v21 vs v20? Stable yet?
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Deleted User last edited by
Nothing has been added or improved since version 15. All that's happened is the version number has increased by +1 every few weeks.
Really? Either you're trying to create controversy by lying or you are too stupid to have seen the many very obvious changes since 15.
So are you trolling or just plain stupid?He's not stupid but he is well-known for trolling the Opera forums. Sidney has the best answer: ignoring him.
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wcolwell last edited by
I was using Opera Next (v21) in parallel with Opera Stable (v20) for a while and was excited by what I thought was snappier response with screen loads at least (though less "smooth" if that makes sense); it was as I expected if v21 were taking more advantage of hardware acceleration (which Aura was supposed to do). So I let Stable update to v21, but afterwards (initial release) I was seeing a few hiccups (don't recall what they were), so I reloaded v20 and have stayed there for now.
But I do expect v21+ to be faster. I thought I was seeing that in Opera Next. So I'm looking forward to that.
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lem729 last edited by
On hiccups, I don't know whether you are using any extensions, but they can cause hiccups. I had about 27, and tested Opera 21 by shutting them all down. I got a substantial increase in speed. Now I've been carefully monitoring what I add to the browser (and this is difficult for me)
And I have 12 extensions activated ("my essentials," and chose some specifically because they seem simpler, would affect the browser performance the least) (it's hard to pare my list down) and maybe 13 or so, deactivated. And I'm still getting a quite sparkling performance in speed. Adding all the features via extensions in the world means nothing if you end up with a lumbering, unwieldly browser. And that's one of the concerns I have about everyone pushing for Opera to add more features to its browser. When they add features, then we have may have no option to deactivate them to enhance performance. Hopefully, Opera will be very careful about what they add, so as to keep the browser at the cutting edge of fast. -
samkook last edited by
BTW, adding more native features would only make the initial loading of the browser(and all its features) slower, not the navigation, that's just poor coding if it does.
It's another thing when you talk about extensions though since the browser is not aware of what they do and it's the same about every extensions with all the others so it can easily slow things down by doing the same thing multiple times or interfering with each other by doing something that's counter-productive for another.
Having the ability to enable/disable features is what many(myself included) have been asking for years, even before the new version came out, but for some unknown reason, that's not the way they seem to be going, quite the opposite sadly.
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lem729 last edited by
BTW, adding more native features would only make the initial loading of the browser(and all its features) slower, not the navigation, that's just poor coding if it does.
Well, that's a key. I'm not a developer to know the truth there, but if what you say is the case, then Opera has more flexibility, which would be good. I'd be delighted, though I can't help being a bit dubious. Now Opera 21, with it's minimal features is quite fast, and surely faster than Opera Presto. My gut tells me one of the reasons for the speed is the simpler code, because of less native features, though the browser engine may well have something to do with it too. It's seems to me at some point -- when you're adding everyone's wish list of features and options -- that the bargain is with the devil, and we then learn how nothing is free in life -- that the browser performance would be affected. But that's just my opinion/gut feeling. Also if it's the case that features don't slow the browser down, why were you arguing for years that users should have, "the ability to enable/disable features." If features don't slow the browser down, it may not be worth the energy/expense for the developer of a free product to work to do that, just for a quicker start-up time, for those who disable features.
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samkook last edited by
Personally, I care very little about speed, what I care about is disabling features that annoy me or are downright detrimental to the way I work.
It's of course not true 100% of the time, if a feature modifies directly the way a page is displayed, then it will slow things down(not as much as an extension would since they can optimize it if it's done internally, but they have to use a generic way of doing things for extensions) since it has to check a few things and make a decision, but all of the other stuff around in the interface like mail, rss, anything related to bookmarks, tab management, other stuff like that will not affect it in the slightest.
The engine is what is actually rendering the webpage so it's what responsible for the speed at which it can translate the information it receives from the website to something that get displayed on your monitor inside the defined area for it. Everything around it doesn't matter when it's doing that since it does interact directly with it, it just use a little more RAM.
I wouldn't say I'm an experienced programmer, but it is what I studied in so I have an idea of how things work internally.
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lem729 last edited by
Someone who cares very little about browser speed is assuring me that adding features (which he wants) won't slow the browser down. Hmmmmm. I'd have to think twice about that one. -)
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samkook last edited by
I have to say that it indeed doesn't inspire much confidence when you say it like that, but I'm not saying that as a user(quite frankly, I never even noticed a speed difference between browsers), I'm saying that as a programmer since I'm familiar with how things generally work inside.
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lem729 last edited by
Isn't a discussion in the abstract not productive? Might the issue not depend upon how many features are added, and what kind of features? I mean is there no end to what and how much you can add without affecting browser performance? Are we in browser never never land? It just sounds implausible. Also, there's an issue about expense. To add many features, some complex, to a basic browser, without affecting performance may involve sophisticated and time-consuming programming. It's easy enough to say to the developer to give us our wish list, since we're paying nothing. The developer has to look at two issues: (1) what can I program the browser to do -- how many hoops can I have it jump through -- without adversely affecting browser performance? AND (2) how can I keep my costs down so I can produce this product at a profit?. It's easy enough to want more features. There's no end to what we want, with many of us not at all in agreement as to the features we deem essential and would be pleased to see added to the basic browser. But looking at both those issues may well have driven the new Opera into a "basic browser with extensions" mode.
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samkook last edited by
How many, no, but what kind they are, as I said, certainly. We can't do much more about that than talk though and in my experience, they don't care much about what we say in here.
It certainly isn't easy to make a good browser and it's very time consuming, but if you don't distinguish yourself from the competition, you'll certainly have a problem making profits(no idea how they do that with a free browser though) since people won't be particularly drawn to it.
Currently, it still has the reputation to be yet another chrome clone(I know it's more, but that's the general opinion I see from most new user coming here). Even though it's slowly getting away from that with every version, it will take time and in the mean time, it must be pretty hard to interest people in it with a good portion of user abandoning the browser because of the changes.
I assume they know better than me how these things work and that they didn't take the decision lightly, but I don't see how they'll manage to make profits by staying a minimalistic browser when chrome already has that reputation and is much more advertised than opera could possibly be.
