Opera 7 compared to Phoenix

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hiTCH-HiKER
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Opera 7 compared to Phoenix

Post by hiTCH-HiKER »

I like the new Opera 7, because some of the important Phoenix features were implemented like the downloads in the sidebar or favicon support. But favicons don't work in bookmarks for now, I hope they fix that... ok I'm off for some speed and memory testing :)

FYI Opera download link:
http://www.opera.com/download/index.dml ... &ver=7.0b1

The last weeks were really exciting for browser freaks like me!
michal017
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Post by michal017 »

test also standard compliance, I'm really interesting in this.. (probably the only thing where Gecko beats Opera)
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ed_welch
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Microsoft DOM

Post by ed_welch »

I tried it and it is faster than Phoenix.
Interestingly they seem to use Microsoft DOM.
michal017
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Re: Microsoft DOM

Post by michal017 »

ed_welch wrote:I tried it and it is faster than Phoenix.
Interestingly they seem to use Microsoft DOM.

faster in what way? UI was faster before, so no improvement on this one ;)
tve
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Post by tve »

as long as they dont remove that banner and provide their browser 100% for free, they will never have a chance to compete with IE and the various Mozilla projects.

I've seen screenshots and dont like the interface, way too big icons, at least they nicely fit to the banner :roll:
hiTCH-HiKER
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Post by hiTCH-HiKER »

two legged freak wrote:as long as they dont remove that banner and provide their browser 100% for free, they will never have a chance to compete with IE and the various Mozilla projects.

I've seen screenshots and dont like the interface, way too big icons, at least they nicely fit to the banner :roll:


I have a desktop resolution of 1600x1200 and I like those icons and the cool icon text effect ;)
The banner is white all the time when using WebWasher, so no problems!
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Rashid Muhammad
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Say what you want...

Post by Rashid Muhammad »

NOTE: This is based on about 20 minutes of usage. YMMV and so might mine after I use it more.

I just downloaded Opera 7 (all 3MB of it) and installed it and Phoenix has its work cut out. The damn thing has gotten even faster than before, and all of the little quirks that annoyed me before (the way it renders CSS padded links, broken - but still better than IE - fixed positioning, the DIV page load bug) are gone. There still some issues with cell padding on one of my more involved CSS layouts but nothing major.

I swear that the thing is at LEAST twice as fast as Phoenix when rendering a page. Of course Phoenix will never be as fast as Opera but the speed difference really hits harder than before. Slashdots comment page seemed to lag a little, but after loading it in Phoenix Opera still blew it away. I've always thought that Opera was waay overrated but I am truly impressed by this release.

I haven't messed with the DOM much but presentation standards compliance looks top notch. At least somebody has stepped up to the high bar that Mozilla.org has set. I'm not too crazy about the chrome and it looks less native than Moz with the classic skin. It's still fast and responsive though. The speed of the browser just causes the ad to disappear for me. Let me say that outside of the HTML / CSS rendering engine, there is nothing special that I can see. Mozilla / Phoenix will still be my browser of choice but the competition appears to have gotten much stiffer, and smaller. FYI 30 MB of memory used with one window / page open.
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Faux Pass
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Post by Faux Pass »

two legged freak wrote:as long as they dont remove that banner and provide their browser 100% for free, they will never have a chance to compete with IE and the various Mozilla projects.


You kind of sound like you think we should just ignore Opera. As long as Opera is superior to Phoenix in any way, I think we should pay close attention to it, whether or not it's believed to be a serious competitor to Phoenix.

My own thoughts after ten minutes with Opera:
* I'm very pleased to see multiple user support. That's one of the reasons I orginially switched to Phoenix.
* Whoa... the installer's 3MB!
* Hey, a link toolbar. That's kind of neat. But is it actually useful?
* Keyword searches are still not (easily) customizable.
* There's a new kind of blueish theme to Opera I don't like at all. Most noticeable in the link toolbar and Bookmark properties.
* After Phoenix's delicious two-bar layout, those buttons look huge. (Plus, of course, that darn banner)
* Tabs with short titles: short tabs! I like it!
* Feels very fast
* Still not as ideologically cuddly as Mozilla!

Can someone with DOM Javascript knowledge (ahem, Stefan?) give an opinion on Opera7's standard compliance?
hiTCH-HiKER
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Post by hiTCH-HiKER »

I just started Opera 6, Opera 7 and Phoenix with Anandtech.com, this is the memory usage:

Opera6: 10MB
Opera7: 14MB
Phoenix: 20MB

Thats quite big differences...
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Rashid Muhammad
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Opera Memory usage...

