So I switched today. I never liked Firefox too much (it always felt slower than Chrome and didn't look as good IMO), but today I heard Chrome has done away with NPAPI plugins on Linux (which I think is a good thing in the long run, but for right now it means I can't use Pipelight to watch Netflix). So I started looking around at alternatives and rediscovered Opera. Dang this is nice! As fast as Chrome, but more secure and open. Looks every bit as good! As a web developer it's also great cause it's completely standards-compliant. I'm loving this! :)

Yeah Opera is currently a re-skinned Chrome. I'm hoping they'll add back more of the features they used to have in old Opera..

Btw, No browser is completely standards compliant. Ok that's partly because HTML5 is not an official standard yet but even so no browser matches everything exactly.


EDIT: Wait did they ever release the new Opera for Linux or is it still the old one? I had a look in the repos and it says version 12? I'd be a bit wary of using it unless they still do security updates?

You're going to cry and switch to FireFox as the last resort. That's what I've had to do :-/

yeah FF is much faster now with their latest update. I don't like Chrome because it's not as easy to navigate and clear stuff like in chrome plus google/chrome/youtube always want to freaking push their ads and "you must be logged in/create an account" into your throat. FF gives you faaar more freedom and it's easier no work with.

The official opera.com dl page lists version 12.16 as the latest for Linux.

After the last Firefox update that introduced that god awful australis interface I choose as my default browser PaleMoon http://www.palemoon.org/ . Almost every Firefox addon runs on it and it has the old firefox look and is even more customizable and faster. It even has a stable and even more faster 64 bit version. It is the best browser i had ever used.

The Opera guys' work got a lot more complicated I guess, now they'll have to maintain the NPAPI support all by themselves.

Just a heads up - you don't need the Status-4-Evar add-on on Pale Moon, the native status/ add-ons bar still exists. ;-)

Thanks for the heads up :) but i already know that. But PaleMoon still has the icon in the customize menu so i just put it in my status/add-on bar.

Ha, never noticed this, it comes that naturally to me. :-)

Don't get missed real Opera - version 12.17 :)

Got to say Status-4-Evar was one of the first add-ons that i installed on firefox since they started to strip down every feature from it starting from version 4. So I was pleasantly suprised that PaleMoon already had s4e integrated.

I got tired with the constant stripping down and the Chrome wannabe route, I ditched Firefox completely at version 14 or 15 in favour of Pale Moon which I had been using/ testing already for some years (as my portable browser).

As a former Firefox fan, I'm grateful for Pale Moon and the route its developer is taking it.


EDIT: What Firefox add-ons were you using that don't work on Pale Moon?

Funnily enough every add-on that I used on firefox works on Pale Moon. After some firefox fanboys at mozillaZine started bashing me for mentioning and recommending palemoon as a great alternative I just play it safe and say almost every add-on works on PaleMoon.