Hi Colin, allow me to list the reasons I love Maxthon. I've never used Opera, and you've probably never used Maxthon...
OK it's got speed dial, which I guarantee will be in loads of future firefox features.
Maxthon had this way back when it was MyIE2; and in fact Internet Explorer has always had this feature right back to version 5 and probably versions 4 and 3 as well. You can use anything you want as an alias in the address bar, basically. Sure it's not the "same" as Opera's thumbnail version, but it works just fine; I used to use it (with Internet Explorer... added any site I wanted on "speed dial" into the registry), but I don't anymore just because it's just as easy typing a full url - and more secure. For instance I do not have a bookmark for my bank's online website - I always manually type it in because anything else is less secure (imagine if you will someone else using the computer downloaded a trojan that would redirect to fake bank sites by replacing your bookmarks and speeddials with their phising site).
And it was far more innovative than firefox with tabs. One of the very first to use them, first to re-arrange, etc.
Maxthon's tabs are fully customizable - can display the favicon in it (which you can disable), you can select which one opens when you close one; where new tabs appear, you can switch between them with Ctrl-Tab, or the Mouse Wheel (over the tabs), you can close them by right-clicking them - using an "X" in the tab (which I turn off), or (which I typically use) clicking a static "X" for the tab that you can place where you want (for me, it's next to the address bar).
Futhermore, Maxthon treats ALL "new windows" as new tabs, which is a feature I can't live without. It means I can do anything that IE would treat as opening a new window - and it will open in a new tab. I usually hold-down shift when I click a link I want in a new tab; but there's also an "open links in new tabs" option on the status bar I use all the time when I want to open a bunch of tabs (for instance - when visiting forums). As it is so easy to switch between opening new tabs or not, that is a feature I can't live without. On the other hand, Firefox doesn't offer any of these options. I know you can use middle-click; but you can use that in Maxthon too - and I still prefer to use shift-click.
Maxthon also respects Window's autocomplete settings. I don't like the drop-down menu; I disable it and use in-line autocomplete - if I want the drop down menu I'll click the down arrow thanks. Firefox has no setting to use in-line autocomplete, and always uses the drop-down menu.
You can edit source code live in page. This makes web development and such very easy. You just view source, edit, and click apply changes and you can alter how pages work.
Well that does sound useful for some people; the feature I can't live without in Maxthon though would have to be the ability to use "Download Control" on a tab-by-tab basis. You set up whatever you want as default (script on/off, images, sound, video, java, active-x, flash) - and then you can change any for the current tab -and it will affect its children tabs.
You can also disable fixed-windows sizes - this works with pop-up blocker; but it means that genuine javascript pop-ups that you don't block won't be in fixed size windows you can't resize; etc.
Besides all that, it also has every standard feature of IE - which includes fullscreen, and whatever else.
It's got mail built in, bittorrent built in, RSS feed reader built in, IRC built in, widgets built in, none of which add any lag or bloat to the program.
Good for you, speaking personally I don't like everything being "all in one"; but there are certainly some people who that would appeal to.
It's got this neat little trash can which gives quick access to loaded tabs in this session.
Maxthon has an undo-close list.
It's got an array of mouse shortcuts built in that aren't on other browsers. Such as hold down right click, click left click to go back and vice versa to go forward (there are tons more).
Maxthon has those, and the mouse-gestures are fully customizable. Speaking personally I don't use them.
Tabs don't take up the whole page if they're not meant to. You can control how much of the page a tab uses up.
Maxthon has that feature, but I don't use it - I just let them all use up the full page.
You can remove any menu-bar items you don't want. For instance I removed Groups, Window and Help. I also have the menu bar, address bar and standard buttons all on one line - you can lock/unlock the toolbars too (I have them locked). Tabs are automatically re-opened if the browser crashes. You can select whether outside links from other programs open in the current instance of Maxthon or a new one. The pop-up blocker works a treat; and you can open any pop-up that you wanted open very easily. You can select whether new tabs are highlighted or not (very useful).
And there are, of course, plug-ins/extensions available. Also - it doesn't automically force updates the way that Firefox does!
BTW; I agree that Safari and Opera are the world's fastest browsers loading web pages.
Amazingly, my argument against using Opera is exactly your argument for using Opera.
I don't want all that [obscenely explicit remark]. I need no speed dial. I don't need a built in bit torrent program, I don't need to edit live source code, and pretty much every other feature it has that is "more" than Firefox. Firefox appeals to me because of its simplicity, just as it originally appealed to me back when I used Mozilla suite pre-phoenix days.
See I agree with you; but I can't live without the features Maxthon has that Firefox doesn't. Firefox has no in-line autocomplete. It can block images, java, javascript and pop-ups - but it can't load activex - or block vidoes, sounds or flash - and it can't do them on a tab-by-tab basis like Maxthon can (with the exception of Flash which is either blocked or unblocked). It can't replace "open new window" with "open new tab". It doesn't have the status-bar features like "open in new window on/off" that Mazthon has.
And BTW, anyone who thinks the Gecko engine is better then the Trident IV engine is deluding themselves.