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So I actually have been actively using Opera for a while now. As well as it having a place in my history as my primary browser back in the day. And by now you might have then inferred that while I use Opera it is not my primary browser. Let me explain.

Since, at least as far as I'm aware, you still can't give a command line options to any Windows browser to tell it where/what size to open it has been convenient for me to use Firefox on my main monitor for my primary browser and then a 2nd browser that opens up on my 2nd monitor. Further it is nice having my 2nd monitor browser be different since then I can keep 2 effective sets of bookmarks. Since my 2nd monitor browser is in effect more a media device than my primary browser.

And for that Opera has worked great. In fact it still is working right now on my 2nd monitor where a YouTube video is playing right now. The UI was decent, it did not eat up a ton of resources, and overall did exactly what I wanted it to do and did it pretty well.

Well just a week ago I wanted to do a reinstall and so I packed up all my programs config/data files and did the deed. Opera's data files sit in:

C:\Users\$UserName\AppData\Roaming\Opera\Opera x64

Notice that last bit...my archive said just Opera not Opera x64 which I thought was a little odd since Opera kept auto updating for me so I thought I was running exactly the same thing that I had been not 45m prior. But whatever, I could see why that could happen between version installs but not updates. I was wrong.

I had been running Opera 12.x. I did not really keep track of it since all the dev's lost their heads and went for version number bloat and all that. So when I hit Opera's download site I just grabbed the latest version, installed, turned it on once, killed it, replaced the default config files with mine, and turned it back on and...

It was like installing Win8. Total UI change for the worse. (This was now Opera 19 btw.) No way to even put up a button for bookmarks. Everything had to go though a "quickdial" type page. Options were dumbed down. Just bad bad bad. It took me to realize that I was running what amounted to a whole new Opera and not the old one that had served me well.

Here: http://www.opera.com/download/...

You can see where the change was. The old Opera, which they appear to still be doing some updates to, stops at 12.x and then the reboot starts at 15 and is up to 19, lol, now. That version is something that again I liken to a Win8 version of Opera. I did not use it long enough, the new version of Opera, to give it any sort of proper review. All I know is that it was bad for me, reeked of some sort of desire to force tablet UI on desktop computers, and dumbed down everything as if I was using some Apple OS/app.

I am not opposed to change but where Opera is going now will not have me as a follower.

Not at the moment. They continue to use Presto in Opera Mini and in embedded, so they don't want to open source it, no explicit reason beyond that given. (I read this at the http://blogs.opera.com/desktop site in the comments to one of the posts, can't find it...)

http://dev.opera.com/articles/...

This was before they had to kill the Presto browser engine because of that problem and move to webkit

Better answer: http://my.opera.com/chooseoper... ;)

Continuing on the heels of windows firewall?

On browsers that don't suck, you can highlight the text, right mouse click, then select "Go to web address" to go to the page without needing a link.

But yeah, he shouldn't be so lazy to not include tags.

All pages go through their browser for reformatting to your device's screen dimensions and compression.

So you don't download the Mini but the Mobile version

Opera Mobile is a complete web browser installed on your mobile phone — all the code rendering and JavaScript
interaction happens on your mobile. This is in contrast to Opera Mini, where the rendering happens on the server
and a compressed version is then sent to the handset.

http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/opera-mobile-10-beta-developers-introduction/

Opera is my Browser of choice and the best ever I feel, at least up to version 12.14, (desktop)
I also don't do anything of importance with my cell phone or tablet, but for a different reason. It's possible those could easily be lost or stolen.

Someone found the workaround.
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1678612&t=1369864427&page=1#comment14298672
Apparently if you have a proxy script set up in IE, Opera won't start.
Even funnier, if you do set a proxy script in IE while Opera Next is open, Opera will crash instantly.
This is not by any means an obscure bug, it's something that IMO should never have passed even an alpha build.

For vertical tabs, I think Opera supports them.
Not sure exactly where you turn them on because I haven't used it in ages.
Chrome seems to provide extensions that support it, but I am extremely doubtful of the browser now --trying to just get AdblockPlus was useless because it's not designed for my computer setup or something like that. It used to work some months ago (using Rockmelt)

Web developers mainly. The whole "compatibility" and "don't break any page" bullshit has always been developers' fault.

