Opera with some Firefox extensions

Opera is an amazing web browser that's long been overshadowed by Firefox. I've been switching back and forth between the two for ages now and can never seem to make up my mind. Its mostly been a contest between Firefox's extensions and Opera's speed. I've always felt that Opera was slightly faster but Firefox's extensions made up for it with increased functionality. Today's post is about mimicking the functionality of some of Firefox's extensions in Opera.

Compact Menu:
This extension lets you save some screen real estate by replacing the entire Menu bar with a drop-down button. The equivalent can be achieved thanks to this handy tutorial by Tamil.

DNS Prefetch:
This extention tries to predict which link you're going to click on and calls the DNS while you're still looking at the current page. But like I said before I've always felt that Opera was faster, so this is unneeded.

Download Statusbar:
I've always been annoyed by Firefox's download manager, it just seems like clutter to me. This extension at least restricts it to a bar along the bottom instead of a separate window. Thankfully Opera doesn't use a download manager like Firefox.

Fasterfox:
An extension that manages a lot of settings you would otherwise have to edit about:config for. It makes Firefox a bit faster but again, Opera doesn't need it.

FoxyProxy:
Opera doesn't provide quite the same per site proxy use feature as this extension but proxies can still be implemented under Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Network > Proxy Servers

Greasemonkey:
Get this, Opera already has default support of Greasemonkey scripts! All you have to do is create a directory for them. Then go to Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Content > Javascript Options... and add the file path. Store your greasemonkey scripts here and as long as their filenames end with .user.js they'll work. There are some compatibility issues as Opera and Firefox use Javascript differences but there are several scripts that bridge some of the gaps. But Opera won't be compatible with every greasemonkey script out there. Mostly because Opera doesn't support cross site requests as they can be a security vulnerability.

Speed Dial:
This extension was created as a copy of Opera's default Speed Dial.

Stop-or-Reload Button:
This extension combines the Stop and Reload buttons, because you really only need one at a time. Opera's button layout was already designed with this in mind and doesn't need this extension.

Ubiquity:
Opera won't let you access remotes sites via XLHttpRequest for security reasons but its UserJS system can still enable much of Ubiquity's functionality thanks to the Ubiquity for Opera project started by Cosimo Streppone. This project seems to be having trouble with Linux compatibility though, but hopefully it will be resolved soon.

Xmarks:
Opera Link includes bookmark syncing and more. It'll also sync your speed dial, custom searches, history, notes and personal bar. It won't however sync your passwords, which shouldn't be remembered by your browser anyways (security risk).

Other things that Opera has but default Firefox doesn't: thumbnail tab previews, email client, feed reader, sessions (grouped tabs), mouse gestures, fastforward (smart forward), rewind (jumps back to the first page you visited of a site), wand (form filler and password manager), notes and other widgets

PS. I use the Speed Dial as both my startup page and my home page. You can get the same by going to Tools > Preferences > General and changing Startup to Start with Speed Dial (Opera 10 beta) or start with blank page (Opera 9). To replace the home button visit this site, drag and drop their speed dial button with home icon and delete your old one. Keyboard shortcuts can be edited under Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Shortcuts.