Browser Wars – the next generation
On Monday Steve and I attended an Opera Software University Seminar hosted here at the University of St Andrews, one of many stops on their world tour of educational institutions.
I found it an interesting and encouraging hour long presentation which looked at the Opera range of browsers (did you know that there are four main products: Desktop, Embedded, Mini and Mobile, which all use the same rendering engine?), Web Standards and a brief dive into HTML 5 and CSS 3. I’ve blogged about it elsewhere if you want to read more.
On our way out of the PC classroom (it was hosted in the School of Computer Science) in exchange for a completed feedback slip we were given a FREE umbrella. I know! FREE! We didn’t even have to download it from one of over 80 download locations.
Comparisons
However, the question I know you’re all asking: how does it compare with the St Andrews Web Team’s Mozilla Firefox umbrella, which was purchased from the Mozilla store a few months ago?
Size
As you can see from the image above the Opera brolly is considerably smaller than the more cumbersome Mozilla brolly.
That observation correlates with my experience of the two browsers, currently Firefox is hogging 236 MB of RAM, while Opera is displaying the same three pages using only 34 MB. This is clearly the Opera Mini of umbrellas.
Opened each fares as you would expect: the Mozilla browser is considerably larger offering protection for more than one user. The Opera Mini umbrella is clearly designed for single tab user use.
Rendering
Opera has clearly taken HTML 5 and CSS 3 to heart with this umbrella as in particularly windy situations the brolly dynamically re-renders itself … mostly inside out. Ironically, for such a stable browser their umbrella does have a tendency to ‘crash’ alot in bad weather. I suspect, however, that the weather we threw at it just had the wrong !DOCTYPE.
The Firefox umbrella on the other hand does appear to bend and sway a little but resolutely and reliably continues to do its job.
User interface
Both umbrellas feel robust enough, although I have to say that I would feel more confident taking the Firefox brolly out in the winds whistle down the streets of St Andrews.
In fact, in tests the Firefox umbrella proved to be easier and quicker to use simply due to the sturdiness of the fastenings and other hardware.
It is said that the first umbrella was likely to be nothing more than some largely-waterproof fabric stretched over a wooden or wire frame, and both models follow this tradition in terms of construction. However, again, the Firefox brolly feels more robust with the stretched fabric stitches into the end of the spokes; the Opera brolly relies on small metal ‘cups’ slotting over the end of the spokes, which are too easy to knock off.
Security
Security is no less important on an umbrella as it is on a browser, and both models’ security features are built to impress.
The Mozilla model uses the traditional ring on a piece of elastic which wraps snuggly around the shaft of the umbrella and afixes on a button, while the Opera model relies on a vecro fastening.
One particularly impressive security feature though was the clear plastic sheath that the Opera umbrella came in. It keeps your umbrella safe and secure when not being used.
Open Source
As an open-source product you are welcome to take the code of Mozilla Firefox and redevelop it. While the brolly is available to anyone within the Web Team we discourage any modifications to the overall structure, and as far as I’m aware there are currently no official add-ons for the brolly.
Opera is not an open-source product, which is reflected in our need to go directly to Opera to obtain it on request. Although, as I understand it, 3rd parties such as Oxfam may be able to sign up to distribute copies.
Conclusion
Other than the fact that I clearly have too much time on my hands during the lunch hour, I’d say that the Firefox umbrella is probably the one you want if you need to stay dry (in all sorts of weather), although it is more cumbersome. Perhaps, a bit like Firefox Portable.
The Opera umbrella on the other hand is wonderfully compact, so you can take it anywhere you want … a bit like their Opera Mini and Mobile browsers.