Safari Killing Opera for Mac OS X?

analog_line writes "According to an article at News.com, the folks at Opera have given an ultimatum to Apple: Use the Opera engine in Safari or we'll have to rethink developing Opera for the Mac. While I know people who use Opera for the Mac, I find it hard to believe that Opera thinks they'll get any response other than, 'enjoy developing for one less platform.'"

Comments

Opera sues Apple?

[sporty]

So what if Opera sued Apple for the same reason Netscape sued MS?

Apple is probably planning on bundling safari with OSX. Granted, they probably won't integrate it. Is this right or wrong? Is it anticompetitive? Analysis?

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[oyenstikker]

Irrelevant. Microsoft used their monopoly in one market [operating systems] to hinder competition in another market [browsers]. Apple does not have a monopoly in the OS market, so this does not apply to them

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[sporty]

But they do have a monopoly in the mac OS market. Granted, there is no competition, it's more a natural monopoly.

Are they using it to hinder others? I doubt it. Just making observations based on others.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has a Monopoly on the Mac OS market like Frito-Lay has a monopoly on Fritos. Continuing on, 'sporty' has a monopoly on stupidity.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[mishac]

well, it's not quite the same as fritos. When I buy fritos, I don't have to buy a special version of Coke that is designed to be eaten with Fritos. I don"t have to recompile or purchase new products if i switch from doritos to fritos. Software and operating systems are fundamentally different from other products.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[jbolden]

And Ford engine has a monopoly in the Ford car market. The courts view Apple as a brand not a type of thing. The courts had to find that Microsoft had a monopoly in the personal computer market as a whole not just in the Windows market.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[babbage]

Granted, they probably won't integrate [Safari].

In what way, and for what reason, do you feel this to be so? What do you mean by "won't integrate it"?

After all, Safari already interfaces with both Rendezvous and AddressBook right in the main interface, and it offers simple gateways to helper applications like StuffIt, Preview, etc. Not only that, but one of the long term goals for Safari seems to be to make the KHTML engine available to third party application developers. If this isn't "integration", what is?

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[LordNimon]

The "Mac OS market" doesn't mean anything. You can't raise the monopoly issue with a company and its own products. Obviously, 100% of Apple computers are sold by Apple, otherwise they wouldn't be Apple computers!

I hope I don't need to explain this further.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[jbolden]

Even if you did have to buy a special version of Coke that is designed to be eaten with Fritos it still wouldn't make Fritos a monopoly. To be a monopoly you need to be in a position to restrain free trade. How if Fritos owned the entire US corn market and thus could change the price of Doritos at will; or even if they just used up lots of the country's corn and indicated they had a policy that any farmer selling corn to Doritos could not sell corn to Fritos...

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[ealar dlanvuli]

You can drag safari to the trash and destroy it. Software Update will never require you to run safari to update your other components. You can (if you wished) write a wraper for Gecko and drop it in-place for WebCore.

Need I continue?

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Dephex Twin]

I'm pretty sure what he means is that Safari is not a part of the system like IE for Windows. You want to delete Safari? Drag it to the trash. I have no doubt it will continue to function in this way after the beta period is over.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[2nd Post!]

The analogy holds if Apple prevents resellers from installing or bundling Opera with their Macs, which Apple is probably not going to do.

Microsoft bundling IE is fine.
Apple bundling Safari is fine.

Microsoft integrating IE is fine.
Apple integrating Safari is fine.

Microsoft using it's Windows monopoly to control browsers is bad.
Apple using it's desktop monopoly to control browsers is bad.

To expand: Microsoft manipulating licensing agreements and fees to prevent OEMs from bundling Netscape or making Netscape the default is bad. Microsoft using mshtml in Outlook, Outlook Express, Explorer, Internet Explorer, is fine, but if they used their marketing muscle to prevent bundling/packaging of other software is bad.

