers that attract loyal fans. Both are faster and more featured than Internet Explorer, the default web browser in Windows.
Contents |
[edit] Standards Compliance
Opera is more Web standards compliant than Firefox, having more support for current standards such as CSS 2.1, SVG, DOM2. Firefox typically has a reputation for adopting newer, experimental proposals for standards, or "working draft" standards such as DOMStorage, Cross Site Access Control and <video> - while Opera opts to only try out such unstable features in experimental labs builds meanwhile focusing on completing current stable standards support in the publicly released main browser.
[edit] Performance
Opera renders HTML pages faster than Firefox and also consumes less memory.
Opera has a more responsive feel to its interface. Pressing 'back' goes to the previous page almost instantaneously.
Firefox 3.* has been faster than Opera in Javascript performance up to Opera 10. However, Opera 10.5 has a new Javascript engine named Carakan that is twice as fast as Firefox and makes Opera the fastest browser in the market [1].
[edit] Features
[edit] Awesomebar
Opera 10.5 is planned to include a location bar similar to Firefox's Awesomebar that can search for items in the bookmark and history.
[edit] Tabbed Browsing
Both Opera and Firefox support forms of tabbed browsing. However both browsers' tabs operate differently - Opera's tabs behave like "mini windows" within the browser meaning you can drag them out of the browser, drag them back in and also minimise them and restore them within the browser - this is convenient for many things such as looking at two webpages side-by-side by restoring both tabs. Opera also optionally shows thumbnails of the webpage on each tab. Many people prefer Firefox's tabs system for this reason however - as it does not mimic normal windows, instead "staying put" in the browser in a more "controlled" fashion.
[edit] Private Tabs
Opera 10.5 includes the ability to mark a tab as "Private", thereby preventing the browser from tracking any activity that happens within the marked tab.
[edit]
Opera supports navigating a page by selecting elements using SHIFT+Arrow key. This allows users to surf the web without using the mouse, but meanwhile avoiding having to click TAB couple hundred times.
Firefox does not support spatial navigation, but are apparently planning to add support at some stage.
[edit] Full History Search
Opera has full history search, meaning that users can search not only the url but also the content of pages previously viewed.
Firefox does not support full history searching, but can search through the titles of pages viewed in history.
[edit] Configurable Shortcut Keys
Opera's shortcut keys can be configured through its user interface.
Firefox users can download the Keyconfig extension for this feature.
[edit] Rewind, Fast Forward
Rewind and Fast Forward functionality comes built-in with Opera.
Firefox users can download the Next, Please! extension.
[edit] Extensions
Firefox is incredibly extensible through the thousands of extensions that are available for download. Opera does not have an extensions framework like Firefox's, relying on built in customisability instead.
[edit] Plugins
Both browsers support the same "NPAPI" plugin system for plugins such as Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime and Microsoft Windows Media Player, meaning a plugin built for Firefox will work in Opera, and vice-versa.
[edit] Security
According to Secunia (Vulnerability Report: Mozilla Firefox 2.0.x and Vulnerability Report: Opera 9.x), Opera has less of both total security issues and unpatched security issues.
[edit] Popularity
Firefox is more popular than Opera. Opera has less than 1% of the browser market share, while Firefox holds 21.1% as of January, 2008. [2]
[edit] License
Firefox is open-source and free software. Opera is proprietary software. Both are available for free online -but until 8.5 Opera was shareware (limited time) or adware (advertising). And, while you have the warranty that Firefox will forever free (copyleft), Opera could return to adware or shareware. However, it isn't probable.
[edit] Problems with Firefox and Debian
While Mozilla Firefox is open source, it is not entirely free, and it may not even be legally compatible with Debian GNU/Linux, one of the most popular community Linux distribution bases.
— Sean Michael Kerner , InternetNews.com: Firefox Not Really Free?
However, they made a special version of Firefox, called IceWeasel, with a different logo, fully GPL (Firefox's license allow forks under MPL, GPL or LGPL), because the problems were only the MPL, and almost exactly the same code, only replacing "Firefox" by "IceWeasel". Extensions which work with Firefox in Ubuntu will work on IceWeasel.
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