Mozilla Firefox or Opera, choose your browser. (25 Viewers)
- Thread starter Martin
- Start date
Ok so this thread has convinced me to move from firefox to opera. I've only been using it for an hour or so but so far, so good. Only thing that is weird is every time i open something in a new tab it opens that tab rather than staying on the tab that i was working from. Is there a setting i can change to make it stay on the current tab?
Any help is greatly appreciated
Any help is greatly appreciated
I've been using it for several days and getting used to it. The thing is that Chromium seems to understand where it stands (unlike Opera btw). Which is that FF has a huge user base right now and is more or less the most important browser. (Even if IE is still bigger it's become a laughing stock a long time ago.) So if you want to attract FF users you have to make life comfortable for them, because people are unwilling to give up things they are used to.
This is not just supporting extensions, but a lot small things that are easy to accommodate, like F6 switches focus to the location bar. Ctrl+Shift+T opens the last closed tab. Opening a new tab places it in the same location as in FF (to the right). The one thing visibly different is that a new tab loads in the background, you have to specifically switch to it. Also, bookmarks and saved passwords (very important!) you can import.
In other words, they do enough to convince you that yes they do care about what you like. They don't stubbornly follow this "our way or the highway" which imo is the #1 reason Opera has never been more than a marginal browser.
I still miss things in Chromium (notably the Emacs extension), but I've been using it now for several days and sorta liking it, after many years of non-stop FF. I'm even surprised myself.
This is not just supporting extensions, but a lot small things that are easy to accommodate, like F6 switches focus to the location bar. Ctrl+Shift+T opens the last closed tab. Opening a new tab places it in the same location as in FF (to the right). The one thing visibly different is that a new tab loads in the background, you have to specifically switch to it. Also, bookmarks and saved passwords (very important!) you can import.
In other words, they do enough to convince you that yes they do care about what you like. They don't stubbornly follow this "our way or the highway" which imo is the #1 reason Opera has never been more than a marginal browser.
I still miss things in Chromium (notably the Emacs extension), but I've been using it now for several days and sorta liking it, after many years of non-stop FF. I'm even surprised myself.
What are you talking about? I opened a new tab in Chrome, and it was active as soon as I opened it. Opening a new tab in Opera places it to the right also. Also, this is usually customizable. Opera Link syncs bookmarks, and you can access it on Opera, Opera Mobile or from ANY browser using the Opera Link website. As for importing passwords, I feel it might be a potential security risk, but OK, I'll give that to Chrome. All the reasons you mentioned as to why Chrome is better simply makes no sense.
Customizing a browser to fit your needs doesn't mean that you need to customize it to death. I merely stated customization as an option to alter tab behaviour to your needs.
Besides, if you don't want a browser you can customize to death, then FF is definitely not the browser you should go for. It provides all the basic functions and features that Opera and Chrome do. The biggest selling point is the option to install extensions and customize it!
Besides, if you don't want a browser you can customize to death, then FF is definitely not the browser you should go for. It provides all the basic functions and features that Opera and Chrome do. The biggest selling point is the option to install extensions and customize it!
Okay, here's what I meant. Product A is what you're used to, comfortable with. Product B comes along. Product B has defaults you don't like, but it also has options to customize it a hundred thousand different ways. Therefore, vendor of product B things he can capture the market, right?
Wrong. The vast majority of people will not spend ages fine tuning the settings, they will more or less judge product B on the defaults it has. Therefore the defaults matter so much more than the options.
Wrong. The vast majority of people will not spend ages fine tuning the settings, they will more or less judge product B on the defaults it has. Therefore the defaults matter so much more than the options.
The whole idea is providing a different experience. If Product B was more or less the same as Product A, whats the use? Its like saying Android devices should look and act like the iPhone if it wants to capture the market. It might be true, but it defeats the purpose.
Also some of the default settings in the browsers you might have used doesn't make sense. For example, a Ctrl+Tab on Firefox (3.0) will give you the next Tab. On Opera it'll give you the previous Tab. So if you have four tabs open, if you want to shift between Tab1 and Tab3, you don't need to go through Tab2 and Tab4. Very much like you would do on an OS. Do a Alt+Tab on most OS will give you the previous application.
Also some of the default settings in the browsers you might have used doesn't make sense. For example, a Ctrl+Tab on Firefox (3.0) will give you the next Tab. On Opera it'll give you the previous Tab. So if you have four tabs open, if you want to shift between Tab1 and Tab3, you don't need to go through Tab2 and Tab4. Very much like you would do on an OS. Do a Alt+Tab on most OS will give you the previous application.
Well, that's the other possibility. Basically you have two choices:
1) Convince users of Product A that your app is so superior that they should switch no matter how many habits they have to give up. Essentially convince them that "you're doing it wrong".
2) Convince users of Product A that your app is "not really that different, you can still use what you know, but it's just a bit nicer".
Needless to say, extremely rarely do you succeed with #1. I was trying to do that back in 2003 to get IE users to Mozilla. And it worked because Mozilla really was that superior. But that doesn't happen so often.
And imo iPhone or Android doesn't have nearly a good enough story at the moment to recruit users from the rival using #1.
Actually I don't like Ctrl+Tab and never really used it. I prefer to use the mouse scrollwheel to cycle between tabs (like in Konqueror, vim etc). But in FF there are some extensions that makes your browser more "keyboard enabled" which I use, so you can change tabs, scroll up and down etc all from the keyboard (and just using single keys, not Ctrl or Alt).
1) Convince users of Product A that your app is so superior that they should switch no matter how many habits they have to give up. Essentially convince them that "you're doing it wrong".
2) Convince users of Product A that your app is "not really that different, you can still use what you know, but it's just a bit nicer".
Needless to say, extremely rarely do you succeed with #1. I was trying to do that back in 2003 to get IE users to Mozilla. And it worked because Mozilla really was that superior. But that doesn't happen so often.
And imo iPhone or Android doesn't have nearly a good enough story at the moment to recruit users from the rival using #1.
Actually I don't like Ctrl+Tab and never really used it. I prefer to use the mouse scrollwheel to cycle between tabs (like in Konqueror, vim etc). But in FF there are some extensions that makes your browser more "keyboard enabled" which I use, so you can change tabs, scroll up and down etc all from the keyboard (and just using single keys, not Ctrl or Alt).
So we are back to square one where we have to customize the app 
The thing I like the most about Opera is that it gives a lot of features out of the box. No add-ons or anything. And I think the users Opera need to target is those who leave IE and are looking for a new browser. Not the ones switching from Firefox.
The thing I like the most about Opera is that it gives a lot of features out of the box. No add-ons or anything. And I think the users Opera need to target is those who leave IE and are looking for a new browser. Not the ones switching from Firefox.