Sniptools » Tools/Reviews

MyIE2 (Maxthon) versus Opera: A Review of the IE wrapper

January 10, 2004 Views (27,529) /  Comments (43) /  Trackback (0) / Digg/Share


A very, very nifty add-on to Internet Explorer which makes your web experience nearly like Opera’s — secure, tabbed and configurable! Here’s holding the glass to MyIE2, and seeing how it matches up to Opera..the browser that clearly seems to have inspired MyIE2 (now called Maxthon) in the first place. The student challenges the teacher!

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is inadvertently the most “popular” browser — in numbers at least — but since it is basically free (read: unlucrative) MS has decided to dump the IE browser. In the wake of such complacence from MS, a clutch of other snazzy browsers have sprung up — Mozilla, Firebird, etc from the Gecko family, and most notably Opera. All of them are more standards compliant, secure, faster, configurable etc etc. Well, all that sort of changes with the release of an ubernifty MyIE2 wrapper to IE!


First, get a load of the features

I won’t regurgitate, the MyIE2 website has a tour with screenshots or a handy list of features in their guide. Go ahead, read ‘em up, then click BACK and read the rest of this piece.

It is a nice little tweakable sarong for IE. I wonder if it has the malleability that one has come to expect of Opera, but hey, who tweaks everything! Tabs are neat (have existed before in CrazyBrowser as well) but my minor quibble is that the tabs font cannot be edited — and the font sizes are small, intentionally perhaps to save screen real estate — although I am allowed to bold the Active Tab text etc. What is really neat though is that I can close tabs in a number of ways: by double-clicking the tab (and clicks are customizable). It sports a bunch of shortcuts and the beauty is in the growing array of plugins!

IE was slow, irritatingly slow after you have used Opera. This is especially true if you are subjected to slower connection speeds (as I recently was, when in a remote Indian city.) Somehow MyIE2 seems a touch faster than IE but below the hood it is the same beast. Opera’s rendering engine is unmatched.

IE had pop-up blockers utils galore. Even Google Toolbar does it. But MyIE2 implements this with great flourish and allows you to customize it on a per-site basis!

MyIE2 brings skinnability to the vanilla world of IE. There are some cool skins because it is easy to develop them. Personally though, I prefer a skinless MyIE2, and Opera with the “Win” skin which is really simple. Skinned behemoths such as Neoplanet have taught me that KISS is indeed a very critical concept, but we digress.

IE did not have a cool forum where people actually get solution to their woes and gripes. MyIE2 introduces community to IE. (Btw, Opera does this fabulously, plus IRC!)


Things I love about Opera

  1. Simple but thoughtful thingies like Notes, “Paste and go” etc. These things are simply too many to enlist here, the proof is in the pudding. Once you use Opera, you get addicted. (Addendum: please read comments below for how to achieve this in MyIE2.)
  2. A totally customizable search interface (only a search.ini away) that makes it easy to have your own shortcuts e.g., dictionary, vivisimo, amazon, ebay etc. MyIE2 does give you a search bar (hint: CTRL E) which *is* customizable but geeks wouldn’t settle for anything lesser than *.ini files, now would they!
  3. I can change font-size in Opera with a simple 9 or 0. I can get back to normal with a 6. Nothing similar in MyIE2, although they tell me that if I had a “num pad” (the right hand side numbers thingie on regular keyboards) then I could achieve this with CTRL + and CTRL -, but I have a laptop. Sizing in Opera is actually pixel-based which means images, flash movies etc are all sized along with the text seamlessly.
  4. Opera: switching between personal style sheet and the page style sheet is a cinch. This is simply not easy in MyIE2 although a plugin would solve it.
  5. Print Preview in Opera is unmatched (“p”). MyIE2’s print preview is still the same as IE: ugly. Btw, if a “media=print” stylesheet is specified in the web page, Opera’s print preview will show you the printout accordingly. Is this useful, or is this useful!
  6. One minor feature of Opera that has been a life saver for me on many occasions is that when you are typing something in a form, then you inadvertently click to another page, and then come BACK, your form input is still retained. In IE, Mozilla etc, what you were entering in the form is vamoose. I love Opera for this feature alone!
  7. Opera’s password wand is more intuitive and less obstrusive, IMHO, than RoboForm that comes shipped with MyIE2. I particularly don’t like the popup window of Roboform, with further pop-up menus (e.g., on the button “NEVER”). Somehow Opera is also better at figuring out when to leave me alone — e.g., on an HTTPS website.
  8. Say what you will, the download engine of Opera remains the one to beat, without the need of any additional download accelerators or managers (e.g., DAP)
  9. IE doesn’t support zillions of standards, so by extension nor does MyIE2. Still.
  10. Tweak-freaks love the customizability, and PORTABILITY of Opera’s configurations. It’s all in one INI file.
  11. Speaking of portability, Opera works on all conceivable OSes. I can use my same settings at home at work, at friends’ etc etc.
  12. MyIE2 is secure, but you need to steelwire it by disabling ActiveX etc. It surely makes the process MUCH easier than IE. Yet, security-wise Opera is unbeatable.
  13. Window history — if you inadvertently close a window that you were surfing and want to get it back, Opera gives you a windows history. Just CTRL ALT Z away (or Window —> Closed) and you can resume any Windows from your current session. MyIE2 also provides something similar (see below.)
  14. Also read: Why Opera?