In Apple's case, this is *plain* competition. IE is the default. Netscape/Mozilla is the popular alternative. Apple releases a competitive browser. Opera decides not to compete, Opera's loss.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[babbage]

You can drag safari to the trash and destroy it.

Currently. Will that still be true if/when KHTML & any other aspects of Safari become part of the system libraries? Maybe the Safari interface to those libraries will be easily removeable, but will that mean anything?

Software Update will never require you to run safari to update your other components.

Same objection applies -- the SoftwareUpdate application still seems to do HTTP communication and some kind of extraction of data returned from the web. Okay, so it's not doing real HTML rendering now, but if the library is just waiting to be used then why couldn't it be applied in a future version? (IMO, Microsoft just uses IE for WindowsUpdate just because it's so easy to put that info into a web page rather than having to keep a separate application on every instance of Windows they ship. The fact that Apple came to a different conclusion on this matter isn't very impressive to me one way or the other.).

A better example might be the help system -- that all seems to just be simple HTML rendering, and I don't see any reason that they wouldn't transition this to a KHTML based backend in a future release.

You can (if you wished) write a wrapper for Gecko and drop it in-place for WebCore.

Quite true. So what?

Need I continue?

Could you please? I remain unconvinced. You've given a handful of offhand remarks about how you can route around or remove Safari. That in my opinion doesn't refute the fact that Safari -- especially for a beta release -- is already remarkably integrated into the system, even if in a "loose coupling / tight cohesion" kind of way where, as I say, everything works well together but, as you say, components can still be removed or replaced without too much pain. I don't see any reason not to expect the cohesion among Safari and the rest of the system to get even tighter in post-Beta versions, and it remains an open question whether the loos coupling aspect that you're leaning on will remain part of the picture (though I think we both hope that loose coupling will still work well in future releases).

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[sporty]

But, they aren't the only ones who produce softare.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Dephex Twin]

Everything you said in your comment was what you imagine Apple could do. If you are looking to argue about speculation as to what Apple could theoretically do, I think that's a waste of time. Yes, they could go so far as to do all the things Microsoft did to tie IE to Windows.

All you can look at is what Apple's situation is now, and what their general philosophy is. Right now, Safari is totally optional. It's safe to say it will be the browser on the dock on new machines once it is ready. It can simply be dragged to the trash to be erased. This isn't just the way Safari works-- if I want to delete Mail.app, iChat, iMovie, etc., all I have to do is drag the app to the trash. It is part of the easy and intuitive user experience that Apple has always had over Windows, and that has become especially strong in OS X.

Additionally, look at Apple's gameplan. Apple is trying to further the Mac OS, in order to further Apple hardware. They aren't trying to make Safari the dominant browser that crushes all others. Apple felt that a simple browser that is OS X through-and-through, and that integrates with the other iApps, was a very useful piece to making the OS X experience better. The other side-motivation that possibly exists would be to push away the dominant MS products and offer a worthy alternative. In this case it isn't to crush IE, but to keep MS from crushing Apple by leveraging IE.

So, yes, there exists a possibility that Apple could go counter to the way they have developed all their other applications and go against the general design of the platform, but until I start seeing some sort of evidence to at least suggest this is what they are trying to do, I don't see the point in arguing over it.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rendezvous is an open-sourced public API, and its documentation can be found here. Address Book's functions are also published, and developer documentation can be found here. And if you look at Apple's Cocoa documentation, you'll find that Apple already includes basic HTML rendering capabilities in its NSTextView class. You're using it whenever you view an HTML message in Mail or make use of Project Builder's built-in documentation viewer, or when you launch OS X's Help Viewer application. So by making the WebCore framework available to the public (which, you should remember, it HAS NOT YET DONE), Apple would essentially be doing nothing more than UPGRADING its HTML rendering capabilities.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Lachrymite]

I think that the prime difference is that IE was so integrated that it was interchangeable with the Windows Explorer. If Apple were to make the Finder into a web browser, then it would be a more similar situation. However, Safari is just an app, not an extension of the Finder. If iFinder or something came out, it would be more of a case for heavy OS-Browser integration.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

they do have a monopoly in the mac OS market.

