A year after switching to Firefox from Opera 12, I have gotten very comfortable with Firefox and a couple of its 64 bit branches.
Cyberfox-30.64 in on both my laptop and desktop as default browser. Waterfox-30.64 is being tested on my laptop. On a USB 3.0 portable drive: Firefox 31 Portable Firefox 32 Beta Portable Firefox 33 Aurora Portable Firefox 34 Nightly Portable Firefox 34.64 Nightly Portable
All are running a copy of the same profile. Some extensions are a absolute must:
I am using both Cyberfox 28 and Firefox 29 on a regular basis. With the right extensions, Fx Australis 29 can look the same as Firefox 28. Unlike Opium, Firefox is still highly customizable.
I still think that Opera is going to get lost in the plethora of Chromium/Blink based browsers. They will have to forgo the desktop/laptop/tablet market or settle for a market share much smaller than they had with Opera 12. They have not distinguished the "new" Opera Browser as a superior product in any category. Even with almost 20 years of browser building experience, their development seems slow.
Regarding your poll, I only looked at Firefox and Chropera. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as 'the best of 2013' for me. The first might not be as crappy as the latter but over time the sequence might change
I agree that there is no best browser. I have given up Chopera and totally avoid Chrome and IE. SR Ware Iron and Super-Bird might work, if I wanted a dumbed-down clean social browser. I have been using 64 bit Cyberfox since July. I am up to 50 extensions to do most of what I did with Opera 12. Customizing Opera ini files was easier than searching out extensions that don't conflict with either or almost do what you want.
Besides Cyberfox 26, my home desktop has Firefox 26, Aurora 28, Holly 29 Nightly and Australis 29 Nightly on it. Australis is running most of the same extensions as the other versions but does require the Classic Theme Restorer extension and some tweaking. Full themes for Firefox have not kept up with the rapid development scenario.
Someone should branch a Firefox build with the same functionality built-in as Opera 12 has and maybe we could get a 2014 winner.
Today I received another email from Opera about the blogs being discontinued.
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The explosion of these sites and the amount of resources we need to maintain our own service has changed our outlook on My Opera. We had a good run for many years, but we believe your content could have a better home elsewhere, so we have made the decision to shut down My Opera as of March 1, 2014.
Maybe later we will see this one in the future.
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The explosion of blink based browsers and the amount of resources we need to maintain our Opera Browser has changed our outlook at Opera Software ASA. We had a good run for many years, but we believe your browsing could be better served elsewhere, so we have made the decision to shut down Opera as of January 1, 2015.
Funny thing, the tabs still down work at all for me in Australis, at least in Linux. I click the tab and nothing happens
The tabs work fine in Win 7. I am using a couple extensions that effect the tabs that you may want to try: Classic Theme Restorer and Tab Mix Plus. It will take some settings tweaking to make them work the way you want. I am running 37 extensions in the Australis 29 Nightly without major problems. All-in-One Sidebar has a couple quirks but I am still able to use it.
You may have to use the December 9 dev version of Tab Mix Plus to resolve some problems
Are you using the default theme? I have found that themes can have some strange effects on Australis.
Why use the portableapps.com version when the standard Opera installer has a USB option?
After 15 years of loyal Opera use, I have given up. Opera 12 and 20 have been eradicated from all three of my computers (work, home and laptop). I have been using Cyberfox 22-26 (64 bit) since July. It took forty extensions to get it to a comfortable level. I am also toying with the Australis Nightly and the Holly Branch Nightly. All of my extensions work in Holly and most work in Australis. Firefox extension authors Aris and Onemen are working on extensions to circumvent the Australis dumb down.