Where MyIE2 really shines

  1. It’s free Wink (had to get it out of my system)
  2. For me, this is a killer-app idea: the “BOSS” feature! You can assign a key combination (in my case CTRL Z because the two keys are so close together) which when pressed just totally makes MyIE2 disappear from the screen — very useful if you really have a nasty boss! When you press these keys again, the whole MyIE2 reappears, tags and windows and all. Marvellous! Cool!
  3. A bevy of plugins from weather to image sizing!
  4. Because it is IE, when you COPY text from a web page, it copies the text along with the formatting plus the images, which you can then PASTE into an email or a document. Many users may find this very useful! Opera and Mozilla will not pick up the formatting or the images, which I personally find useful at times when I just need the text. YMMV.
  5. An “Undo” function for Windows history. If you close a window, and regret it, you can always “undo” and reopen it. MyIE2 maintains the history. Super.
  6. Groups: like sessions in Opera, or folders on your personal bar. If you have a folder on your personal toolbar (instead of just links) in Opera, you can “Open all folder items” and all your bookmarks in that folder are opened automatically in new windows of their own. MyIE2 achieves this functionality a similar GROUP function, and you can specify groups quite easily. What is really nifty in MyIE2 is to add the current window to any group. Just right-click on the tab, then “Send to” …this feature seems to me to be a lot handier than in Opera, where for sessions you’d have to have all previous session windows open, then open the current one, then save the session again. You can specify the group that MyIE2 STARTS with. Finally, accessing different groups is very simple — it’s a drop-down on the toolbar.
  7. As much as I hate to say this, unfortunately many websites are just plain developed with IE in mind. My corporate intranet for instance, and it is a VERY sophisticated one (ERP ring a bell?), uses ActiveX profusely. And frankly, if I wanted such functionality available from ANYWHERE in the world, in my browser, I’d rather have it exactly like this than to have Java applets or simple pages where everything uploads again and again. I’m sorry I cannot show you screenshots but in some ways there is a solid business case for why IE is a very, very powerful browser. (and no, making Opera identify itself as IE doesn’t do much Wink)
  8. It doesn’t crash much. Opera does, truth be told. Yes, even version 7.23. Crashes many times daily, which btw I dont mind as it resumes where it left off when I restart it, and besides I love Opera too much. Yet, it needs to be mentioned as it is a clear brownie point in MyIE2’s favor.
  9. For many media files (e.g., on Amazon.com’s music samplers), Opera can be configured to launch the right app (which is why it is super flexible in the right hands) but it is not always easy for the layperson. MyIE2 has all the right associations built in because under its panties it is still really IE.
  10. Content filtering is nice. You have several options:
    • Load Images
    • Load Videos
    • Load Sounds
    • Allow Scripts
    • Allow Java Applet
    • Allow ActiveX
    • Allow Flash
  11. AutoHide is very nice, although Opera can come close to this with some work.
  12. The personal toolbar also has proxies as a drop-down, which makes it easy to switch between proxies. In Opera, ALT P etc etc. More clicks away.
  13. Encoding is easy to switch too. At least 2-3 clicks lesser than Opera. Speaking of encoding, IE simply *is* better at showing multiple languages on Windows as long as the charset is specified in the page. In Opera I need to move between the EDIT —> ENCODING —> “Auto” mode to “Western” to “Shift_JIS” all the time.
  14. Pop-up blocking is quite sophisticated, based on individual sites and this included wildcard expressions. Get yourself Spybot Search & Destroy though, and enable their host file replacements!
  15. Ad-blocking is phenomenal. Although again, get Spybot.
  16. It supports Gecko rendering now, in version 0.9.12, but this makes page loading slower (for me — Windows XP Pro, Pentium 4 non-Centrino, 512 MB RAM.)
  17. A minor feature, but very useful for some news website etc: Autoscrolling.

THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT:

Irrespective of the browser that you feel most comfortable with, the bar in the “IE camp” has certainly been raised!

Admittedly Opera’s rendering engine rocks (as does Firebird’s) and I’m patiently waiting for a component/control of some sort to be made (e.g., Adobe?) so developers can use the Opera rendering engine in their applications, since it is faster, more secure, and uses less memory.

Personally, I am somewhat ball and chain attached to Opera still, although for surfing those notorious banking websites that follow the lame “We only support IE” dictum, MyIE2 is certainly a more pleasant option. (P.S. With Opera > 7.23 this problem of non-IE support is a little better.)

But for most people who use IE, or your uncles who’d have their zippers in knots if you were to ask them to switch from their default browser (the you-know-which), or for people who do not want to shell out the little cash it takes to buy Opera, MyIE2 is a very very decent, addictive, all-encompassing alternative. IE takes a lot of time to open new windows, MyIE2 doesn’t, so it offers a better overall surfing experience even without the whole features shebang.

Have I missed out on anything? Have I not explored either MyIE2 or Opera well enough? Penny for your thoughts!

(2017 Words | )

 
Possibly Related
Other stuff that may be of interest  
Comments
What readers have asked/said/added.

^1 Mandy said on January 10, 2004 11:41 AM:

Nice. How about comparing with Mozilla browsers? They have tabs too and a lot of plugin extensions to boot.

Btw, if the windows in MyIE2 open up right after the window I am clicking them in, that’s a feature not a bug. I would like to have the links open a window “close by” instead of at the end of the tab order. Maybe it just needs getting used to?

Mandy

^2 Jade said on January 10, 2004 5:55 PM:

I love Opera too, but when I can’t get to a website (they won’t let me), I use Mozilla Firebird. It has all the features you mentioned (like saving opened windows, etc) although it won’t work on certain intranets that use HTML editors or things like that.

^3 Moebius Street said on January 11, 2004 1:08 PM:

Regarding placement of new tabs, this is easily customizable. In MyIE2 Options, go to the Tab section. Turn OFF “Display New Tab Next To Current”.

Regarding Notes: well, I’ve never used this in Opera, but I’m guessing this is similar to MyIE’s “simple collector” feature, accessible from the rightmost button in the statusbar.

Regarding customizable search, MyIE2 has this. The sidebar page can be replaced; I’m using one from http://myextra.netfirms.com/ (where you can find a ton of other plugins as well.

Actually, it’s these plugins that make MyIE2 so powerful, I think. It supports 2 types: sidebar plugins that appear in a flyout pane on the left side, and utilities activated by a toolbar. Here’s what I’ve got running now:

Sidebar plugins:
- Calculator (including Jscript expression eval)
- Calendar
- Google advanced search
- View page partial source
- Weather

Toolbar plugins:
- Analyse picture
- Check page size
- Decompose frame
- Display link source
- Display pictures
- Edit page
- Enable right click
- Encyclopedia look-up
- Flash file save
- Google results
- Gray-out page (remove annoying coloring)
- Highlight keywords
- Linkages preview
- M-W dictionary lookup
- Merge splitted pages
- Picture resizer
- Split page horizontally
- Split page vertically
- Text highlighter
- TinyURL
- Up a directory
- ViewSource
- Zoom

^4 Shashank Tripathi said on January 11, 2004 9:07 PM:

Wow, Moebius, that opens a whole new bottle of champagne! Will give these plugins a swing and get back to you/update the article accordingly.

