Firefox vs Opera?

[likwidtek]

As some of you know I run Ubuntu Linux at work as my right hand machine.  I do basically everything web and non-microsoft specific on this machine and have been using it for about 2 years or so.

The machine is nothing fantastic but nothing crappy either.
  My only complaint is the lack of non integrated graphics.



One thing I have really struggled with is Firefox performance.  I really get some horrible memory leaks and flash performance issues with it.  I had installed Opera a long time ago but never really got the nonfree flash plugin to work correctly.  It kinda sat there for a while but when I read that 9.5 beta worked really well with the newer flash adobe flash library I immediately tried it.

So far I have got to say it's not too bad.  I for sure am going to miss my plugins but I like to switch it up.  The one thing I am missing for sure as I wrote this is inline spell check.  A quick search on the tubes however pointed me to this:  http://opera.gt500.org/ospell/  It works but I really like how firefox spell checks as you write not after you are done composing.  It's the first one I found but meh it works.

Well... Opera just crashed on me.  Maybe a fluke.  Will keep a close eye on it.

I think what turned me on the most to Opera was since I got my Wii.  I like the web browser for the Wii even though it has some limitations, but I think this is mostly due to the specs of the Wii.  On the PC version of the browser, I like their “Speed Dial” feature and the interface is pretty clean.  

So far it's day two running it and I have to say the performance is noticeably better than Firefox.  I know all this will change once FF 3 gets out of beta but we'll see.

I'm interested in hearing about anyone's experience who has used / is using it on windows or linux.