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AMF · Jun 26, 2006, 08:07 AM

I have a new MAC g5 (first MAC, and loving it) and Safari works fine. But I notice that Opera is listed in preferences as an option.

Two questions:
(1) Is it better than Safari?
(2) How to I access it? I tried clicking it to make it the default browser, but nothing happened. Do I have to download it? Is it worth doing?

CharlesS · Jun 26, 2006, 08:16 AM

Originally Posted by AMF

I have a new MAC g5 (first MAC, and loving it) and Safari works fine. But I notice that Opera is listed in preferences as an option.

Two questions:
(1) Is it better than Safari?

There are a lot of pretty good browsers for the Mac:

1. Safari
2. Camino
3. Firefox
4. OmniWeb
5. Shiira
6. Opera
7. Flock

All of them have features that others don't, so a discussion of whether one browser is "better" than another is very subjective (and tends to lead to flame wars on this board). What you should do is, if you're interested in another browser, download it (I've provided links to all of them above) and try it for yourself, to see how you like it. Then, you can make a decision on your own.

Brass · Jun 26, 2006, 02:39 PM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

There are a lot of pretty good browsers for the Mac:

1. Safari
2. Camino
3. Firefox
4. OmniWeb
5. Shiira
6. Opera
7. Flock

All of them have features that others don't, so a discussion of whether one browser is "better" than another is very subjective (and tends to lead to flame wars on this board). What you should do is, if you're interested in another browser, download it (I've provided links to all of them above) and try it for yourself, to see how you like it. Then, you can make a decision on your own.

And read up on forums, such as this, and other web sites where people have already written detailed comparisons, or reasons why they like one or the other

production_coordinator · Jun 27, 2006, 10:34 AM

I'm a fan of Safari (my primary browser) and Firefox. I have nothing against any of them [except IE... which nobody should be using on a modern Mac]

SirCastor · Jun 27, 2006, 10:55 AM

I was skimming through the topics and I thought this title read "Oprah Web Browser"...

cybergoober · Jun 27, 2006, 11:01 AM

Originally Posted by AMF

I have a new MAC g5 (first MAC, and loving it) and Safari works fine. But I notice that Opera is listed in preferences as an option.

Two questions:
(1) Is it better than Safari?
(2) How to I access it? I tried clicking it to make it the default browser, but nothing happened. Do I have to download it? Is it worth doing?

(1) That would be a matter of opinion.
(2)If it is showing as an option as default browser, I would assume it is already installed. It should be in /Applications. Just by selecting it as default browser won't necessarily do anything. You would have to click on a URL from another application, like Mail, to see the effects of that setting.

FL!PNEUS · Jun 27, 2006, 11:51 AM

Did you install Dreamweaver? Dreamweaver uses Opera as the engine for rendering websites inside Dreamweaver. Because Mac OS X discovers the Opera-executable somewhere on your hard disk, it puts it in the 'Default browser'-option in Safari, but because Dreamweaver has Opera hidden somewhere in it's folder, you can't see it.

workerbee · Jun 27, 2006, 03:25 PM

Originally Posted by FL!PNEUS

Because Mac OS X discovers the Opera-executable somewhere on your hard disk, it puts it in the 'Default browser'-option in Safari, but because Dreamweaver has Opera hidden somewhere in it's folder, you can't see it.

Besides, Dreamweaver installs a slightly outdated version of Opera. The latest version is Opera 9.
Actually, I'm not sure if Dreamweaver 8 installs Opera at all... does it?

Millennium · Jun 27, 2006, 06:07 PM

Opera is a respectable Web browser. It surpasses Safari and Firefox in some areas, and it falls behind them in others. The same could be said about both Safari and Firefox, each with respect to the other two browsers. Whichever one you care to use is basically a matter of taste.

I'm a Firefox user myself, though I keep Safari around for certain situations. I don't use Opera enough to be able to tell you very much about it beyond the matter-of-taste thing.

AMF · Jun 27, 2006, 10:46 PM

Thanks, all. I downloaded Opera, tried it, found too little to commend it over Safari, so I'm sticking with Safari.

Colonel Panic · Jun 27, 2006, 10:50 PM

Macbook 2.0, 1gb RAM. Opera, a universal binary, opens ridiculously slowly. Feels like 10.0.4 - maybe 15 "bounces" and a beach ball before the window appears. Anyone else seeing this?

riker1384 · Jul 1, 2006, 01:36 AM

Safari is nice and slick but it lacks some features such as multiple search engines for the search box. Shiira has those and some other features, while using the same rendering as Safari, but it has some quirks, like you can't drag a link into an existing tab. Also the support forum for Shiira has been left to spammers.

Firefox can probably do more than any other browser due to its system of extensions, but it doesn't have a Mac look & feel, and it's a bit slow at switching tabs and thing like that. Opera has a funny interface, but it has a lot of the features I look for in Firefox. Also it has "widgets" which are little windows that can automatically do things like displaying a weather or news feed, or act as a calculator or other things. It has a nice sidebar that you can switch in and out to access the various manager & features.

I use Firefox mostly now.

larrinski · Jul 1, 2006, 02:21 AM

I tend to float now between safari 2.0 with safariSAI for multi searches. it works great with RSS. I play with Shiira a bit but there are a few worries I have about password security. It saves bank passwords even without asking... Firefox just reminds me of Windows... and I would really like to forget about them... and Opera runs fairly fast "after" it loads up. It is still a little buggy and crashes(9.0). Omniweb 5.5 sneeky is running better now and I love the interface for some reason i can't put my fingers on...