Btw, have you figured out how to:

(1) Change the font size on the window tabs
(2) Change font size easily within the window web-page (Opera’s 9 or 0 for instance)
(3) Play Flash files (mine doesn’t play for some reason, on two PCs, which leads me to believe there’s something wrong with the settings I have in the tool)

Btw, have you tried snipurl instead of tinyurl? Wink

Shanx

^5 TripleHelix said on January 12, 2004 5:26 AM:

It is an improvement on IE but still can’t match Opera for speed, or Mozilla for standards compliance (due to the IE core).

^6 ragsi said on January 12, 2004 7:47 AM:

MyIE2: “It has an “Undo” function!”

Opera has this too. Ctrl+Z when you’ve closed a page will restore it, with history and all. Also see “Window > Closed”

^7 Shashank Tripathi said on January 12, 2004 10:01 AM:

Thanks ragsi. For Opera’s history, did you mean CTRL-ALT-Z? It works for me, but it’s not foolproof. It sometimes doesn’t work with dynamic pages, for instance, try some page from Amazon.com. (But yes, I stand corrected, Opera does have this feature!)

^8 Seeolfreeloader said on January 12, 2004 7:53 PM:

Almost everything where Opera “scrored” over MyIE2 is untrue. And MyIE2 is *not* an Opera clone; it’s actually a NetCaptor clone which is a NeoPlanet clone Smilie

1. Notes: use the Simple Collector which is more powerful

2. To zoom text, Ctrl + numpad’s ‘+’(zoom in) or ‘-’ (zoom out). Ctrl + * undoes any changes

3. Change the order of new windows (see Options|Window New)

4. RoboForm is not an essential plug-in; you can disable it (I hate all password managers as they are a security risk Smilie

5. Opera’s download engine does single stream. MyIE2’s add-in support allows for multiple stream downloads

6. You can rename tabs (right click|Set Sticky Name)

7. MyIE2 is an IE-wrapper, so logically it’ll only work on Windows unless MS re-releases an IE for UNIX version

8. Opera is over-secure and has issues with MS-technology centric sites (we sometimes do need to visit them).

Other nice thingies: select hyperlink URL from in-page content and drag-right to open in new window. OR select text and drag to search using default engine.

^9 Shashank Tripathi said on January 13, 2004 12:06 AM:

Hi Seeolfree,

Thanks for the note. I am learning (and getting addicted to) MyIE2 as well, but I don’t recall saying that say MyIE2 was an “Opera Clone”! I said Opera has clearly inspired the MyIE2 wrapper, which is true.

About your comments:

1. Opera’s Notes = MyIE2’s Simple Collector, yes, that was mentioned in a comment above. Also, Opera’s Paste And Go = MyIE2’s PLUGIN called Paste Go. Other simple things such as aliases etc are now in MyIE2 0.9.12 so there’s no real argument. I agree with you. (But notice Opera inspired these features! Smilie)

2. I use a laptop (as do many people I know.) There is no num pad. Any tips on this one?

3. Thanks, yes, window and tab ordering works as per Moebius’ suggestion above.

4. Password managers that are external to the browser are almost always a pain, but native to the browser, and on a personal machine that never leaves one’s house, they are very very useful. I even like IE’s default password memorizer (which auto-fills passwords ONLY if the username is correct.) Opera’s Wand is incredibly effective in this regard, and it stores data encrypted. Not stealth level salts etc but it serves the purpose for a personal comp.

5. How should I use MyIE2 to multi-stream regular web surfing? I have been using MyIE2 for over a couple of weeks now and Opera is simply a very very good experience. (No, I do really like MyIE2)

6. Rename tabs is a very cool feature!

7. Yes, it is an MS only browser, which needs to be mentioned as a big chunk of the world is moving to other OSes. Opera and Firebird work on several of these OSes. Btw, IE exists on a Mac. Does MyIE2 work with Macs? (I haven’t been able to find any Mac-only download)

8. I am not sure what you mean by Opera is over-secure, but for non-geeks users (i.e., 99% of computer users, including on occasion Yours Truly) this is most likely a GoodThing. As for Opera not working with MS websites, I do mention that in my note, and there are 2-3 websites that did not work with Opera before — but they do now. Try Opera 7.23.

Anyway, net net: I quite like MyIE2, and am finding myself using it more often — the feature that wins hands-down is GROUPS. Superb stuff.

