topic title: Opera
Posts: 316
DJiNN
Joined: 26 Oct 2007
#1
Having had a few problems with IceWeasel lately (Running very slowly and not saving & returning to previous sessions when re-started etc) i decided to check out the alternatives.

In short, i went for the lighter ones first (Kasehakaze, Midori, Skipstone etc) all of which work great and were equally as good as IceWeasel in many ways (Although not in EVERY way.... the Plugins are a reall boon in IceWeasel). But they still used a LOT of ram, which was rather surprising being that they're supposed to be lighter than their"Heavyweight" equivalents.

The BIG surprise however, was after i decided to check out the latest (Well, the beta actually) version of Opera!! I'm using it now, and it's using LESS ram, it's smoother, faster, more responsive than all the others, and that's WITH the"Turbo" function turned OFF!!

I really miss the IceWeasel addons (Greasemonkey, TOR, Scribefire, Scrapbook) but the resulting speed boost, light(ish) footprint and overall ease of use, more than makes up for what's lost.

So, for the time being at least, i'm using Opera. Just thought i'd mention it here because often Opera gets put in the same category as the heavier browsers, and from what i'm seeing here, it's deserving of being somewhere in the middle.
Posts: 1,520
eriefisher
Joined: 07 Oct 2007
#2
I tried Opera a while back and never used it. I just recently installed it again and I still can't get use to how it works. I just don't like the layout. Your right about the add ons and plugins for firefox/iceweasel.
Posts: 452
Jerry
Joined: 12 Sep 2007
#3
I like Opera very much, and actually prefer it to the Mozilla group, but two shortcomings keep me from using it: problems with certain pages running javascript, and problem with certain video formats.
Posts: 316
DJiNN
Joined: 26 Oct 2007
#4
eriefisher wrote:I tried Opera a while back and never used it. I just recently installed it again and I still can't get use to how it works. I just don't like the layout. Your right about the add ons and plugins for firefox/iceweasel.
I have used Firefox, (in all it's different guises & names) right back from when it first started, and i still think it's a great browser. But with all the plugins & addons installed, it just gets slower, and seems to use loads of memory. I also find it hard to use Opera because it's very different in some respects, to FF, but the fact that it just runs so well on this machine makes me want to at least try, and see how i get on with it. I'll give it a few weeks & see how it goes. __{{emoticon}}__

I definitely do NOT like the Opera widgets though..... they're soooo ugly. They remind me of childrens toys (In the way that they look) LOL!
Posts: 316
DJiNN
Joined: 26 Oct 2007
#5
Jerry wrote:I like Opera very much, and actually prefer it to the Mozilla group, but two shortcomings keep me from using it: problems with certain pages running javascript, and problem with certain video formats.
It's a shame when that happens isn't it? It would be nice if there was one browser that kind of"Did it all" with a reasonably small footprint. Unfortunately, i love to use tabs, and have as many as 20-30 (Sometimes more) at any given time. That really eats up the memory in IceWeasel (FF). Doesn't seem to do the same in Opera however, and i haven't had it start slowing down on me yet..... but then again i don't have any plugins installed either, and i know that has an effect on the overall performance etc.

Is there not a plugin that you can install to make those problematic things work correctly? I thought that the Javascript implimentation on Opera was pretty good?
anticapitalista
Posts: 5,955
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
#6
I used to use opera all the time when I was in Windows, but, like eriefisher, I just can't get used to it in linux.
It doesn't particularly run faster on my box, in fact it seems a little slower than iceweasel, but it is definitely not as much of a RAM hog.
Posts: 1,520
eriefisher
Joined: 07 Oct 2007
#7
That's what choice is all about.
Posts: 316
DJiNN
Joined: 26 Oct 2007
#8
anticapitalista wrote:I used to use opera all the time when I was in Windows, but, like eriefisher, I just can't get used to it in linux.
It doesn't particularly run faster on my box, in fact it seems a little slower than iceweasel, but it is definitely not as much of a RAM hog.
I'm only going by what htop is reporting but it seems to be very light for such a"Full on" browser. I know what you mean about getting used to it though..... i really like IceWeasel and it's hard switching to another browser, especially when it's so different.

But i'm going to try, because with so many tabs open and IceDove running & a few other things (PCmanFM, Roxterm etc) the amount of ram that's getting used on this machine starts to creep up & up & up, until it's almost reaching the 1gig mark, and i only have 1 gig installed! __{{emoticon}}__
Posts: 316
DJiNN
Joined: 26 Oct 2007
#9
eriefisher wrote:That's what choice is all about.
Absolutely!! And it's great to have that choice eh? __{{emoticon}}__
Posts: 1,520
eriefisher
Joined: 07 Oct 2007
#10
This laptop has 512mb of ram. I have 6 tabs open in iceweasel, roxterm and claws-mail open on other desktops and the ram is sitting at 30% used. My ram is also shared with the radeon video card, it leaves me with 375mb for apps. Not bad.
anticapitalista
Posts: 5,955
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
#11
The typical RAM usage on this box (I now have 3GB, but when I had 1GB) with nvidia, iceweasel open (a few tabs), rox, roxterm, xmms, screen (with irssi, rtorrent, htop, aterm, ncmpc running), claws-mail and a game or two of torcs, uses up to 300MB RAM, according to htop. It only goes higher when I am remastering, and then never more than 400MB.
Posts: 69
Piedie
Joined: 01 May 2008
#12
Hi,

I'm using Flock for a while now on my windows xp laptop. I just searched there site and there is a Linux version but I do not know whether it is suitable for antiX and/or you DJiNN. But maybe you guys could find out. To heavy for me at this moment __{{emoticon}}__ __{{emoticon}}__ __{{emoticon}}__


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Posts: 316
DJiNN
Joined: 26 Oct 2007
#13
Hi Piedie. Yep, the Linux version of Flock is pretty good, but when all's said & done it's just Firefox but with some built in functionality for certain things like photohosting sites, blogging etc. In all, i think Flock is good, and certainly works well, but the end result (in terms of how it eats ram etc) is pretty much the same as FF. (Still good to have the choice though) __{{emoticon}}__

anti - that's interesting with regards to your Ram consumption. I have 1gb on my main machine, and it's often up in the 4-500 mb region with no more than IceWeasel, IceDove, PCmanFM, Roxterm (2 tabs) and conky running (& whatever stuff's running in the background of course). I don't know why it's so high, but also, just recently, the CPU usage will suddenly soar up to 75% (or higher) almost at random, for no apparent reason. I know when it's happening because the fan kicks in & makes more noise. In fact, it's doing it now, and i'm not even ON that machine..... it's sitting there, doing pretty much nothing.

I think maybe i need to re-install antiX on that machine as something's got it doing some strange stuff. I have also noticed that Slim seems to be using quite a large amount of CPU/Ram, pretty much all of the time. (Not 100's of mb, but 15-30mb approx). Is this normal? It's always top of the list in htop, and never moves, and often the CPU max's out!!??

If i don't find out why, i think it'll probably be best to re-install with latest version & see how that compares. I've played around quite a bit with this install, so there's a good chance that i've done something to cause this to happen. __{{emoticon}}__ Maybe it's not good old IceWeasel after all, but good old DJiNN instead? LOL!