But one needs to be aware that probably, when all this started, there was no good way of doing "capability testing" instead of browser sniffing, as Javascript was there but was a "stupider" language. Also, browsers did do things in a very different way, not like nowaways when most differences are small layout issues.

There was also no automatic updates, so probably the first version of IE was there along with the improved version, so if you just sent frames to everyone, old IE versions would break.

Still, there is no excuse in doing this nowadays, period. Browsers should break the goddamn sites that still do this, and for developers: if you haven't updated your site from the time when this kind of browser sniffing was required, please get out of the internet, you are making it a worse place.

Opera was the only browser that really tried to not spoof any other browser's identity (unless required). When it got to version 10, it broke many pages.

Sorry guys, but I believe this more:

https://people.opera.com/howcome/2003/2/msn/

Microsoft NEVER plays fair, never has and probably never will.

<!--[if lte IE 9]>We have detected that you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer which may be running the plugin called StealYourCreditCardInformation.virus.B. That plugin tends to break the layout you see on our site because our site is very secure and that plugin can not operate on our site. If things look broken, we suggest you uninstall that plugin, or use a good web-browser like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Opera.<![endif]-->

That goes on the top of the page. I then go out of my way to make use of all CSS that triggers IE-specific bugs.

Opera's entirely different.

Not for long: http://my.opera.com/ODIN/blog/300-million-users-and-move-to-webkit

Glad to be of help:

https://addons.opera.com/en-gb/search/?query=adblock

Sometimes, things can be so easy. :)

Sorry, there no such thing as "excelling" at compression "especially" with Opera Turbo. The browser has zero control over compression, it can request plain old gzip compression from the server, and the server may or may not oblige. That's all that's available without a dedicated server. Opera Turbo is a system where the browser basically hijacks you connection and routes it over an Opera-controlled server.

So the first part of your comment was irrelevant, except to note in passing that Opera has always had good HTTP compression support, and other features to speed up page loading (e.g. not loading images, or loading them selectively).

It's hardly hijacking if they they tell you what they're doing, and you have to click a button to enable it:
When Opera Turbo is enabled, webpages are compressed via Opera's servers so that they use much less data than the originals. This means that there is less to download, so you can see your webpages more quickly.

Enabling Opera Turbo is as simple as clicking the Opera Turbo icon at the bottom-left of the Opera browser window. When you are on a fast connection again and Opera Turbo is not needed, the Opera browser will automatically disable it.
http://www.opera.com/browser/turbo/

Had that issue in ver. 12.12 (had memory leak in it also) on videos on YouTube!

Where the plugin controller would "hang around" (but, eventually turn itself off) in that version!

Fixed, afaik & have been testing since this model released, in current build 12.14 64-bit Opera (what I use on Windows 7 64-bit)...

APK

P.S.=> THUS - You *MAY* want to check the latest/greatest, here, "straight-from-the-horses'-mouth" -> http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/ to see IF it fixes it for you - it did for me!

... apk

Now if they can get Safari and Opera on board

You mean this Opera, from a year ago?

http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/getusermedia-access-camera-privacy-ui/

I'm not sure if the TFA demo would work in Opera if it didn't specifically sniff for Firefox and Chrome, but be as it may, incomplete or not, getUserMedia() was part of Opera Stable already a year ago. Someone else with more insight into WebRTC will have to say why Opera doesn't work here.

It seriously ROCKS (especially since they got rid of the 12.12 memory leak & lag on scrolling + backspacing (was used to kill a security bug though, that I *believe* may still affect OTHER browsers too - they finally got that right & faster/smooth too!)).

http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/

* Trust me, you'll love it too.... I do!

(Agreed, 110% with your sentiments too - Opera is, as I have called it here before? "The SUPERIOR WARRIOR" in the way of webbrowsers!)

APK

P.S.=> That RC though - Unbelievable quality, speed, security & more (from a RC too, surprising)...

... apk

Maybe you should read up on what Opera is actually saying before jumping to conclusions.

Sample quotes:

If you need full end-to-end encryption, you should use a full web browser such as Opera Mobile.

If you do not trust Opera Software, make sure you do not use Opera Mini to enter any kind of sensitive information.