-Shanx.

^10 BuffcorePhill said on January 13, 2004 12:14 AM:

hey guys; people may plagiarise opera to their heart’s content but opera rocks simply because of its speed in browsing; the very “liquid” user interface; and above all the pixel-level sizing which allows me to magnify images and text in a window to whatever level i want and then with a 6 to get it back to normal level; cool!

^11 mustermind said on January 13, 2004 3:26 PM:

All this is fine if you have the latest Intel chip and enough memory. I run my machine on a Pentium II with 128 MB of RAM, yeah its archaic, but Opera works like a charm. MyIE2 makes a whole song and dance about so much as appearing from my windows status bar even if I only have 4-5 tabs open. Its a great tool but for people who dont know about mozilla and opera, and there are plenty of those!

^12 StWendeler said on January 15, 2004 5:39 AM:

I currently use Firebird, but am annoyed that I can’t get into some of my banking/finance sites that require IE (or only have full functionality with IE). Have installed MyIE2 and really like it, but have 2 important questions:

1. If MS determines a security hole in IE and posts a patch, does MyIE2 get updated as well (through Windows Update) or will I have to wait for the MyIE2 development team to release their version of the patch?

2. Main reason that I installed Firebird was security. However, when running both Firebird/MyIE2 and looking @ Ram usage in w2k processes window, I see that Firebird appears to take up significantly more mem than MyIE2. Is there any benchmarks somewhere that shows this?

I previously used Opera6 but didn’t upgrade to Opera7, primarily b/c of the new mail client (and the fee associated w/ it). Like Firebird and like MyIE2 skin… trying to decide between the 2.

^13 forward -> said on January 15, 2004 3:32 PM:

We all have our pet peeves with IE or IE mutants and mine is the font sizes. I have my own css goign in the accessibility tab of IE from Tools:Options but this doesn’t match Opera’s sizing flexibility!

Great article btw.

^14 Chumass said on January 16, 2004 2:10 AM:

Neat post. My IE has a custom CSS as well. Here is what I recommend -

body, td, div, input, select, option {font-family: Verdana,
Arial;font-size: 12px;}
body, a, div {padding-bottom:18px}
textarea {font-family: Courier;font-size: 12px;}
h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {font-family:Arial;font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold}

This is good enough to read on 1024 res. Btw you mention CrazyBrowser but you did not mention SlimBrowser -

http://www.flashpeak.com/sbrowser/

This is what I have ended choosing up everytime.

Cheers.

^15 Grimila said on January 18, 2004 2:46 AM:

I’ve also ended up using Slimbrowser after trying out MyIE2, Crazybrowser and Mozilla. To me, Slimbrowser is more stable than others. And it has all the functions I need..maybe more than I need..

List of features of Slimbrowser from http://www.flashpeak.com/sbrowser/

1. Multiple site browser based on tab-page interface

2.Seamless integration with AI RoboForm FormFiller/Password Manager

3.Built-in Popup Killer based on intelligent identification and pre-defined filtering
Site windows killed by mistake are FULLY RECOVERABLE

4.Ability to turn on/off Flash Animation
In-Page Ad Filter: Filter flash, floating images and ad banners inside any pages

5.Convenient access to major search engines by Quick-Search Bar

6.Seamless integration of most Internet Explorer toolbars

7.ScriptPad: Built-in VBScript/Jscript/HTML/Text editor.

8.Hidden Sites : hide and show a site at users’ request

9.Skinned window frame.

10.Free-zooming of any web page.

11. AutoLogin: automatically connect and log into specified website with just one click.

12.Seamless integration with online translation engine and dictionaries

13.Ability to suppress script error message dialog

14.Site Group: Open and save a collection of sites as a group

15.Flexible control of startup actions

16.URL Alias: Type short alias instead long URL.

^16 Louis said on January 19, 2004 1:46 AM:

It is extremely inaccurate (and perhaps libelous) to suggest that Microsoft will no longer supply a standalone browser, because the free software does not generate revenue.

Explorer is not “being dumped” due to “complacency”, or any other fabricated reason. Explorer is not going away any time soon. One simply has to read the original Technet article at Microsoft, or be even remotely familiar with the future development of Windows, to understand this.

