Author Topic: Does the browser Opera suck? (Read 21399 times)

Giampy · « **on:** October 10, 2012, 05:18 PM »

I would leave Internet Explorer as many people blame it for security reasons. In fact in the last months I have been sometimes victim of redirections towards unwanted website.
Some days ago I began to use Opera with Ghostery and AdBlock. First of all I disabled the "Automatic Redirection". I was happy!
But I soon found out severe drawbacks.

1) when I click on a link, when I want to go in that website, Opera often asks me the permission. That is just annoying and useless as my operation is not a redirection by an intruder website: it's a direct operation by the user, it's the will of the user.
It's still more deplorable when the destination address is similar to the starting address. For example, if I am in http://www.microsoft.com/x and I want to go in http://www.microsoft.com/y it's obvious it's not a redirection by an intruder website

2) if I choose certain websites from the address bar (like http://www.winpenpack.com and http://www.vipreantivirus.com) Opera brings me to that website. It's right. But I see nothing. I see a white empty page

Moreover:

3) setting the fonts of the characters for the websites is a great confusion. I haven't found a help page

4) characters are badly readable as their stroke is very thin, thinner than the characters we usually see in all the other programs (note: the stroke is thin, while the height is normal)

5) from the address bar it's possible to see the list of the recent websites (just like in Internet Explorer). They are badly readable as they are pale blue on a white background. Besides I can't delete the useless ones

Is there a solution for those drawbacks? Or must I come back to the "dangerous" but relaxing Internet Explorer?

Josh · « **Reply #1 on:** October 10, 2012, 05:31 PM »

Is Internet Explorer really that dangerous nowadays? I think this mentality is something leftover from the IE6 Pre-SP2 days....and yes, Opera does suck as you will see more and more as you continue to use it. But, in the end, use whatever works for you.

That said, redirection is not necessarily a problem IE, but could be the way the site is coded. Just saying...

rgdot · « **Reply #2 on:** October 10, 2012, 06:02 PM »

Is Internet Explorer really that dangerous nowadays? I think this mentality is something leftover from the IE6 Pre-SP2 days....and yes, Opera does suck as you will see more and more as you continue to use it. But, in the end, use whatever works for you.

That said, redirection is not necessarily a problem IE, but could be the way the site is coded. Just saying...
-Josh (October 10, 2012, 05:31 PM)

Flame war

I would say security wise not using IE is probably not valid anymore*, certainly not compared to IE6 days like Josh says. Primary reason to use Firefox is add-ons, speed and open source. Chrome is speed and extensions. Opera the same. Several attempts at switching to Opera have failed in my case, it is just different as you noticed, may be not worse but for sure different.

*One example: For me, on an older (XP) pc, IE8 is the slowest to open and that's even compared to add-on loaded Firefox installs.

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #3 on:** October 10, 2012, 06:11 PM »

I have a license for Opera that I've never used. IE works just fine for me. I've been tempted to install FF a few times, but I've never done it.

Security is up to the user to practice ... Blaming the browser is just silly.

cyberdiva · « **Reply #4 on:** October 10, 2012, 06:16 PM »

1) when I click on a link, when I want to go in that website, Opera often asks me the permission. That is just annoying and useless as my operation is not a redirection by an intruder website: it's a direct operation by the user, it's the will of the user.
It's still more deplorable when the destination address is similar to the starting address. For example, if I am in http://www.microsoft.com/x and I want to go in http://www.microsoft.com/y it's obvious it's not a redirection by an intruder website

2) if I choose certain websites from the address bar (like http://www.winpenpack.com and http://www.vipreantivirus.com) Opera brings me to that website. It's right. But I see nothing. I see a white empty page
-Giampy (October 10, 2012, 05:18 PM)

I use Firefox as my primary browser and Opera as my secondary, so I'm by no means an Opera fangirl, but I'm really puzzled by what you've described. I can't remember ever being asked for permission when I click on a link in Opera. Also, I clicked on the two links you provided in point #2, and Opera took me there with no problem. In both cases, I saw the site, not a white empty page. This makes me suspect that there's something on your computer (or perhaps in your Opera settings, if you've changed those) that is causing these problems. FWIW, I'm using Opera 12.02 on Windows 7, but I've used Opera for years on Windows XP as well, and I simply have not encountered the problems you've described above.

app103 · « **Reply #5 on:** October 10, 2012, 06:43 PM »

I have had some issues in the past with Opera and security dialogs asking if I wanted to proceed to a site which either was insecure (not https) or had something funky with its security certificate. Normally it would not be an issue to me, except that when it asked on some sites, it did it twice, and on the 2nd dialog the option to proceed was not clickable...so you couldn't. You'd have to reload the page, and then the same thing would happen again.

In most other browsers there is a setting to turn off the asking, but I could never find it in Opera.

