Is it time to remove firefox and try Opera ?

[Puma]

For more than a month I have had issues with firefox. Some affiliate managers i have spoken to agree firefox is making their lives hell. Links not working, games not playing, plugin not being installled and thats just a few issues.

So I decided to try OPERA . Opera imo is growing fast and seems to be very popular. With Millions already using this browser i wonder if it is time to change?

The first thing I noticed was the speed in which my browsing changed as soon as I started using Opera. ( crowd nods ) it was super fast. It was like i could switch from one page to another in seconds less than firefox. Seconds may not be important to everybody but when you have 10 pages open at the same time it sure does make a difference.

Anyway i just wanted to share my experience and maybe get some feedback from other members about what they think.

Cheers

Chris

[TheGooner]

For more than a month I have had issues with firefox. Some affiliate managers i have spoken to agree firefox is making their lives hell. Links not working, games not playing, plugin not being installled and thats just a few issues.

So I decided to try OPERA . Opera imo is growing fast and seems to be very popular. With Millions already using this browser i wonder if it is time to change?

Opera is obscure and will quickly go the way of Firefox in terms of lack of support.

My site stats suggest already that Google's Chrome is as much as 30-33% of surfers, with Mozilla / Firefox at 24%. (opera is about 2%) The masses embrace anything and every Google has to offer

So if you want to jump onto something that will be supported in futire then get onto Chrome browser - but have MSIE on standby to access some sites that don't support it.

[matted]

This link has general web stats on browser usage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_s...f_web_browsers

I use firefox and have since the start for the most part. Initially, it was done right, but like IE has become bloated over time. And it has a long standing memory leak or something - at times Firefox takes up over 1GB of memory. (Yes, GB = gigabyte).

I use Chrome when I'm feeling adventurous, but lacks support (or used to) to choose media player plugins and such. It kept using quicktime which I hate. But it was fast and clean with decent plugins available.

[TheGooner]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_s...f_web_browsers

Some fascinating stuff there and massive fluctuations.

Thanks!

[Adam_1]

I have noticed a surge in opera usage on my sites.

I have been going bonkers with fire fox lately crashing all the time!!


I use chrome a lot now, the lack of plugins and the habit of using FF, keeps me from using it exclusive.

I think it might be time just remove FF from start up menu and desk top making it harder to mindlessly launch it at 5:00am when I start working.

[hazo]

About 45% of my visitors use IE.

I've started using Chrome on my Macbook instead of Safari because of a couple of little things like not being able to see the link address you're about to click on?

FF is increasingly pissing me off. I used to use a lot of plugins and do heaps of things with it. Now I just want to log in and get to work. I find that Chrome is super fast for this. Lightweight and never crashes like the others.

I might check out Opera now as well.

[brean78]

It will be very interesting to see what happens now that Microsoft are no longer allowed to bundle IE for European versions of Windows. I imagine a lot of people will jump on Chrome, as it has been heavily marketed recently and loads of people have google for mail, docs, calendar - why not the browser as well...

Personally I wont be changing from ff any time soon. Yes it does have its drawbacks and is a bit clunky and slow, but at least I don't feel like I am being followed round by Google eyes - watching my every move. As I Rely heavily on SEO from Google I don't want to be giving them too much info on what I am up to.

[Dominique]

I have 72% IE visitors, and 14% firefox.

Personally, I find firefox way too slow. Starting to remind me of dial-up connections.

[Puma]

I did notice on my second day of using Opera that it has some issues with forums. Not this one but mine of course. And my movie channel doesnt like Opera but everything else seems very smooth. The fact that it has a widget drop do so i can twitter right from my website makes it very worth it.

[villa10]

IE is the browser used by the masses to use the internet. Firefox, Chrome, Opera are still sophisticated toys for webmasters.
The only FF use for me, are the SEO tools that are great.

[TheGooner]

IE is the browser used by the masses to use the internet. Firefox, Chrome, Opera are still sophisticated toys for webmasters.

I predict Chrome will have a significant share (25%+) by end of 2010 and will be dominant (50%+) by 2011.

Google marketting will see to that !

[Doolally]

I agree Chrome will quickly take a lot of market share from both IE and Firefox. Personally I like Safari as an alternative.

[thepokerkeep]

I tried loading Chrome on my Vista machine and keep getting this error message:
Error code = 0x80040204
The download file failed verification.

Anyone know a workaround for this?

I disabled my AV - no luck.
I searched Google - no luck.

[Puma]

I see someone uninstalled their AVirus program and then tried again and it worked. Then reinstalled their Avirus program, A lot of work for a browser though

I tried loading Chrome on my Vista machine and keep getting this error message:
Error code = 0x80040204
The download file failed verification.

Anyone know a workaround for this?

I disabled my AV - no luck.
I searched Google - no luck.

[thepokerkeep]

Finally disabled my firewall and antivirus to get the damn thing to download.

[shar61]

Well now I find this thread very interesting as I just bought a new PC, downloaded Firefox and it worked great until today. Think I will try this Google Chrome. Thanks for posting about the subject.

[Adam_1]

Sounds like a ploy to keep IE as the browser of choice on Vista machines...I wonder how many other people of had this problem.....

Finally disabled my firewall and antivirus to get the damn thing to download.

[AmCan]

Sounds like a ploy to keep IE as the browser of choice on Vista machines

i remember years back when explorer was coded to prevent a successful download of Netscape, which microsoft of course denied.

my biggest site (about 600,000 visits per month, 40% us, 25% european, 14% UK ) has 56.6% explorer, 26.7% firefox, 8.2% safari, 5.5% chrome, 1% opera.

Based on that i would bet against chrome hitting more than 10-15% in the next year of two. but i'll bet it's explorer that will continuing losing share.

[thepokerkeep]

Well... I played with Chrome today and had a truly frustrating experience. It won't keep me logged in here for one thing. Some sites I visited looked like crap in Chrome too. I'll keep it on my machine for a while and see if they fix the issues but Firefox is still my browser of choice. No comparison in my opinion!