Post by Rashid Muhammad »

See for yourself

<a href="http://www.rashidmuhammad.com/images/operamoz1.png">http://www.rashidmuhammad.com/images/operamoz1.png</a>

Notice that there is one Opera window open and 8 Mozilla tabs.
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Faux Pass
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Other nice & new things about Opera7

Post by Faux Pass »

Other nice new things I've noticed about Opera7:

* Draggable tabs! Yes, I know that with the Tabbed Browsing extension Phoenix can have it too. (Why isn't it standard behavior?) But, I have to say, it's very smooth in Opera. Try it out.
* Draggable links. Something Phoenix has had for a while. However: Why does dragging a Phoenix link result in the international "no" symbol? Does that suggest to anybody that links can't be dragged at all? (Yes, I know that it actually means that links can't be dragged onto the page) In Opera, dragging a link has a <i>very</i> nice translucent effect that I recommend y'all admire.
Ted Mielczarek
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Re: Other nice & new things about Opera7

Post by Ted Mielczarek »

Faux Pass wrote:Other nice new things I've noticed about Opera7:

* Draggable tabs! Yes, I know that with the Tabbed Browsing extension Phoenix can have it too. (Why isn't it standard behavior?) But, I have to say, it's very smooth in Opera. Try it out.
* Draggable links. Something Phoenix has had for a while. However: Why does dragging a Phoenix link result in the international "no" symbol? Does that suggest to anybody that links can't be dragged at all? (Yes, I know that it actually means that links can't be dragged onto the page) In Opera, dragging a link has a <i>very</i> nice translucent effect that I recommend y'all admire.


The draggable links "no symbol" looks like a bug, it's definitely inconsistent. If you drag the link all the way to the tab bar or location bar, it will turn into a drop symbol. If you then drag back to the page body, it will remain a drop symbol, and you can drop it in the page body and load that link. I'm not sure what the preferred behavior ought to be here. It should certainly be consistent. Either you a) can drop links into the page body to load them, or b) cannot drop links into the body. The problem is that if you click a link but then change your mind, and you drag off the link, you will open it anyway, which is somewhat unintuitive. Not sure how that should be handled.
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Stefan
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Post by Stefan »

Faux Pass wrote:Can someone with DOM Javascript knowledge (ahem, Stefan?) give an opinion on Opera7's standard compliance?


Actually my forte is CSS and I have only spent a few minuts using it yet, but O7 is definitly much better at CSS at least.

Still seeing some quirks here and there on some testpages I have but those were almost impossible browse at all in O6. Definitly a greate leap forward.

Will defintly be a worthy sparring partner to Gecko and also help push for more standards compliant webpages on the net.

Oh also, that excellent switch CSS button available directly in the inteface (instead of as downloadable extension hiding it in a menu) is a GREAT feature.
It's just like what I whished for Phoenix to have for a few weeks ago and was told "nobody uses that anyway" ;)
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Rashid Muhammad
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Other Opera 7 stuff

Post by Rashid Muhammad »

For some reason I can't highlight text on my site but can on others. If I right click and choose copy text it does copy what I thought that I would have highlighted but no feedback. It seems to work the same way on Eric Meyer's <a href="http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/">CSS Edge</a> site as well. I wonder if it's a CSS related issue. When I switch windows and come back it's highlighted. :-\

When you right click on the address / location box you dont get a standard cut / copy / paste menu. You get prefs for the entire toolbar. Like if you right clicked the actual toolbar in Phoenix. It's like the addressbar isn't its own control. Words can't describe how irritating this is.

I like the mouseover feedback on all form buttons.

It still seems to add a margin on some pages where the margin of the body element is defined as 0. Though it seems to do this less than earlier versions.

You mouse over a link with no alt or title attribute and it gives you the URL. I guess this is to compensate for the lack of a persistent status bar. Still I like.

I swear this thing acts like it's written in machine code. Everything about it is snappy. Maybe to a fault because the response in the preferences menu is faster than what I'm used to in ANY other application. It could be because of static valtiblin all of the panes though. I no know...
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Faux Pass
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Post by Faux Pass »

Stefan wrote:Oh also, that excellent switch CSS button available directly in the inteface (instead of as downloadable extension hiding it in a menu) is a GREAT feature.
It's just like what I whished for Phoenix to have for a few weeks ago and was told "nobody uses that anyway" ;)


I've loved (and used) the style-switcher too, and agree it would be a valuable and reasonable addition to Phoenix. <a href="http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html">Zap</a> just doesn't cut it.
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