Josh · « **Reply #6 on:** October 10, 2012, 06:59 PM »

Opera, protecting users from themselves, even when they know what they are doing...

eleman · « **Reply #7 on:** October 11, 2012, 01:21 AM »

My personal view of Opera after three attempts to use it: "too different to switch to at my age [35]". And also it failed to render some pages correctly (this is probably caused by web designers' faults in standards compliance, rather than Opera, but in any case, why should I bother?)

Lutz_ · « **Reply #8 on:** October 11, 2012, 01:48 AM »

I have a hunch that you might have perhaps a little bit too much security software on your computer. Just a hunch...
My opera browser has no problems with the websites mentioned (no such problems in general) and I very, very rarely encounter this redirection warning.

mahesh2k · « **Reply #9 on:** October 11, 2012, 01:55 AM »

I found this on diaspora.

Does the browser Opera suck?

[Modified by Josh with the attachthumb option, for viewability]

tomos · « **Reply #10 on:** October 11, 2012, 04:06 AM »

any chance of a bigger pic there mahesh

IE9 fared very well (and the others very poorly) in tests blocking malware.

Early this week, I received information about a study by NSS Labs, which clearly showed that Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 was significantly better at blocking malware than any other browser tested. In fact, their study showed that no other tested browser even came close to challenging IE9.

http://www.techrepub....e064&s_cid=e064

I wouldnt recommend moving to FF15 anyway for performance reasons (see thread here somewhere), maybe #16 will be better.

iphigenie · « **Reply #11 on:** October 11, 2012, 05:49 AM »

Ghostery on Opera triggers some annoying blocks and security that dont happen on other browsers.

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #12 on:** October 11, 2012, 06:47 AM »

IE9 fared very well (and the others very poorly) in tests blocking malware.

Early this week, I received information about a study by NSS Labs, which clearly showed that Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 was significantly better at blocking malware than any other browser tested. In fact, their study showed that no other tested browser even came close to challenging IE9.
http://www.techrepub....e064&s_cid=e064
-tomos (October 11, 2012, 04:06 AM)

Oooh, you get to be my favorite person on the planet for at least a week for posting that link!

Giampy · « **Reply #13 on:** October 12, 2012, 11:15 AM »

6) even if I enable the "Automatic Redirection", when I change website I sometimes get the message:
"Moved Permanently
The document has moved here"
A further useless click is required...

7) when I scroll a page, the text doesn't flow smoothly. It moves like a squeeze box or a worm: it shrinks and then it expands, it shrinks and then it expands etc...

8) in the search box of http://www.wordreference.com, to start the search I must press Enter twice, one Enter doesn't work (it may seem a trifle indeed, but considering that I use very often Wordreference, and adding together the points 1...7, such drawback becomes a further bother anyway)

cyberdiva · « **Reply #14 on:** October 12, 2012, 11:48 AM »

in the search box of http://www.wordreference.com, to start the search I must press Enter twice, one Enter doesn't work (it may seem a trifle indeed, but considering that I use very often Wordreference, and adding together the points 1...7, such drawback becomes a further bother anyway)
-Giampy (October 12, 2012, 11:15 AM)

I use WordReference all the time and never noticed this. I now see why: I use the search icon next to the box rather than hitting Enter. I don't have to hit the search icon more than once. However, you're right--if you hit Enter, you have to hit it twice, even if there's no confusion about which word you want to search on. In Firefox, you only have to hit Enter once.

f0dder · « **Reply #15 on:** October 12, 2012, 01:10 PM »

Is Internet Explorer really that dangerous nowadays? I think this mentality is something leftover from the IE6 Pre-SP2 days....and yes, Opera does suck as you will see more and more as you continue to use it. But, in the end, use whatever works for you.
-Josh (October 10, 2012, 05:31 PM)

It's not nearly as bad as it was in the olden days, and most exploits these days are from Flash or Java browser plugins - apart from XSS stuff, the *real* nasty browser bugs (those that don't trigger plugins but can lead to remote code execution or the likes) are few and far between.

But there was an exploit lately (iirc mid/late september) that targeted IE{7,8,9} on {XP,Vista,Win7} that was pretty bad.

Josh · « **Reply #16 on:** October 12, 2012, 01:17 PM »

Is Internet Explorer really that dangerous nowadays? I think this mentality is something leftover from the IE6 Pre-SP2 days....and yes, Opera does suck as you will see more and more as you continue to use it. But, in the end, use whatever works for you.
-Josh (October 10, 2012, 05:31 PM)
It's not nearly as bad as it was in the olden days, and most exploits these days are from Flash or Java browser plugins - apart from XSS stuff, the *real* nasty browser bugs (those that don't trigger plugins but can lead to remote code execution or the likes) are few and far between.

