As of the writing of this post, almost 20 hours since the Download Day started, there has been almost 6.5 million downloads of Mozilla Firefox 3.
Singapore has contributed a mere 22,692 downloads, of which I contributed three. I installed one in office, one in desktop PC, and one in my Macbook. Let’s see how many they can get in the remaining 4+ hours.
Have you downloaded Firefox 3?
Mozilla Firefox 3 will be released tomorrow (Wednesday 1.00 AM SGP time), and they are gathering as much support as they can to set the new Guiness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours.
If you have been using Firefox 2 all the while, or still using any other browsers, join in the download from tomorrow morning. The window is open for 24 hours, so you’ll have plenty of time.
I’ve been using Firefox 3 for a couple of months both in Windows and Mac, and undoubtedly it’s the best browsers out there. Performance is good, the awesome location bar is awesome, ah….. just download it tomorrow and try it out. 
I realized that there are too many features in Opera 8 browser for me to review, so I will better let you read reviews by professional reviewers. Try Google for Opera 8 reviews or CNET reviews. I have been using Opera for the past few days, and I am truly happy with it. The interface can be so minimal to provide maximum viewing space in your screen (see below). If you are really interested to try it, follow 30 days to become Opera 8 lover where Tim will discuss each and every feature found in Opera. However, I realized that Opera 8 is not for everyone. There are still a lot who prefers Internet Explorer, for the simple reason that they don’t know that other browser exists and they are not willing to try new things. Then there are those who prefers Firefox for its compatibility with most sites and mainly because it’s free. Opera, however, I think suits advanced web surfers since it can be complicated, highly customizable, and full of features that neither IE nor Firefox provides. I have seen enough people who said Opera was not good only after 10 minutes of using it. Given time and chances, I believe those people will find Opera features very addicting. In conclusion, which browser you use depends very much on your daily usage of Internet, and how sophisticated you want your browser to be. For me, it will be Opera, because I can browse, I can read my Gmail via POP3, I can read websites by RSS all in one place. Firefox can’t do all those, never mind IE.
Opera is not without its flaw, it doesn’t support rich text formatting in Gmail or Blogger, Starhub doesn’t work well in Opera (this one is Starhub’s fault), Opera Ad filter not as easy to use as compared to Firefox’s Adblock, etc. Mainly because of websites which does not support Opera instead of Opera’s fault, so I hope with this advances, websites will start to provide support for Opera. However, these instances are very rare, and there’s always IE to fall back to when websites starts to play nasty with Opera. Overall, to me Opera features far outweigh its drawback, and to me, Opera is way better than Firefox and Internet Explorer.
I have been waiting for its released for a while now, but finally Opera 8 Browser has been released. It’s a browser, it’s an email client, it’s a RSS newsfeed reader, and it’s an IRC client, all packaged in a 3.6MB size that’s smaller than Firefox browser alone. It’s the fastest, most standard compliant, highly customizable, most secure (compare with IE or Firefox), works in Windows, Mac, Linux, you name it, and the most full-featured browser we have now (unlike Firefox, in Opera, everything is built-in). Opera also received PC World’s Best Browser Award in 2004. No kidding, no exxagerating, it’s just something good, and something good, like Bible, must be shared, right?
I will post my review in a few days, but in the mean time, compare Opera with Internet Explorer (Browser 1) and Firefox (Browser 2), read all the buzz about Opera , or 30 Days to become an Opera8 Lover (a very good article to highlight all Opera features), or check why Adobe chose Opera for its latest Creative Suite 2.
So, download the browser now, and try it for yourself.
Last week, I posted the article about browser speed comparisons. Opera 7 used to have a slow start up time, but amazingly the article reported that Opera 8 are so fast that I am curious to try it. I downloaded Opera 8.0 beta 1 (now at Beta 2, but I have not downloaded it yet), installed it, was amazed by its speed now. Tried it for few days now, customized it to my liking, and now I’m back to Opera. Firefox is still installed on my machine, but I have not used it for a few days now.
