@DOSFREAK: Thanks for telling us about it...

Mirek

Thanks for the link. I had already registered it a long time ago, but here are a few reasons why I prefer Opera over the free alternatives. I have been using it since v3.0. I really didn't mind the ads that much anyway, they weren't any more intrusive than Googles when searching, but it is cool of them to give out a code to remove the ads.

Zoom - Instantly make a web page smaller or larger, selecting 120%, 150%, etc. Great for reading fine print. I find as I get older my eyesight is worse and this instant magnification is my most used feature. IE has text resizing but it is nowhere near as accessible or easy to use as Opera's Zoom

Fit to Window Width - With the click of a button you can resize a web page instantly. Very useful for sites where you have to scroll left and right to read text that won't fit into the width of a single window. With Opera you can fit it in a single page

Go to URL - if a page has a URL that is not linked all you have to do in Opera is highlight the URL, right click and select go to URL

Sessions - Accidently close a web page? As long as you haven't closed the browser you can type Ctrl+Alt+Z and be right back where you were, basically an undo function

Mouse gestures - While you can get plugins to do this with FireFox, it is built into Opera. I am so used to this feature that I find it annoying on other browsers when I can't just make a motion with my mouse to reload a page, go back, or many others

Speed - Opera nearly always renders pages faster.

Author mode - Have you run into a web page where someone used a blue font on a black background and you get eyestrain just trying to read it? Switch to Author mode in Opera and read it in black and white

I've downloaded it to try, but so far it just seems fancied up compared to firefox. Many of its features can be done via extensions although most of them I can't be bothered since I don't need them.

FireFox seems to lag on saving web pages and downloading files.
Opera is also faster on slower connections (probably due more to caching than anything else).
Also going backwards loads the page immediately (cache).
Opera saving the "state" or web pages is handy.

DosFreak wrote:

FireFox seems to lag on saving web pages and downloading files. Opera is also faster on slower connections (probably due more to […]
Show full quote

FireFox seems to lag on saving web pages and downloading files.
Opera is also faster on slower connections (probably due more to caching than anything else).
Also going backwards loads the page immediately (cache).
Opera saving the "state" or web pages is handy.

What about the security? Anyone have the secunia page links?

Anything but IE is secure these days. If critical vulnerabilities are found, both FF and Opera will release some patch fast.

I think that Opera is faster on slow connections is because it has HTTP Pipelining enabled. This will speed it up (Firefox/Mozilla have had this option forever) but can also cause problems with broken Web servers (there are still a few) so it's disabled by default in FF/Moz.

If you go to Secunia.com, links to IE, Firefox, and Opera vulnerabilities are at the top of every page.