Did you actually look up what Opera is saying about it? Here you go.

Sample quote:

If you do not trust Opera Software, make sure you do not use Opera Mini to enter any kind of sensitive information.

As I said before, what Opera Mini is doing is the same thing. Though, I am not sure Opera Mini is doing it for https (maybe it does I just don't know). But Opera Mini tells you all the traffic is routed through them. Nokia Xpress Browser does not appear to tell the user (since some users are surprised of the behavior)

Opera Mini does indeed do it for https http://www.opera.com/mobile/help/faq/#connection

For heavens sake - the point of these featurephone browsers (Opera Mini has been doing this since dawn of time) is that they use proxy to reduce data transferred and/or reformat the sites to better use lower resolution. Instead of a lot screenshots to prove that he is a very l33t h4x0r he could have just opened the friendly page showing how the browser works.

The only thing that rises eyebrows a little is that they indeed MITM https traffic by re-encrypting the traffic and using their own certificate (which is installed as trusted on the phone) on phoneproxy communication. But this is how SSL is supposed to work - if you want to be sure about both sides you will also need client-side certificates.

Wrong!!! This is a MITM attack. SSL is *not* supposed to be hacked between client and server. There is supposed to be an encrypted, unbroken path between the two, else there is *no* security.

mod parent up.

See for example

Opera Mini and Opera Mobile do this since the day one for Christs sake!

Is there any end-to-end security between my handset and — for example — paypal.com or my bank?
Opera Mini uses a transcoder server to translate HTML/CSS/JavaScript into a more compact format. It will also shrink any images to fit the screen of your handset. This translation step makes Opera Mini fast, small, and also very cheap to use. To be able to do this translation, the Opera Mini server needs to have access to the unencrypted version of the webpage. Therefore no end-to-end encryption between the client and the remote web server is possible.

If you need full end-to-end encryption, you should use a full web browser such as Opera Mobile.

http://www.opera.com/mobile/help/faq/#security

For heavens sake - the point of these featurephone browsers (Opera Mini has been doing this since dawn of time) is that they use proxy to reduce data transferred and/or reformat the sites to better use lower resolution. Instead of a lot screenshots to prove that he is a very l33t h4x0r he could have just opened the friendly page showing how the browser works.

The only thing that rises eyebrows a little is that they indeed MITM https traffic by re-encrypting the traffic and using their own certificate (which is installed as trusted on the phone) on phoneproxy communication. But this is how SSL is supposed to work - if you want to be sure about both sides you will also need client-side certificates.

Exactly!
From http://www.opera.com/mobile/specs/

"Opera Mini always uses Opera’s advanced server compression technology to compress web content before it gets to a device. The rendering engine is on Opera’s server."

On the Nokia website it states outright that "Compressed pages mean lower data charges" http://www.nokia.com/gb-en/products/phone/302/

I use the version of Opera Mobile labs with extensions enabled.. It supports adblock and noscript, although noscript slowed down browsing to such an extent that I have disabled it. Ad-away is a very effective alternative if you have a rooted device

No

Nice rant, but it's out of date with regards to Opera.

Bringing the out-of-process plug-in architecture across to Windows and Mac also brings another advantage: the ability to run plug-ins compiled for Intel 32-bit architecture from within a 64-bit Opera process. And 64-bit Opera is the other delightful gift we're giving you at Opera Labs this Christmas!

64-bit Windows and Mac have been in the works for a while, but we didn't want to release them until we had a way of running all plug-ins that's completely transparent to the user: This is now possible with the out-of-process plug-in architecture, so here we are! The 64-bit versions of Opera offer performance improvements in some specific areas and allow Opera to have more freedom in allocating memory.

http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/64-bit-opera-and-out-of-process-plug-ins/

Incorrect. Check the download link, and select more options.
You can select your architecture there, be it 32 or 64 bit. I've been running on 64-bit for quite some time already.

There are only 32-bit versions of most browsers for Windows... Opera for example has 64-bit versions for Linux and FreeBSD, but not for Windows.

I've always been a bit puzzled as to why though.

I wish that people knew where all of these fancy features are coming from, that way Opera would have more funding to innovate.

