Ah for the last 4 days I have been using Opera, and that’s after a pretty long time. I must admit, for the past 5 years I have been been a loyal Firefox fan. There was a time when Opera used to be my browser of choice, but somehow Firefox managed to squeeze it for the number one position. However the recent hype of Opera 9.5 was just enough to pep my interest in the browser once again. I decided to give the browser a try and found Opera to be surprisingly good. The interface is more streamlined and the browser gives a lot of screen real-estate to work with. No doubt other people have also mentioned the very same points.

Firefox 3 was also released about 2 days back so one can’t help but compare the two. Actually I have been using Firefox 3 betas for the past couple of months so the final release did very little to add to what I was already using. True to it’s tradition Firefox 3 has been an excellent release, at least for me. Firefox 3 also boasted of considerable features that were added in this release, and I must say it does deliver on them. Oh yes, and if not less, there was an equally amount of hype surrounding Firefox 3 release.

So what’s the truth? Which browser is better? There are things both browsers have and don’t have. I would have loved to have a seed dial for Firefox by default. I know there is a plug-in for that, but it’s such a nice feature to have. On it’s part, Opera should have something like NoScript (by default). That thing has saved me countless times before. Then again Opera’s Dragon Fly is equally impressive. Firefox also has a lot more plug-ins and using Opera just makes me miss all of them.  I am not too big on themes, so it doesn’t bother me one way or the other. Apart for these and other small things, most of the hype created around the release of both browsers is largely unwarranted. None of the two browsers bring in revolutionary changes, and none of the browsers are deficient in any particular area.

For me the most important point for adopting any application and particularly applications that I tend to use on a daily basis, is “productivity”. It’s “how fast can I adapt” or “how fast I can get things done”. It’s more about “how much do they nag” and “how annoying things are while using them”. That’s why I generally take a considerable amount of time in deciding whether an application is worth the effort to switch to and/or adapt to. Browsers absolutely fall in that category.

I guess most of the people who surf the net, of-course myself including, are similarly fanatical about the choice of browsers. While Opera is going to stay on my box for some more time, Firefox retains the numero uno position as far as I am concerned. Not because it is revolutionary or because it is the best. It’s because, well, I am simply used to it!