What’s wrong with the Opera?

Hello! Looong time since last post. This is because I have so much things to do, and of
course I don’t have much time to play with other not less important things. I remember,
I promised you to write another YUI game. Hmmmmm, I will do it, if I’ll find new idea.
Actually I’m learing lot of Windows XP/Vista/Server 2003 stuff, so this is totally far
from web developing and because of that no new “game ideas” are avaliable in my mind
at the moment :).

So, if you are getting bored reading my candid explanation I have something that could be
interesting for you.

This is screenshot of the Opera 9.21 (wokring on MS Vista)

Why it’s something wrong with displaying that page?

Don’t ask me, I don’t know, this is dedicated to Opera experts.

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Web browser memory usage

Couple of days ago I found the interesting article - “Reduce your Linux memory footprint“, the author writes how to reduce the amount of memory used by applications working on Ubuntu.
For me the most interesting part was about the web browsers. The results form “Comparison of Web browser memory usage” table are not very good for Firefox.

I decide to make same test on Windows XP with the latest version of the browsers.

This is what I did:

I launched the browser, then I opened the page, when loading was done I checked the memory usage with Process Explorer (browser was maximized),
then I closed the browser.

Each test I did three time.

And the results:

BLANK PAGE

page: www.digitalinsane.com

page: www.google.com

page: www.yahoo.com

page: www.msn.com

three tabs with all above pages

It’s not hard to guess that the Opera uses less memory than the other browsers. Internet Explorer is a little bit better than Firefox (in these tests), but it ate more memory when more tabs were open.

And the verdict is:

• Opera - first place! (fast and less memory usage),
• IE7 - second place (very interesting),
• And at the last position, The really hungry Fox!

While I’m writing this post Opera and Firefox are lunched, so lets see the actual memory usage:

Opera (6 tabs opened/6 pages loaded) uses 32 320 Kb,

FireFox (5 tabs opened/5 pages loaded) uses 77 924 Kb

Hmm… Nothing else to say…

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Browser choice?

Digging through the articles about the web browsers you can find a lot of opinions about which browser is better.

Opera users says: “My browser is faster, secure and easy customizable“,
Firefox users says: “My browser is more customizable, web services friendly, secure, and have open source code.“,
IE users says: “I’m using Internet Explorer” - forgive me, but I still can not find any benefits of using this browser. (I only run it when I have to check the pages).
Safari users says: “I have Mac and I’m using Safari” - I don’t have Mac so I can’t tell you more about this browser.

Let’s focus on the Opera and Firefox, and on which is better?

About the Opera:

1. It is fast, very fast. If you are IE user you’ll probably see the difference. Opera is based on it’s own engine (not another Gecko clone) ,and have it’s own quality. I found that it is faster than Firefox while running lots of loops (in the same time) written in JavaScript.
2. Have a mouse gestures (not extension needed) - however I never use that features.
3. Mail client.
4. Feed Reader - simple and the best, I didn’t find any extension for Firefox that could be better than this.
5. Saving the last session - very useful.
6. Easy customizable when it goes about profile files. (I use the same profiles for Opera installed on Windows XP and on Windows Vista (BETA), and everything is working great.)
7. Fine download manager (sometimes not working properly).
8. Widgets - nice, colored extension, something similar we will find in Windows Vista’s Sidebar. Useful for those who are using it :).
9. Secure - Fraud protection, popup blocker, etc.

About the Firefox:

1. Slowly start. Probably every Firefox user know about this “great” feature. I think, it is not very depended on the count of extensions.
2. Very customizable. This have its good and bad sides. You can change almost everything and use those add-ons which you are really need. However, there are many extension and you will need a lots of time to find something suitable. After installation Firefox is very “empty”, have more than IE and less than Opera.
3. Web services friendly. Yes! Especially when it goes about Google.
4. Secure. But I trust more Opera.
5. Profile files customization - same as in Opera.
6. About the rest, well, depended on how you customize it and what extension will you choose.

So, Which is better? For the very regular user, the best will be the Opera. Install and browse, you don’t have to do anything else. But if you want play with customization and you are addicted to web services, toolbars etc, the best for you will be Gecko based browser.

I’m using Firefox and Opera when I’m online and offline while I’m checking the pages. Firefox have a very helpful webmaster extensions, Google toolbar and easy cooperate with Google services - notepad, gmail, etc. - so it is useful for such a thing).

As I said at the beginning of this post: I’m using IE only for testing the pages, not for regular browsing.
Of course if you are webmaster you’ll have to have them all on your disk…

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Firefox 3 - Gran Paradiso Alpha 1

Mozilla has released alpha 1 version of Firefox 3 - code name “Gran Paradiso“. This version is available only for testing purposes, the full version is planned for release before the end of 2007.

Grand Paradiso uses the 1.9 version of Gecko engine and for layout and rendering - Cairo as the default graphics library. The user interface remain unchanged from Firefox 2.

The one of the important information is that Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, OS X 10.2 are no longer supported platforms by Gecko 1.9 and of course Firefox 3 will not work on these systems.

Version 2.0 is the latest stable version of Firefox, Gran Paradiso alpha 1 should be used only for tests.

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