Apparently my Firefox looks very similar to your Opera, everything from left-handed tab bar with groups and plugins on demand to scrolling through tabs with RMB+mouse wheel. I'm literally using all of the features you mention. I think you can set up Chrome in mostly the same way.
Of course you need to use extensions while Opera does it all out of the box. I prefer being able to pick-and-choose features and I appreciate the rich playground for ideas of the Firefox extension ecosystem. If anything I wish Firefox did less out of the box.
I think I usually use only between 30 and 60 tabs, though it's easy to lose count with tree style tabs and I've certainly never hit a ceiling where things seemed to slow down. But maybe Opera really shines in super-heavy browsing loads. Even if that's true, "stuck in the stone-age" is just flamebait rhetoric.
> Even if that's true, "stuck in the stone-age" is just flamebait rhetoric.
Not so. Firefox and Chrome come out of the box with more or less the same features as Internet Explorer 6, which is stone-age browsing for me. Sure, you can add extensions and add-ons but they (at least for Firefox) slow down your browser, take time to set up (unless you use a portable version you carry everywhere with you), may be a security risk (as history has shown) and are nowhere near as refined as what Opera provides (I really disliked the All-in-one gestures add-on in Firefox, although you can still customize it until it somehow behaves like Opera's implementation, sort of). And really, Opera has so many features that I like it would take a very long time to have an identical setup for Firefox. Maybe someone should develop an 'Opera' extension.
> I prefer being able to pick-and-choose features
What does it matter if you don't use those features and they don't get in the way? For instance you have a torrent downloader embedded in Opera. I don't use it, I never see it, it does not slow down my browser. What is the problem?
> If anything I wish Firefox did less out of the box.
Chrome and Firefox have the option option to sync your extensions, as well as bookmarks etc. and settings. I just have to login to Chrome or Firefox on a new computer and it's pretty much identical.
Contrast that to Opera Link, which as far as I can find doesn't sync extensions or settings, so I'd have to configure it and change all the default settings I don't like.
I'm pretty darned sure IE6 doesn't have the ability to sync settings.
Can Chrome display your bookmarks at the side in "split view", with bookmark folders and bookmark folder contents in their own pane? Really? Thought so...
> "I prefer being able to pick-and-choose features and I appreciate the rich playground for ideas of the Firefox extension ecosystem."
Well sure, and Opera has extensions, too. It just does some things out of the box that you can't even do with extensions for other browsers, OR for which you have to pay the prices of longer startup and constantly checking for extension updates before starting up.
FF (and Opera, and all browser) extensions are great; as long as you don't have many dozens of them. Then you really really want those features done in core code, not in Javascript and what have you.
Of course you need to use extensions while Opera does it all out of the box. I prefer being able to pick-and-choose features and I appreciate the rich playground for ideas of the Firefox extension ecosystem. If anything I wish Firefox did less out of the box.
I think I usually use only between 30 and 60 tabs, though it's easy to lose count with tree style tabs and I've certainly never hit a ceiling where things seemed to slow down. But maybe Opera really shines in super-heavy browsing loads. Even if that's true, "stuck in the stone-age" is just flamebait rhetoric.