Don’t get me wrong, Opera and Firefox has its own merit, but for me, I still prefer Opera for its customize-ability and speed. All extensions that I installed in Firefox, and which I need, I can find a similar match in Opera, so I didn’t feel like losing anything now that I’ve switched back from Firefox to my good ol’ browser Opera 
As you can see from above screenshot, I can customize Opera until so minimal that I don’t need the normal File-Edit-View menu anymore. I just collapse it down to a dropdown button, thus giving me more space to view websites. Of course, I don’t really need that Back-Forward-Reload button as I can do everything by mouse-gestures, but I put it there, in case someone else is using my browser and they need those buttons
An unbiased as it can be, this article compares so many kinds of browsers with so many versions of each browsers on so many operating systems. Overall, it’s a good read, and if you don’t want to read the whole article, just jump to the conclusion.
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html
After reading the article, if you don’t have a good reason why you are still using one of those slow browsers, I think it’s your time to change your browser.
For myself, I am currently using Firefox 1.0? Why not Opera? It was my favorite browser, but sadly Gmail doesn’t work in Opera as well as in Firefox. I am still waiting eagerly for Opera 8.0, and by that time it launches, don’t be surprised if I switch back to Opera. It has been proven as the fastest browser, and I love a fast browser.
So, which browser are you using right now?
OK, let’s go a bit techie here, but I’ll try to explain it with “English” not “101001001″ hehehe…
It’s a bit long, but hopefully it worth your time.
Since last time Internet Explorer won the browser wars against Netscape, there have never been any competition in the browser market with Internet Explorer holding around 95% of the market share.
However, recent burst of security problems prompted many people to switch to other browsers.
To be fair to Internet Explorer, in my opinion, it’s not because IE is not secure. I think IE is more secure than any browser on the planet, but but mainly because IE was attacked more, that it leaked more than other browsers. I am quite sure if other browsers were to be attacked by the same amount of exploits as IE, they would have leaked much worse.
In any case, that’s not the point of this post. The point I am trying to send across to you is that there are other browsers out there besides IE that you should consider trying, namely Opera and Firefox.
Paul Thurrott has put up an excellent and lengthy article to compare alternative browsers to Internet Explorer, but for you who are not willing to read all those, let me summarize them in a few sentences.
Let’s forget about MyIE2, since it is based on Internet Explorer anyway, it doesn’t stop any security problems.
Consider two alternatives, Opera and Firefox. Paul prefers Firefox, I prefers Opera, your mileage may vary.
You pick Opera when you need a full-featured and complete browser and you are willing to take the time to customize Opera to your heart content, including removing features that you don’t need.
You pick Firefox when you need a simple browser and you are willing to take time to customize Firefox, again to your heart content, but this time, instead of removing features, you will need to add a lot of features in it. Below are few features add-on (they call it extensions) that I install that you may use as a starting point if you decided to go Firefox’s way.
- All-in-One Gestures – I first know such feature from Opera around two years back, and I really can’t live without it that sometimes I started to do funny action in Internet Explorer moving my mouse expecting it to go back one page, but nothing happen, haha.. Opera has this feature longggg time back.
- Gmail Notifier – Mandatory for those having Gmail account.
- Super Drag and Go – you need to open a link in a new tab? Drag the link to an empty space and it’ll open up for you Opera has a different mechanism to achieve the same effect.
- User Agent Switcher – sometimes some sites are really troublesome that they will only show properly if they detect it is IE. Use this to change your ID. Opera has F12 menu to do the same.
- SessionSaver – Close the browser, and when you open it, you continue where you started. Opera has this natively.
- Undoclosetab – Ooopss, I accidentally close the tab. No worry, right click and select undo close tab. Opera has this feature simply by pressing Ctrl-Z.
- Tabbrowser – If you love tabbed browsing than multiple windows browsing, this is a MUST. Again, Opera has this natively.
You see, most of the extensions for Firefox are already available built-in in Opera, you just need to know how to use them.
OK, Let me summarize, hopefully you are not lost.
For Opera, we give you all, you use what you need.
For Firefox, we give you basic, you pick and install what you like.
For Internet Explorer, we give you basic, you stay with basic.
For me? I am staying with Firefox for the moment, until Gmail can work with Opera (soon), then maybe I’ll switch back. We’ll see.
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