Yeah! And Wendys has a monopoly in the Wendys burger market. I think the guvmint should order them to let White Castle sell burgers at Wendys stores.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[cappadocius]

That in my opinion doesn't refute the fact that Safari -- especially for a beta release -- is already remarkably integrated into the system,

Really I think the burden of proof is on you. If I drag Safari to the Trash it will be as if Safari never existed.

On my system Chimera is far more integrated than Safari. When I open an html file or webloc or tell another app to open a page, it opens in Chimera. (Chimera even appears automatically on my list of possible default browsers. OSX 10.1 only showed IE automatically)

The only real way in which the System and Safari are linked is that when Safari 1.0 comes out the system will tell me. Of course by the time it does I will have already seen it on VersionTracker and read articles about it on MacSlash and possibly Slashdot. And if I never want to see another Safari release in my life after that I can tell System Update to stop showing Safari to me.

The only integration is that Safari looks like an iApp and it accesses the same features provided to 3rd party browsers.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[babbage]

Really I think the burden of proof is on you. If I drag Safari to the Trash it will be as if Safari never existed.

Excuse me? I'm arguing that Apple has with Safari aimed for & for the most part achieved tight coupling (system components work well together, including in this case Safari with the rest of the system) and loose cohesion (components are not interdependent and so can be arbitrarily swapped out or removed). To refute this, you're telling me that you can delete Safari. I know that. I agree with that. In fact, you're parroting half of my argument back at me while steadfastly ignoring the other part. SO what's this burden of proof crap? ;)

I think what you -- and several of the other posters -- are arguing is how heavily embedded Safari is or isn't in the OS. I'm not talking about that. That can play into the coupling/cohesion idea, but it's really not the same thing.

The only integration is that Safari looks like an iApp and it accesses the same features provided to 3rd party browsers.

And that, if you'll put the flame thrower back down, is more or less all I was getting at in the first place.

Did I touch a nerve or something? Sheesh. As Frankie wrote elsewhere in this thread, Apple is not a convicted abusive monopolist, and WebCore is LGPL. And as an anonymous coward noted, the other core technologies that Safari integrates with -- the open source Rendezvous API, the LDAP based AddressBook, etc -- are all generally open & libre. So when I talk about Safari being integrated, I'm talking about how this semi-open source application interfaces with these other open protocols in the system. That to me is integration. When I talk about Safari being integrated, I'm talking about how this application brings with it a web engine that can be embedded by any other application on the system, just like Rendezvous etc can. That to me is also integration. Not only that, it's obvious integration.

What is there to argue about here? Hold frickin' tempest in a teapot batman...

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the most likely situation is not that your interpretation of integration was off from the intent of the post you first responded to. And obviously a whole bunch of people responded with fundamentally flawed reasoning and it's their fault that they misunderstood what you were talking about.

I mean, honestly, it takes a real self-centered prick to make a comment about integration and then get all pissed off when everyone uses the generally accepted definition of integration instead of your own special narrow definition!

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like Apple hasn't bundled browsers with it OS before. If memory serves, MacOS 8/9 came with IE, Netscape AND AOL already installed and ready to go.

The basic issue with Safari is that one day, someone at Apple (for the sake of theory, let's called him/her "SJ") wakes up and says "Gee. Web browsing in OS X really kinda sucks. Let's make a browser that doesn't suck."

In other words, they raised the bar. Previously, the browser that everyone compared themselves to was IE -- was it better or worse than IE 5.1?

Now, they've raised the bar. This is a good thing for users (by providing better browsers) and a good thing for developers (by giving them higher targets to shoot at).