^17 Shashank said on January 19, 2004 9:40 AM:

Thanks for the note Louis. I am very familiar with Longhorn beta prg, so I am not exactly late to the party. Do you have a link for MS plans? Try deciphering the development path from here, which to me suggests that IE standalone will surely be phased out:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/desktop/business/components.mspx

Meanwhile, I quote Microsoft Program Manager for Internet Explorer, Brian Countryman, who in a May 7 2003 Microsoft TechNet chat, restated what he seemed to think was the obvious: “As part of the OS, IE will continue to evolve, but there will be no future standalone installations. IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation.”

From:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itcommunity/chats/trans/ie/ie0507.asp?frame=true

Would love to hear otherwise!

Meanwhile, I also believe calling MS complacent is not altogether erroneous because users need not wait until the Longhorn hits shelves (with a much more tightly tied in IE..which in turn means you need to shell for it again) while SO MANY other options are already on the market.

^18 Shashank said on January 19, 2004 2:43 PM:

Chumass & Grimila,

I’ve tried Flashspeak’s browser and it kicks butt! Excellent, has almost all the features of MyIE2 and the interface, to me, is a little easier. I quite like the window and font resizing functionality as well!

Thanks,
-Shanx

^19 mavenport said on January 19, 2004 4:19 PM:

the single best feature of slimbrowser has got to be the autologin feature which is incredibly useful for personal computers. it remembers better than ANY browser i know of because if you have three password fields, it will remember all of them. opera’s wand cannot do this. i have never tried mozilla so cannot compare. -mp

^20 I know said on January 19, 2004 4:24 PM:

It is not true that myie2 is “IE wrapper” because you can also use Mozilla with the patch http://aab.spin.ee/misc/ie2mozilla/

^21 Shanx said on January 28, 2004 4:36 PM:

Hi “I know”,

Actually MyIE2 *is* an IE wrapper because it uses IE underneath. It is not a full and complete browser in and of itself. The Mozilla patch is just a good-to-have utility which uses the Gecko engine to render pages (which, in my experience, is a little slower but YMMV)

Cheers,
Shanx

^22 Seeolfreeloader said on February 2, 2004 5:43 PM:

Shashank, bad news on “MyI2 will run Opera engine add-in” front. Seem Opera is .no planning to license the engine as a standalone unless you pay (like Adobe?) big bucks!

Sue the laptop manufacturer is your NumPad is missing. It’s usually there, but you need 5 more fingers to work it — Fn + x + x — or something like that Smilie

I didn’t get the bit about using M2 to stream multiple sites!!! The more the tabs you open the more the site you can view. I think I mentioned M2 supporing 3rd-party download managers that stream multiple file bits for quicker downloads.

As for Opera & security, well the 7.5 Beta is very neat. But often chokes on Java-related stuff; even with the Sun JRE installed.

M2 don’t work on Macs (I have access to one) but the files are w32 binaries Sad :( Still for Macs Frebird, Camino & Safari browsers do multi-tabs. IE5.x/Mac is still in the stone age!

Groups is neat, but so is the Proxy Support, intelligent content blocking, and the address bar search.

As you use, you’ll fall more in love.

^23 Benjamin Kellner said on February 15, 2004 1:56 AM:

1. I think MyIE2’s options and plugin system makes it superior to Opera. There is no good plugin system for Opera like there is with MyIE2. And the default stuff for Opera (or the limited number of things you can do) is not enough for me.

2. I think MyIE2’s Mouse Gesture system is a lot better than Opera’s. And as for zooming, goto View->Zoom Page. You can even set the zoom options as Mouse Gestures. +20%/-20%

3. You not only have an easy to use URL Alias, Groups, and URL Key features, but Quick Search as well. Just like Opera’s, but easier to customize.

4. Paste and go IS built in to MyIE2, but requires you to click the dropdown (or rightclick) the menubar New button and select Clipboard.

5. Auto refresh tab anyone and Import/Export Favorites and Proxy Lists? (MyIE2)

I think MyIE2 is a lot faster to get where you want, less clicks, easier to figure things out.

Also, Opera didn’t run fast for me. I’d browse to the same page on MyIE2 as I would on Opera and they’d take the same time. Opera would leave me with blank [Image] boxes for the first 1-2 seconds, while MyIE2 was trying to render. I really never noticed a render-time difference with any of the browsers. Perhaps I just can’t see the difference in miliseconds.

