Not to interrupt Browser Wars, but does anyone have a suggestion how to get a working laptop/notebook with at least Pentium 4 or comparable Athlon chip, for around 600 bucks?

Having used and loved both, what finally tipped me over to the Firefox side was not having to deal with banner ads. Not that the Opera ones were especially distracting, but I like having the extra real estate.

What I didn't like at first is that, in Opera, ALL of the flexibility is built in from the get-go, and in Firefox, you have to individually install the extensions you want (including mouse gestures). Now that I've gotten used to it, my impression is that Firefox is slightly faster.

Wolfram, I don't remember where you live, but I always go to Craigslist for used computers. There are some really good deals if you're careful not to get scammed.

I need to extend the copy of Firefox I'm using on this machine (the Powerbook G4). It's very rare that I run into a site that doesn't work under Firefox, which is a plus.

I grabbed Firefox here at work -- it stole my settings and passwords from Opera (at my request), which is kinda creepy -- it's going through the work proxy w/ password with no problem.

However, it won't go into Bank Of America. And I've just realised that Opera still can, when spoofing IE. Can Firefox spoof?

I haven't tried the mouse gestures thing. Where do I do that?

If you go into Preferences/Mouse and Keyboard, there's an enable mouse gestures checkbox there. Or you can try one, and it asks you if that's what you really mean to do. Right-left-right with the right button depressed (like a Z, but all at one height) closes the active window, for instance.

Now you've made me go to the mouse gestures homepage, and there's so much I could have been doing!

In Opera it's in the Preferences. In Firefox, you have to download the Mouse Gestures extension (under the Tools menu).

I'm installing Firefox on my mom's computer right now, AIFG!

However, it won't go into Bank Of America.

The BOA technical requirements specify Netscape 6.2 is supported, so it's probably just a case of bad browser sniffing. You can try the user agent switcher extension to see if that'll get you in.

I see what Jessica meant about the extension downloading. Nice in principle, but exhausting.

And now it's refusing to go to some sites, period. Connections are being refused.

I'll try it again at home.

Right-left-right with the right button depressed (like a Z, but all at one height) closes the active window, for instance.

Wow, that's pretty cool! Although I swear I'd be accidentally closing windows left and right. Well, I suppose I don't keep the right button depressed as I swish around.