Opera is Megatastic

[super breadfish]

Do you like FF's download manager? I feel like Opera's gives you so much more control and information. FF's is worthless, even compared to IE's, and I can't seem to find an extension that does anything about it...

Well, you could try Flashgot. It's not a download manager itself, instead it lets you integrate your own download manager into Firefox. I used to use it all the time.

I don't use Opera, I couldn't get on with the interface. Opera Mobile, however, i use all the time. Makes the internet on my phone a much more pleasurable experience. After snake it's my favourite mobile app.

[rubinstein]

I don't use Opera, because it's proprietary software. What is the point to run Ubuntu (=free/libre software) and then install proprietary software on it?

I can understand it if you don't have an alternative, but there are Firefox, Epiphany, Konqueror and others.

[LordFu]

Not all of us are all hung-up on F/OSS. I use Ubuntu because it's a good operating system. I'm not interested in the politics.

OT: My two favorite Opera features are the ability to Zoom (great for videos) and the New Tab button.

[kerry_s]

I hate how opera handles plug-ins, flash, mplayer, etc...I'ts like they don't cooperate with others to get good plug-ins support. On top of that it's always slower than firefox for me, so opera is not even on my radar.

[urukrama]

I love Opera as well, and used it long before I even heard of Firefox. I use its email client as well, and though it could be improved on it is very easy and powerful in use (its filters are great!)

What I especially like in Opera:

* The speed! And the neat pop up progress bar (you have to enable this) where you can see the speed at which the site loads, how much more it has to load, how many more images, etc. If the images take too long to load, just switch the images off for this page with one click.
* The 'forward' and 'rewind' button. If you have a password saved with the 'wand', it enters it automatically when you press forward. Great also for browsing pictures: just click forward and you go to the next one (for most sites).
* Right - Left mouse click brings you back in history; left-right goes forward (or same as the forward button). It makes browsing so much easier! Very frustrating if you're using another browser that doesn't have this feature, and you're used to it.
* you can choose how to start Opera: load homepage, no pages, sessions (!), or just what was last opened.
* the trashcan (in the upper right corner): any tabs you have closed (including its history) can be easily opened again. If you just want the last closed tab, type Ctrl+Alt+Z and you are back there.
* The 'duplicate tab' option (right click on a tab). Again the history and all is duplicated.
* Site preferences. Have a site that doesn't recognises only IE? Edit your site preferences, and make Opera identify as IE, or even mask as IE.
* Press spacebar to go down the page (standard, no?). When you reach the end of the page, press spacebar again and it takes you to the next. Great for Google searches!
* Disable gif animation!
* Block unwanted ads.
* Asign shortcuts or nicknames to bookmarked sites
* The transfer (download) system. See how fast things go, where you are downloading from and where to, option to retransfer or pause transfer, or use the quick download option (just enter a url). Torrents will also appear there.
* the option to save particular file types (mp3, pdf, etc) to particular locations on your hard drive
* 'Work offline' option
* 'Links' panel: see where the site you are on links to.
* The notes feature. Just select some text, right click and select 'save to note'. A new note is created and the url is automatically preserved. Just double click on the note and the webpage is opened.
* the built in search engines. Type 'g ubuntu' and you do a google search for Ubuntu; z for amazon, etc.
* 'Fit to width': is the image to big and do you have to use the horizontal scrollbar, or is the page just badly designed for your small screen? Click the fit to width button and it is automatically resized or adjusted.
* Zoom easily in and out.
* Its easy to customise the look. Move all buttons around until you like where they are.
* etc.

[finferflu]

I hate how opera handles plug-ins, flash, mplayer, etc...I'ts like they don't cooperate with others to get good plug-ins support. On top of that it's always slower than firefox for me, so opera is not even on my radar.

I second that, and I add that I hate the zoom feature, I wish I knew how to enlarge the caracter without the images.
I like it's speed in general, even though it's not very quick to load pages, and at times it leaks, so that my fan goes crazy.
I mainly use it as a supplement to FF, when I can't get some website to load on it.
Also, I've read that Opera is the most secure web browser out there, which is a very good reason to use it.
What I miss are the plugins, and open source, though. And lastly, I have settled with FF too long ago, and it's difficult to make the switch, especially because I still don't feel like switching...There is something in FF that makes me stick with it, perhaps how it feels, I don't know...
Nothing against Opera though, even though I would have liked it more if it was open source...

[Kingsley]

I used Opera for almost a year and then dumped it due to sketchy plugins and lack of extensions. I agree that Opera is impressively fast and has great built-in features like mouse gestures, easy keyword search, and the wand for passwords. Now I only use Opera for quick and easy image browsing on certain web sites. I'm able to mouse gesture forward through multiple images in their original order.

[hanzomon4]

I loved opera in windows and like it in linux, but I have one nagging problem...

How do you get streaming media to work? For a year I have tried to get this working and it fails every time. I tried all of the suggestions on their site and here on the forums, and nothing. I have the problem tracked down to the operapluginwrapper crashing but with every update the problem persist. I even tried it on my sabayon install and operapluginwrapper still crashes.

[igknighted]

I hate how opera handles plug-ins, flash, mplayer, etc...I'ts like they don't cooperate with others to get good plug-ins support. On top of that it's always slower than firefox for me, so opera is not even on my radar.

You must have some conflict with it (perhaps you disabled ipv6 locally for FF but not systemwide?). Opera is, according to professional benchmarks, almost twice as fast as a clean FF (no extensions) at loading most pages. It is also more standards compliant than FF, and loads much much faster (again, maybe not on gnome due to the whole qt/gtk thing).

[maniacmusician]

I installed Opera today for the first time, and I must say I'm pretty impressed by some features, while some other areas are lacking in my humble opinion. I don't want to start a flamewar mind you, I'm just expressing my point of view.

Good (great) parts:
- User interface feels more... intuitive somehow.
- I *love* the speed dial tab. That's just brillant.
- Being a tad paranoid, I love how I can browse and configure everything about security and/or privacy without the need of any plugin (I like the cache settings and browser in particular).
- It's really the most standard-compliant browser I ever tried (didn't try many, but it's still worth being mentioned).

Lacking parts (please PM me if theses are just newbie misunderstandings):
- Speed is awful in Ubuntu... I don't know what causes this, but it's really a pain to wait for remote (not cached) pages to load.
- What's with the RSS reader? Is it really that much to ask to have a settings pane allowing to change the default double click behavior? I want to be taken to the article itself! Or, somebody make an RSS bookmark plugin or something...

Well... as I said I'm just expressing my point of view... I like Opera, and if the RSS handling was a little more like I expected it to be, I'd be an instant convert

Just my 2c

- trib'

To be honest, I think all desktop-based RSS aggregators are pretty horrible. I've never really liked any of them...but have you tried Google Reader? That's what I use, and I absolutely love it. It makes much more sense to me that a feed reader should be in a browser like a webpage, where you can interact with it like you would other web content; it is web content, after all.

I hear that Bloglines is good too, if you don't use Google. I'm just waiting for google to introduce a search feature to Reader, and then I'll be inseparable from it.