I'm always coming back to Opera
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A Former User last edited by
I was trying and testing browsers over the weekend to find an alternative for Opera. I was mainly using Edge, Vivaldi, Firefox and DuckDuckGo.
Edge, IMHO, came very close to Opera in terms of feature. I had the feeling they were copying all this good stuff that's so peculiar to Opera. I found so many features that were nearly the same, although some were missing.
I'm not a great fan of Microsoft, though. I'm using almost alternatives in every possible respect. So I'm using Softmaker Office e.g. Call me nuts, but I'd rather trust Google than Microsoft. So I'm having Gmail and GDrive and not Outlook or OneDrive. Microsoft so much pushing their services in Edge drove me away, finally. And I have to admit, that I like the looks of Opera more than that of Edge.
I was trying Firefox, an old-time favorite. It's great but rather basic. I'd choose it as my alternative (or Chrome when I'm inclined to give in to popular opinion). It's great but I was missing feature like the sidebar and some other things. Otherwise it performed good enough.
DuckDuckGo in my opinion would be an viable option for mobile, indeed. But their Windows or Mac offering which are still in beta are and not localized (my native language is German) and very very basic to say the least. But still it's great to see a privacy browser develop. It'd be a thing to watch out for.
Finally I tried Vivaldi. Well, I'm in a love-hate (maybe too strong a word) with it. You can customize it so much that it even looks very much like Opera. I think there are some decent people behind it. Their stance on privacy and against crypto is awesome. There's no record of anything negative or shady about it.
BUT, so many things in it appear as unfinished or unpolished. I couldn't believe my mind when I tried to draw the sidepanel over the window. It stopped at around 2/3 of the window size. Making WhatsApp and others appear pressed and they were not fully shown. Why that? Even Edge does it better!
The same with Mac. When I close the browser and start it again it almost everytime doesn't remember the windows size of the last setting. It's only a minor issue but it's somehow speaking for the experience of the whole browser, which I would call bloated and unfinished. Why don't they get the basics right, before they implement new features? Someone told me, it is loved by people for so many workarounds. So that's not for me. I'd like to have a browser that works with a minimum of workarounds then.
So, I'm here again. As long as it lasts. For me, Opera is still a perfect blend of all these four. I'm only worrying a little about its Chinese owners. But I haven't noticed any shady behavior yet. -
newworldman last edited by
It's ultimately all subjective. The features that each browser has are objective, but the value you attach to each feature is subjective.