While the cynic may see it as chump change especially in multi-national mega-corp terms, in 2011, Opera Software's net income came in at a comfortable 24.6 million dollars on an operating income of 156.5 million, a substantial increase over the year before. Not quite as much as Mozilla who netted 43 million in 2009 but for a small company of 777 employees just doing their thing making their browser, it's not too bad. Bear in mind too that Mozilla resides in the US while Opera is in Norway so a direct 1:1 comparison of financials can be slightly misleading especially when you take into account social services especially health care the respective companys' employees have access to and the different tax structures they exist under. Financially, Opera Software looks healthy with very low debt, and I think 150 million in cash reserves which, again, for their size is not too shabby. Most of their revenue comes from two places, namely licensing and search deals with licensing bringing in a bit more. Search is huge for them accounting for about a third of their income so they're in pretty deep with Google and to a much lesser extent Yandex and Amazon. While being heavily dependent on one other company that barring contractual obligations could turn the money off at a whim isn't the greatest thing ever, it's obviously better to have it than not have it just bearing in mind that it might not always be there. The bright side is their licensing revenues are not only slightly larger than search but actually appear to be growing faster respectively as well. And since they do offer some unique technology enabling web browsing on very low-end feature phones that otherwise wouldn't have it at all (as far as I know), it's reasonable to think the licensing revenue is fairly stable. If you want the whole story, here's their (warning pdf)2011 annual report. Riveting.

Intel's fabs are the advantage offered by x86. x86 processors are the only processors that can be made by Intel's fabs. If that changes, or if other fabs catch up, then great - use whatever is the best.

I guess I don't remember this as well as I thought I did, but I have been out of school for a while... And hardware never was my thing... I thought chips were burned onto silicon via some sort of lithography process? High intensity light etching the transistors onto a silicon wafer from a VHDL-type specification? What would prevent Intel from burning a 28nm ARM design in their fab?

Android apps are almost all Java - they run on any platform that has a Java runtime, which certainly includes x86.

No they're not and no they don't. They're Dalvik, which is similar enough to Java to make me sound pedantic by pointing it out, but they're not Java.

And while many android apps are written to run against the Dalvik VM, no small amount of them run native code. Opera, for instance by default ships both a ARM5 binary and an ARM7 binary (together) in the app store, and you can download the ARM7 binary by itself directly from them if you're sure your device can run it. Most performance-sensitive apps run natively, and writing native apps is well supported.

If your apps make calls into native code, that native code is shipped by the phone OEM, and you can already buy x86-based Android phones (Motorola sells one using some Intel Atom chip), so it obviously works there too.

Yes, and when that phone shipped you couldn't get Chrome for it, because there was no x86 Android build for Chrome.

In other words, the CPU's ISA is completely invisible to app developers, so I'm not sure what your complaint is there.

Sorry, that's simply not the case. It is invisible if you limit yourself solely to Dalvik apps, but that limits your options.

This makes no sense. Why would Intel have to push an ARM chip for you to be interested? What if Intel pushed a better-performing x86 chip than any ARM chip? Would you not be interested in that because you have some inherent bias against x86?

Hopefully it makes more sense now. No, a better performing x86 chip would not guarantee my interest. I'm not biased enough to completely rule out purchasing an x86-based phone in the future, but as it stands right now x86 looks like a disadvantage as opposed to an advantage.

Excuse me - but you need to learn how to configure and setup your web browser.

I have set DuckDuckGo as my default search engine in Opera.

If you don't already have DDG (quite unlikely, but who knowsâ¦), it's even easier, actually: go to DuckDuckGo, right click on their search box (not the Opera search box, the DDG website search box) and click Create Search. Enter d for keyword (you can choose any, but that's the way DDG suggests, and that's how it is on my default Opera installation), and check use as default search engine.

http://my.opera.com/Tamil/blog/default-search-engine

I've been using Opera as my primary browser for over 5 years. I think I found one website in that time that didn't work, but it was so long ago I forget the exact nature of the problem. Can you provide a few examples?

