I have never really been able to 'take' to Firefox and believe me, I have tried. As you know I do tend to try other browsers and will usually use the one I try out for a few weeks none stop.
I notice SuperFast mentioned that the latest version has an Opera type dial page. I never use that (default Opera here) preferring to just have a favourites bar, I don't use Opera Unite either.
It must be difficult deciding which version to use of FF with so many versions of it.
Is it the appeal of so many extensions that FF users find so attractive?
(NOT going into the my browser is fast then yours thing here, I'm asking about the FF features that make users want to use it as their default).
Hmmmm.... You have a lot of questions, don't you? I will try to answer them.
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Yes, there are a lot of Firefox versions. There are also a lot of Opera versions, as there are with all major browsers. Opera 9, 10, 10.5, 11, 11.5, etc.
Now, Firefox has delved into many things, such as hardware accelerated browsing (for 3d/flash rich content) in order to speed things up tremendously.
I am uncertain how Opera fares in 3d accelerated browsing, as it has been a while since I tested it.
I just know that, you were asking why a user would choose Opera over Firefox, & here are my reasons.
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- While Opera does have one of the fastest startup times, it is close followed by Google Chrome. I'm talking, like thousandths or even millionths of a second close. However, the current versions of Firefox are fast enough, that you won't really notice one over the other, as all the major browsers load in fractions of a second, anyway.
- Opera, last time I checked, has a bug wherein the browser tabs get needle thin as you open a lot of tabs. Eventually, they get so tiny, they only reliable way to click to close the current tab you are on without hoping you don't accidentally close the WRONG tab, is something like a keyboard shortcut in Firefox (CTRL + W closes a tab). Because the mouse will definitely not be reliable when the tabs are needle thin & the X to close it is bigger than the tab, & the tabs are all jumbled on top of each other. Of course, Opera is not the only browser to suffer from this bug, because Google Chrome also had it when I tested, & so I believe it is probably the same on the later versions as well.
- Opera could not open some web pages I tried it on last time, whereas the other major browsers (Google/Firefox/IE) had no trouble at all with it. This was a downer to me, as I cannot use a browser that cannot open a diversified range of pages.
- Internet Explorer 8 crashed on anywhere from 4 to 20 tabs open. Firefox has had up to 1,611 tabs open with no crash (although it did slow down as I started to run out of memory). I do not guess that Opera nor Chrome would be capable of this, nor even wish to try it with a browser who shrinks tabs into smaller & smaller bits until they are unclickable. Firefox solves this by implementing tab scroll & being sure tabs never shrink below a certain size.
- Firefox includes many goodies such as Tab recovery (if you accidentally close out a tab & wish to recover it), as well as crash recovery, & many other smaller things such as the ability to right click + T on a link to open it in a new tab. Newer firefox versions even include time savers such as highlighting a text link with your mouse & being able to right click/open in a new tab to open the link in a new tab instead of having to copy & paste it into a new tab that you created.
- Firefox has Ad Block plugins, which save a ton of time on bandwidth and surfing.
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*** There are many more things that Firefox has. Overall, Firefox is very customizable, & i love how you can take items off the toolbar if you don't need them, and how you can rearrange or add items if you need them. Firefox bookmarks are very useful, & the layout is much more intuitive than other browsers. Firefox is one of the major browsers besides Internet Explorer, so most sites work with it, with the exception of a website such as one of my friends who has a work place that only allows Internet Explorer to be able to check his personal page. When he surfs from the house & logs into his account, it will NOT allow him to access certain areas of their website without Internet Explorer. This is easily solved via IE Tab plugin. Which, I doubt works with Opera or Chrome. There is at least, and ad blocker for Chrome, but not for IE or Opera last time I checked.
The situation may improve as Opera gets bigger, but the main reason there are so many versions of Firefox, are that 3 series is for older computers. Stable, fast, less mem use. Newer 4 series was bug fixes/speed improvements.
5/6/7 etc are bug improvements/features added/speed improvements/mem use improved.
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Any browser will welcome faster loading + less memory use, especially if you do a lot of surfing.
To my knowledge, the situation with Opera still has not changed. It has a few features that are cool, but it just is not applicable for general use with what I do. I rather stick with the browser that best suits my purpose. That is to say, Firefox does not have Active X exploits like Internet Explorer does & is a lot safer for web surfing with it's built in anti-phishing/anti cross scripting/pop up blocking/etc than Internet Explorer. It is also far more stable than IE, & doesn't suffer from needle thin tabs like Chrome or Opera.
While Chrome and Opera can be stable with smaller tab sets, it is doubtful they will live up to the heavy surfing I tend to do in Firefox.
I have used Firefox for years with no problems.
I believe that Firefox provides the best tradeoff of speed/customizability/security/features/familiarity/ease of use of any browser out there, which is why I used firefox back then, & still do.
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Edit: Although a latecomer to the hardware acceleration party, I do believe Opera eventually added hardware acceleration to their mix, but some people report problems with it. Guess they will fix it, eventually. For now, I use Firefox, since it already works.