There are a few things I miss about Opera. The Refresh/Stop button were the same. The Skins and GUI look a LOT nicer. The Progress bar was something I enjoyed. Also the Transfers Window was nice. I wish I could get that in MyIE2.

^24 Shanx said on February 15, 2004 5:16 PM:

Hi Benjamin

Thanks for your thoughts. I agree MYIE2 is a decent browser, but after much trial and error, I’ve settled in with SlimBrowser for my IE needs now. All the benefits you mentioned re: MyIE2 are built in with SlimBrowser, plus there are these features that make me prefer SlimB —

(a) Paste and Go is in the right click menu itself.
(b) The “AutoLogin” feature of SlimBrowser is something all browsers should emulate! It’s *the* benchmark.
(c) The interface of SlimBrowser, with “small icons” and “show images with selective text” is a lot closer to original IE, and more visually pleasing for me.

My main browser is still Opera though. Its rendering engine is perceptually faster for reasons you mentioned — it’s perhaps optical illusion, but I like this idea, however trivial it is (i.e., I like the text in the page to appear before the images.) Opera now also does not have problems with my banking websites that require IE etc.

What I really like about Opera, and what I disagree with in your post, is that the sizing (with a simple 9, or 0, or 6 for back to original size) is unbeatable. MyIE2 and SlimBrowser’s resizing is not at a pixel level, it’s pretty ugly.

Just my thoughts.

Thanks,
Shanx

^25 homer said on February 26, 2004 12:17 PM:

Thanks for a very useful resource. I have one browser that is now MyIE2 and one which is 5.5 using your other tutorial on multiple internet explorer installs on the same pc.

happy homer

^26 Adam Lasnik said on March 3, 2004 10:24 PM:

Kudos on a very thoughtful comparison (and great followup comments, too!). Just wanted to acentuate, though, that I find myIE’s URL alias feature simply amazing and massively useful. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it means that I can assign a short keyword to any page I want, and then when I type that keyword and hit return on the addressbar, that page springs up.

^27 vanhiorn said on March 5, 2004 9:46 AM:

opera has many new things
http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44865

^28 avk said on March 6, 2004 12:03 AM:

This thing is way too biased. Obviously [the author]’s an Opera geek. But for normal people (non-geeks), MyIE2 is way better. Look at all their stuff. Its in 1 of 20 languages. For geeks, you can customize in your own language or make stuff like plug-ins and skins (which can be done easily by non-geeks too.) Anyway… MyIE2 is way better than Opera. Why pay $40 for Opera when MyIE2 is free just ‘cuz this guy says its not. I love MyIE2 and so will you. btw… NO SPYWARE. thats one of the reasons I took it. Its true that they should get rid of Roboform… I did in a day of use. It sux and puts MyIE2’s net rep down. But still, MyIE2 is awesome. It even comes with a Flash Saver to save .SWF files to ur Hard drive.

^29 Shashank said on March 6, 2004 1:16 AM:

Hi avk,

Thanks for your thoughts. You’ll notice that your sentiment echoes what I said in my review above. I like MyIE2 as well, and recommend it to people who are not willing to try Opera — the people you loosely term “geeks” as though it were a BadThing to be one.. Smilie

But for those who have tried Opera, there’s no going back. It’s not just me and my minority ways, it goes for almost everyone I know who has worked with Opera. (And no, it’s not a mindless cult to be devoted to any one browser, I’d be the last person to be blindly fervent w.r.t. any particular technology.)

MyIE2 is a superb effort, SlimBrowser is at par if not a touch better, but both of them are still IE under the hood. That’s a *big* drawback as the rendering engine of IE is, well, the rendering engine of IE.

Cheers,
Shanx

^30 The real advantage said on March 7, 2004 4:19 PM:

The real advantage of Opera is that wehn I use my imac in the office or my bsd box at home I have the exact same interface in both the places. IE looks and feels different on a mac and does not work on a bsd box at all. take care

^31 croppa said on April 10, 2004 2:45 AM:

Here’s one of the gazillion reasons one shd skip IE!
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3338461

^32 wildbill said on April 23, 2004 3:14 AM:

I’m afraid I agree with almost everyone. Both browsers have their good points-and areas where they could improve.