How about: "the server attempted to apply security measures, but failed"

Repeatedly failing to bring-up SSL with sites such as Amazon, Tesco and Paypal a big enough problem for you? Many times my other half has had to abort the transaction and switch to Firefox because Opera fails to secure the channel. Thankfully she now knows the check before entering any sensitive info.

http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1132402

They are very good. http://www.opera.com/dragonfly

Browser detection is bad. Websites should use only web standards or experimental features proposed for a standard (most of HTML5).

So other than through browser detection, how is a web site supposed to know which "web standards" and which "experimental features proposed for a standard" a particular user agent supports?

The capabilities of a client should never be determined by some HTTP header field, they should be determined by media queries

Sending the stylesheets for a couple dozen combinations of media queries just to have the user agent select one of them and discard all the rest costs bandwidth. So does sending mark-up that will be hidden with display: none in a particular media query's stylesheet. Besides, the preferred viewport width in WebKit still isn't capable of being controlled by CSS media queries, as the only browser capable of setting it through CSS rather than through <meta name="viewport"> in the HTML is Opera.

or the availability of the corresponding DOM object or function

The extra round trip adds latency.

No specific browser problems. They are all as shitty as each other.

Not all of them

Isn't this the same company that somehow "accidentally" dropped the browser selection process for european installations of Windows 7 SP1?

Yes and it's also the one that is still bundling MSIE with each copy of Windows, despite the original complaint about bundling. The so-called remedy, the 'Browser Ballot' does nothing about the actual bundling and gives only the choice of MSIE+another browser. And because an increasing amount of the tech media is beholden to M$, the subject is not given the attention it deserves. So between the broken ballot and the continued bundling, it is business as usual for M$.

The so-called remedy, the 'Browser Ballot', does absolutely nothing about the original problem. The original complaint is that M$ is abusing its monopoly and bundling MSIE. So the 'Browser Ballot' even when it works does absolutely nothing about the presence of MSIE. Essentially it gives the users a choice of MSIE + another browser, but MSIE there like it or not and no choice. The press has completely dropped this issue. No surprise since so many are beholden to M$ in some way or another.

why not try things like multiple tab groups

You mean like this?

Agreed. Isn't this the whole "Apple Store" argument: "It's their store and they can do what they want?"

The difference between the two, of course, is that Apple owns the store and is also the mayor of the town and makes sure that nobody else opens a store in their town. Don't like it? Move to a different town.

Google is welcome to make these changes. If developers don't like it, they can still sell their applications. They can go through Amazon's Appstore, Opera Mobile App Store, GetJar, AndAppStore, Handango, onlyAndroid Superstore, Insyde Market, Appoke, and various others. They can also sell them via their own website or they could even put it on a CD and sell it through a real-world store in a box or something. I know--how quaint.

>This is private communication between two-parties over a telecommunications system,

The ECPA gives operators an "out" by letting them view traffic as a part of their duties as operators.

Without a stated privacy policy, an operator can only get in trouble by targeting specific people and literally going out of his way to view streams of live communication not related to getting the job done, but that's hard to prove. And if there is a policy saying that they have access to your data, well, expect no privacy. It's been this way for a long time, ever since the BBS days. Remember those blanket "expect no privacy" statements that suddenly appeared on login at Joe's single-line BBS at 1200bps in 1986? 26 long years.

From the Facebook private policy itself:

How we use the information we receive
We use the information we receive about you in connection with the services and features we provide to you and other users like your friends, our partners, the advertisers that purchase ads on the site, and the developers that build the games, applications, and websites you use. For example, we may use the information we receive about you:

as part of our efforts to keep Facebook products, services and integrations safe and secure;
to protect Facebook's or others' rights or property;

This here, also could be construed as protecting the right of a 13 year old to be free from online stalking.

to provide you with location features and services, like telling you and your friends when something is going on nearby;
to measure or understand the effectiveness of ads you and others see, including to deliver relevant ads to you;
to make suggestions to you and other users on Facebook, such as: suggesting that your friend use our contact importer because you found friends using it, suggesting that another user add you as a friend because the user imported the same email address as you did, or suggesting that your friend tag you in a picture they have uploaded with you in it; and

for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement.

That last bit is a catch-all for what they're doing. What they don't tell you is that if they see anything untoward, they will call the cops.But they don't have to. They just have to tell you that they can see your stuff. Joe, back in 1986 might have called the cops if he saw someone stalking a 13 year old on his BBS or maybe not. Maybe Joe wouldn't want the bullshit of dealing with the police that wouldn't even comprehend what he was doing, but he would have been within his rights to do so.