But there was an exploit lately (iirc mid/late september) that targeted IE{7,8,9} on {XP,Vista,Win7} that was pretty bad.
-f0dder (October 12, 2012, 01:10 PM)

Agreed, there are still vulnerabilities, but many browsers are seeing these same hits. Heck, Mozilla just had to pull Firefox 16 from the web due to a security vulnerability. My whole point is that IE is nowhere near the monster it once was and is actually quite reliable and safe.

f0dder · « **Reply #17 on:** October 12, 2012, 01:34 PM »

Agreed, there are still vulnerabilities, but many browsers are seeing these same hits. Heck, Mozilla just had to pull Firefox 16 from the web due to a security vulnerability. My whole point is that IE is nowhere near the monster it once was and is actually quite reliable and safe.
-Josh (October 12, 2012, 01:17 PM)

Sure, 16.0 had a bug, which was fixed how many hours after release? MS is quite a bit slower wrt release cycles, though thankfully they have out-of-band releases for really critical stuff (and to give them credit, they have to go through a lot more rigorous QA/QC to avoid fscktards moaning). But at any rate, the FF bug was:

The vulnerability could allow a malicious site to potentially determine which websites users have visited and have access to the URL or URL parameters. At this time we have no indication that this vulnerability is currently being exploited in the wild.

The IE bug was remote code execution, which is a metric sh!ttonne more serious.

Anyway, the main reason I don't use IE isn't security, but simply that it sucks. With IE6, at least the browser loaded lightning fast - they lost that advantage with IE7, and haven't regained it. The developer tools suck, the HTML compliance sucks compared to chrome and FF (even though it's a lot better in IE9+ than it used to be), and the addons sucks.

I really don't see any reason to use IE if you've got half a mind, but of course people doing webdev have to support it, *sigh*.

Josh · « **Reply #18 on:** October 12, 2012, 01:43 PM »

Agreed, there are still vulnerabilities, but many browsers are seeing these same hits. Heck, Mozilla just had to pull Firefox 16 from the web due to a security vulnerability. My whole point is that IE is nowhere near the monster it once was and is actually quite reliable and safe.
-Josh (October 12, 2012, 01:17 PM)
Sure, 16.0 had a bug, which was fixed how many hours after release? MS is quite a bit slower wrt release cycles, though thankfully they have out-of-band releases for really critical stuff (and to give them credit, they have to go through a lot more rigorous QA/QC to avoid fscktards moaning). But at any rate, the FF bug was:
The vulnerability could allow a malicious site to potentially determine which websites users have visited and have access to the URL or URL parameters. At this time we have no indication that this vulnerability is currently being exploited in the wild.

The IE bug was remote code execution, which is a metric sh!ttonne more serious.

Anyway, the main reason I don't use IE isn't security, but simply that it sucks. With IE6, at least the browser loaded lightning fast - they lost that advantage with IE7, and haven't regained it. The developer tools suck, the HTML compliance sucks compared to chrome and FF (even though it's a lot better in IE9+ than it used to be), and the addons sucks.

I really don't see any reason to use IE if you've got half a mind, but of course people doing webdev have to support it, *sigh*.
-f0dder (October 12, 2012, 01:34 PM)

I agree with all of your comments. I use chrome, for what that's worth, but I think the days of IE being as insecure as it once was are long gone. The browser does have other drawbacks, like speed as you pointed out, but it should be OK for those who are forced to/choose to use it. Security patches are handled in, what I feel anyways, is an optimal manner for IE. Microsoft has a far larger userbase and testing base to account for with ALL of their products, so they must ensure they identify potential impact for their patches. Again, as you've pointed out, they do have out of band patches but those are the exception and not the norm.

NigelH · « **Reply #19 on:** October 12, 2012, 06:52 PM »

Yes, it sucks sometimes.
But the suckage (for me) is a lot less than the other three contenders.

Tuxman · « **Reply #20 on:** October 13, 2012, 02:36 AM »

Does the browser Opera suck?

Yes.

Josh · « **Reply #21 on:** October 13, 2012, 08:40 AM »

Does the browser Opera suck?
Yes.
-Tuxman (October 13, 2012, 02:36 AM)

Very enthralling answer. Your deep insight has inspired me. Please, share more?

Tinman57 · « **Reply #22 on:** October 13, 2012, 06:48 PM »

Redirections of web sites are very common. When a site changes it's address you will be redirected from the old address. If an address has been taken over by another company (or user), they can put a redirect in the site to take you to whatever site they want you to see. And then there's the hacked websites that redirects you to their hacked site. It really don't have anything to do with what browser your using, just keep your anti-virus and firewall updated and beware of things that just don't look right....

Tuxman · « **Reply #23 on:** October 14, 2012, 04:35 AM »

Very enthralling answer. Your deep insight has inspired me.
-Josh (October 13, 2012, 08:40 AM)

Great.

See, Opera has serious rendering issues, but instead of fixing them they add more bloat. P2P, chat, e-mail, a web server (srsly?!)...

Renegade · « **Reply #24 on:** October 14, 2012, 04:38 AM »

Does the browser Opera suck?
Yes.
-Tuxman (October 13, 2012, 02:36 AM)

Very enthralling answer. Your deep insight has inspired me. Please, share more?
-Josh (October 13, 2012, 08:40 AM)

I would like to interject with an equally exciting answer...

No.