Fire at the Opera

Lame headline, I know.

Via OSNews: "Opera is Faster, More Secure and More Compliant than Firefox"

The quoted article speaks of the browser's speed (known issue and non-issue, Opera's greatest merit is the way they constantly manage to back up the "Fastest Internet Experience" tagline), security (using the Secunia results), and Standards compliency, via the Acid Test (which I've already found out about).

I've written about this issue several times now, and I think this private little browser war of mine is far from being settled. I don't really think both browsers are good. Excellent, even. And each has their own things that draw me towards them. I think I've mentioned a lot of those, but here are just two key points, which I haven't yet mentioned.

1. I've been using Opera since late 1999, and it's always been my "browser of choice". I've seen it mature and evolve through the 5 and 6 releases, then suffered through the 7 re-writing, which took the browser a step back before it took two steps forwards towards the 7.5 and the triumph which is the 8 version. Compared to that, the year I've been using Firefox isn't really comparable.

2. At the past, I've tried both Mozilla and Opera email clients (Thunderbird and Opera's inner client Mail2), it has become a moot issue, as I've been using gmail these days, so there isn't any need for an email client. Same goes for RSS, PIM and many other "suite" features that are available, either "out of the box" or via browser extensions and complimentary software).

3. Firefox, unlike Opera is Open source and Free software. Not only is that a great issue for me, it's also allows other project, like NVU and Celtx to be based on it, adding to their appeal.

Current situation? I'm using both, until a winner will be decided.