If you're going to communicate privately, Facebook is not the way to do it. It should be obvious by the fact that chat messages do not disappear into the aether, but rather get archived on your page. If you want your messages to disappear into the aether, use a service and protocol that is forgetful, like even something as simple as ytalk (fancy versions of this we call old style instant messaging like ICQ).

It's not Facebook's fault that people, through their ignorance (wilful or not), don't use the correct tools.

FFS, if i want to talk about something private, i take it to a server in Denmark or set up a chat on the localhost.

Here, set up a chat server on the localhost: http://unite.opera.com/application/182/

And there you go. If you want privacy, you don't stand in the middle of the fucking Mall shouting your private friggin' business in real life. Why do it online?

>Where are the feds?

Being appreciative of Facebook's service and trolling /r/gonewild

--
BMO

Opera has a very decent integrated email & NNTP client. Some highlights include good support on offline mode, GMail-style labels, and very fast search. If you already have a browser you like (most likely), you can ignore the browser part of this altogether - if you launch it as "opera mail", it starts up in email view by default, and the UI is customizable so you can get rid of all unnecessary widgets.

In Ex-USSR The Bat is quite popular.

My friend used for many years the Foxmail (but from the first glance I do not see where the English version is).

There are also of course Opera and Pegasus.

I have personally went through: Netscape Messenger/Tb, The Bat, Pegasus and Opera. But I have used them very very long time ago and can't attest to what they have developed into this days. Of all, I have used Netscape 4.x for the longest time and it was probably the best. Tb screw up many different things on way to simplify/dumbify the UI - probably SeaMonkey is slightly better, but I do not expect miracles. The Bat and Pegasus at the times didn't support neither HTML mail nor signing/encryption and were used for nothing serious. Opera ... well I simply never liked the kinky UI of Opera and same goes for its e-mail program - powerful but slight odd and rough on edges - but many people like it.

Last stand alone client I have used (and liked) was KDE's KMail and it too was nothing serious. Overall, after struggling many time importing and reimporting my historical 2GB mbox I have completely abandoned desktop mail and now use exclusively (HTML-only version of) Google Mail (and in office I obliged to use the Outlook).

P.S. And, of course, there is always M$Outlook. My friend used it at home for many years.

Is there any end-to-end security between my handset and - for example - paypal.com or my bank? Opera Mini uses a transcoder server to translate HTML/CSS/JavaScript into a more compact format. It will also shrink any images to fit the screen of your handset. This translation step makes Opera Mini fast, small, and also very cheap to use. To be able to do this translation, the Opera Mini server needs to have access to the unencrypted version of the webpage. Therefore no end-to-end encryption between the client and the remote web server is possible.

If you need full end-to-end encryption, you should use a full web browser such as Opera Mobile.

So according to Opera, end to end encryption is "impossible" with Opera Mini and if you want it, use something else.

Hmmm .... Opera optionally bundles a web server (Opera Unite) with its browser.

Support for Unite is actually dropped and it will be removed before the end of this year. I have no idea if similar things are (or will be) possible with their extension platform though.
Source

If Facebook buys Opera I will definitely switch to another browser, mobile browser and e-mail client...

Opera's had native bittorrent support for years, but I'd suspect that the other browser manufacturers would consider adding this as a built-in feature either bloat or indicative of supporting piracy.

404 File Not Found
The requested URL (articles/view/extensions-opera-mobile-labs/) was not found.

Still, this is interesting if Opera has such an addon. I specifically looked for one last year and found nothing. Meanwhile (April 2012):

http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1372622

"Are you trying to install an extension? These are currently not supported by Opera Mobile."

"Opera Mobile's URL Filter file doesn't support ad blocking."

Seems Opera Mini works on iOS, http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2011/05/24_4 Apple was cranky about it, but after some kicking and screaming, eventually gave up.

Opera Mini is not really running locally as a normal browser, it is offloading rendering to server and basically (a little simplified) sending you a preformatted screen. And Opera Mini would run on Windows 8 RT for ARM as well, as would FireFox if implemented the same way.