I’m on a dial-up and I always download with Opera, especially large downloads. It never needs a download manager and it simply doesn’t ever need to resume. If there are breaks in continuity, Opera simply fixes it and goes on with the download. I like MYIE2, but it won’t do that for me.

^33 Micke Hon said on April 27, 2004 6:20 AM:

Great article . 2 comments from me:

1) Opera 7.x ain΄t fast anymore . I tried from 486/100 to PIV/2G . It΄s not faster than IE 5 . I΄m still using Opera 6.06 .

2) You missed the coolest Opera feature that makes me stick with it: ΄Show cached Images Only΄ . If you already loaded some graphics you will see them otherwise it will not be loaded . None of IE versions and the other IE clones can do that .

^34 Shanx said on April 28, 2004 10:35 AM:

Hi Micke, Thanks for the note. I find Opera 6.x and 7.x to be equally fast in speed, I change them to a simple skin with “IE6” theme. No animations etc. So the interface is faster. The most important factor is the speed of the downloads though, and that is sgnificantly faster than either Mozilla (and gang) or IE engines.

As for your second point, “show cached images only,” it may or may not be a useful feature for everyone, but I can see why you like it! I have a CSS file which just gets rid of all images on the page, I use it for totally ad-ridden sites where I am only interested in the content.

^35 mangle said on May 17, 2004 11:07 AM:

Great article but the thing about Mozilla Firefox is that it NEVER crashes like Opera or IE. Go figure!

^36 mangle said on May 17, 2004 4:00 PM:

Oh and while we are at it here is the 589,653th reason you should stay at an arm’s length from IE: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/mhtmlredir.exploit.html

^37 Warren said on May 29, 2004 11:01 AM:

I have a 21 inch monitor and work in healtcare, and it is normal to have 12-20 windows open and running at any given time. I tile them and expand when I need them. At the end of the day, I just close the browser, and in the morning open all of them simultaneously. Curiously, I have no problems with crashing with my Opera. I had run the Avant browser prior to this, and I prefer either to anything that IE has for me. The Wand functions perfectly, and as nearly all my sites have passwords, this is an extremely useful feature. I still have IE available for the odd website that Opera has problems with, but these are rare. I am looking to Unix/Linux for my next home system, and am curious as to browsers available. Any suggestions??

^38 Shashank said on May 29, 2004 11:14 AM:

Hi Warren, thanks for posting. For Linux, I’d recommend Opera (as usual) or Firefox (Mozilla’s light weight version) which does some pretty fancy password remembering as well. Cheers, Shashank

^39 Chris Smith said on July 1, 2004 8:19 PM:

I am html newbie but you can visit my first website here.

Chris Smith o

^40 Clarifier said on July 12, 2004 1:02 AM:

Opera has “URL aliases”: simply enter a word in the Nickname field when creating a bookmark. Enter the same word in the address field to open
the bookmarked URL.

Opera’s wand can remember multiple usernames and passwords for the same site.

Opera is available in multiple languages, and one can create other translations - details: http://my.opera.com/community/customize/langs/

Opera supports Netscape compatible plugins / Java applets invoked by web pages, custom skins, custom sidebars, and bookmarklets. Unlike MyIE2, Opera does not support other user interface extending plugins.

^41 Piperdog said on August 30, 2004 9:58 PM:

Valuable information for choosing a browser. Thanks!!!

I’m looking to make my computer more secure, so I’m switching to Opera. However, I’m wondering if I’m still vulnerable to worms and viruses through IE software that is not actively running, but still loaded on my hard drive.

Thanks.

^42 jkue said on August 30, 2004 11:32 PM:

“I’m looking to make my computer more secure, so I’m switching to Opera. However, I’m wondering if I’m still vulnerable to worms and viruses through IE software that is not actively running, but still loaded on my hard drive.”

No you can’t.

^43 Twink said on September 22, 2004 10:58 AM:

Found this link while searching Google, thanks

 

Post a comment
Please be decent while posting comments, don't make us delete them, thanks.




Will be spam-protected.

Remember?


Comment Preview

XX said on :

 

Trackbacks
Ping @ http://sniptools.com/ping/2004-01/63. Listed below are links to weblogs that reference this article.

 

Referrals
*Some* places that viewers have come to this page from: