I agree with the add-ons for Firefox. I can't live without the Unplug plugin for capturing videos and the Scrapbook add-on. I'll never lose a webpage because it became a dead link because I archive all my bookmarks with Scrapbook. Firefox's Bookmark system is the best too. Plus I like the tabs on my older version of Firefox (1.5). I don't lose track of tabs and I don't have to scroll left and right looking for them. I can keep 25 tabs open and this is what I often do. Safari and Camino, etc - you can't see tabs on your browser when you go over a certain number of them and have to click the arrow to see them. And it's harder to closer these tabs.

I've had lots of problems with Photobucket with Opera and with Safari, the "download more images" doesn't work on Safari, I'm restricted to downloading 3 at a time.

I find Camino the best for Photobucket though it often freezes with jumbo-sized images. So I find that even though Safari might be fast, I don't use it a lot. I use Firefox and Opera for browsing - Opera has even better tab features than Firefox - you can fit like 40 tabs on the browser window, and you have a choice of opening tabs in the background or not.

But Firefox is the best for bookmarking and archiving so this is my main browser.

If I want to download a file, I do it on Opera as it's very fast. (Firefox is too slow for this as I've said.) I keep Camino open for Photobucket. So I work with three windows (Firefox, Camino, Opera) open when I do my blogging (I download lots of images and videos when I work on my blogs). I use OS 10.39 so my browser versions might be older.

I haven't noticed much difference in speed with opening webpages but I personally find Opera and Safari the fastest. What I like about Firefox though is that you can see the scroll bar at the bottom so you can check if the page is loading and the progress of it. Opera and Safari (at least the versions I have) don't have that progress bar or not as good one as Firefox, and so they seem slower to me though they're not. I'm impatient and like to check often how the loading of a page is progressing. Without that visual cue I sometimes think Safari and Opera pages aren't loading and end up refreshing or clicking the link again which ends up slowing me down.

I think Opera is fastest. Opera is safe, secure, powerful and fully customizable, the Opera Web browser is faster and more secure than other browsers available on the market. Opera delivers robust security and a far-richer feature set than any other Web browser and it's free.

I agree that Opera is very good, I just wish:

- Photobucket worked properly on Opera
- it had a plugin for video downloads like Unplug (you have to look through the cache which takes longer)
- it had an add-on like Scrapbook which makes archiving SO easy

... then it would be the PERFECT web-browser.

If you are okay with paying for a Web Browser, and really want better performance, then you may like to have a glance at OmniWeb 5.8. Its pros include better and faster browsing capabilities, and a whole lot of out-of-the-box features. The only con is that it costs $14.95. Hope this helps!