Firefox or Internet explorer?

[Ceewan]

Opera 10.51

Loads images and heavy pages about 600% faster than any other browser.
Reason enough to be in Opera on a graphics heavy site like AO
:joker:

Well I loved Opera and used it for a long time but I have recently stopped using it as much, I was tempted to delete it actually. Opera is no longer secure from an anonymity point of view and manually loaded proxies are bypassable, (a problem that has developed and worsened with the last few versions), which is a deal breaker for me. Other than that the performance of Opera is very good as far as my limited knowledge could tell and I had always enjoyed using it.

Firefox is quite sufficient for me but I am keeping an eye out for alternatives.

 

[Rollyco]

Opera is no longer secure from an anonymity point of view and manually loaded proxies are bypassable

Can you elaborate? I've never noticed a problem with proxies...

 

[WillEater]

I.E 1.0, Windows 3.1

 

[Ceewan]

Can you elaborate? I've never noticed a problem with proxies...

I could try but I do not have the technical savy that you do and will likely misrepresent my argument badly,(as has happenned in the past).

Firstly Opera turbo bypasses a proxy and uses their proxy server instead, or so I was told. This is not an anonymnous proxy they use and your real IP can be seen. Again I took that on faith and never checked the results or asked questions.

I manually loaded Tor into Opera and when I upgraded I went to a proxy checker to check my anonymity. I had none and my real IP was reavealed. I closed Opera, reopened the browser, double checked my proxy settings and checked a different anonymity site, with the same results. Sometimes I suffer dropped connections with Tor, I have no idea if this attributed to the problem. So I stopped using Opera and switched to Firefox. Checked the same sites with Firefox, no problem.

The sites I used in the anonymity test both have their perks and used together I have found them to be a reliable test.
http://checker.samair.ru/
www.stilllistener.com/checkpoint1

There was a previous problem with the 9.62 version until the Opera 10 version came out but I am not familar enough with the problem to elaborate.

I could look into it more but I am pretty happy with Firefox so I have not bothered to research the problem that occured very thoroughly. My anonymity is very important to me, (I really will miss the spellchecker though, my spelling is not that great). I go through some extreme measures to keep it as well so I would rather use the browser I feel sure is best for that purpose.

 

[Rollyco]

Well I run my own proxies at times and I can tell you that Opera never bypasses your proxy settings. Opera Turbo should of course be off. If an anonymity checker is reporting your real IP and you have a proxy enabled in Opera, I guarantee it's because the proxy is leaking information, not Opera.

 

[Ceewan]

Well I run my own proxies at times and I can tell you that Opera never bypasses your proxy settings. Opera Turbo should of course be off. If an anonymity checker is reporting your real IP and you have a proxy enabled in Opera, I guarantee it's because the proxy is leaking information, not Opera.

I respect your opinions but, and again with all due respect, there are better techs than I consider you to be who have said different. As far as Tor leaking information to the proxy checker sites? not possible or they would have done so with Firefox.

You did not mention by the way:

To NEVER enable "Opera Link Synchronization"! It stores your data online on an Opera server!

or

To NEVER enable "Opera Unite"! It exposes you as a server. Also uncheck "Discover local Opera Unite Users" in "Tools"->"Opera Unite Server"

or

Go to: "Tools"->"Preferences"->"Advanced"->"Security":
UNCHECK "Enable Fraud Protection". Otherwise every domain-name you visit will be sent to an Opera server!

The basic standard for loading a proxy in Opera should be:
Go to: "Tools"->"Preferences"->"Advanced"->"Network"->"Proxy Servers...":
CHECK all protocols and make sure that you put a proxy IP and port in each field.
Only the HTTP proxy has to be a working one. The others can be bogus and don't need to be functional, but this will prevent a proxy-bypass attack by blocking direct connections to a remote server for these protocols.

I do not know for sure what went wrong when I installed the new updated version of Opera and frankly I do not care. The browser was just not built to be "anonymity friendly" nor are the developers leaning in that direction, quite the opposite. So I switched, you and others are welcome to do as they please with my blessing.

 

[techie]

I agree Opera does have some serious issues.
For the most part I use it for webdev as it shows some nice features underlying when working on CSS, other than that the addon features they offer and proxy tools seem simply nutters.

It's another reason to why my machine takes two minutes to connect to any website from time to time, but once I'm in its really fast.

Then again I seem to have the same issue using FF3.6 as well.
A true hog of resources.

 

[kagami hawke]

I use firefox. IE is just way slower on my laptop for some reason. It just takes like half a minute to load pages sometimes, while firefox can load the same thing in about 3-6 seconds.

Firefox just has a few problems I never have with IE though. Like how Firefox won't let me copy and paste on some forums, for reasons that never made sense to me.

 

[Gir633]

Firefox, because if you use IE Bill Gates watches you masturbate.

 

[NamiXxX]

Mozilla Firefox FTW^^

 

[example100000]

firefox is supposedly really good, but i never actually tried it because it looked so complicated and hard. on the other hand i'm all used to internet explorer and it's been doing it's job. i LOVE google chrome because of its fast speed and cool look. but in the end i chose ie8 since i usually use it.

 

[guy]

Firefox on my main computer, because of its customizability.
Chrome on my netbook, because of its sheer speed.
IE, only for the odd Japanese site that only supports IE.

 

[megatorn]

Firefox is good,but now I use Opera,and it is really fast:gayprance:

 

[Rollyco]

I use Opera for everything except web development, where the Firefox addon ecosphere really shines.

 

[mister_playboy]

Opera really needs to up their JavaScript performance... it's dog slow on a site that uses and abuses JS like Slashdot... :trance:

 

[CoolKevin]

getting fed up with opera, it is going backwards

 

[techie]

I am beginning to agree with the two last posters.
Opera 10.51 was a true "downgrade" in my opinion.

Never had so many screen freezes in my life as on this thing
and every time I go to certain pages my hard drive sounds like
it's running a snow plow through gravel.

Time to find another solution other than FF, MSIE and Chrome.
Perhaps a good old Windows 98 can with NS4 will solve the issues :tea:

A little edit:

Opera has a nasty habit of calling home on just about every single thing you click on.
Opera Software ASA logged in Peerblocker as ip: 91.203.99.45

 

[ircaddicts]

IE8 for me every time. :cheer: tried the rest and thier ALL crap compred to IE8 for me anyway

 

[Gengar]

I use IE 8, Maxthon and Opera. I don't like Firefox, I don't even have it installed on my PC.
I read some user above said she hated Netscape. I actually loved that browser. Too bad they discontinued its development.

 

[CoolKevin]

I have never heard of Maxthon, I might give it a shot, nothing to lose (I hope)