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[FatRatBastard]

That's sort of saying "Ford has a monopoly on Ford cars" and then claiming shipping the car with a stereo is anti-competitive.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[babbage]

*shrug*

I realized that the original commenter probably was using the definition of 'integration' that everyone else here is using, but my point has been that if you think of it in terms of cohesion/coupling (I'm not pulling that out of my ass, that's textbook software engineering kind of stuff) then Safari is already pretty well "integrated" -- even if not in the antitrust abusive manner that many of the others are banging on about.

Look at Be's role in the whole MS antitrust saga. You can make a pretty strong case that Microsoft's tactics drove BeOS out of the market, even though it was a very high quality product.

The Justice Department didn't overlook this -- the interviewed Be's CEO Jean-Loius Gassee & asked him to testify about Microsoft's practices at trial. And he was happy to do so, but there was just one thing: Justice wanted him to talk about how the integration between IE and Windows had harmed BeOS, but Gassee didn't feel particularly worried about that -- in fact, he thought that it was a pretty good idea [1]. He was more worried about how Microsoft's situational enforcement of OEM contracts prevented manufacturers like Hitachi from shipping a computer that could dual boot with BeOS: Be and Hitachi entered into just such an arrangement, but when Microsoft found out about it they were furious, and told Hitachi that any attempt to advertise BeOS alongside Windows -- mentioning it on the packaging, in the documentation, in ads, on the machine itself, etc -- would be a violation & so termination of Hitachi's contracts with Microsoft. As a result, Hitachi ended up shipping laptops that could dual-boot Win98 and BeOS out of the box, but if you bought that machine without somehow knowing that feature in advance (from a third party, presumably), you probably never would have figured out why half of your hard drive was unavailable after you booted up Windows.

*That* I object to. Knee-jerk reactions against integration as a feature of good software engineering seems a little silly to me. Accuse me of picking semantic nits if you want to (and obviously, you do :), but in that case I no longer feel that "integration" was ever the real problem, and I don't see how it's a problem with Safari today.

[1] And so do I, and from my reading of what Apple is up to now with Safari, they seem to think integrating the web browser with the operating system is a pretty good idea too.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[ealar dlanvuli]

Well I think the key difference is IE was forced onto the world even when it sucked, through rather nasty OEM deals. Safari is being offered to the world and the world is accepting it overwhelmingly because well it's better.

It's really hard to argue intergration is bad when everyone benifits from it; the thing is IE was more a netscape killer (because netscape was en route to making the os irrelivent) than a "better application" being offered.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[cappadocius]

I'm arguing ... tight coupling ... loose cohesion

That makes sense. That arguement did not come across to me in your post (I'll admit to reading only your high moderated comment).

The confusion came from your definition of the word 'integration' which is not the one usually batted around here. And also from the fact that the integration with OSX of which you speak is not unique to Safari, and from the comments about tying together Safari or KHTML with other system apps.

if you'll put the flame thrower back down

oh come on. it's only a zippo.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[MalleusEBHC]

Microsoft using it's Windows monopoly to control browsers is bad.
Apple using it's desktop monopoly to control browsers is bad.

For the most part a good post, but how many times does it need to be said that APPLE DOES NOT HAVE A MONOPOLY. Last time I checked, Apple's marketshare was somewhere from 3-5%. Do they have a monopoly on operating systems? No, Microsoft does. Do they have a monopoly on computing hardware? No, they don't even make the CPU and a large majority of the rest of the system. If Apple wanted to bundle Safari, make it 100% removable from the OS (rather than making its removal as simple as dragging it to the trash as is the current state), and wanted to make it so no one could sell Macs if they didn't abide by these rules, they would have every right to. It would be a dumb decision, and I never see it happening, but they do have that option because APPLE IS NOT A MONOPOLIST

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a world of difference between the two, but this discussion brings up some interesting points. It is my contention that the operating system vendor should be able to define an operating system to be whatever they like. The difference in Microsoft's case, as has been pointed out numerous times, is that Microsoft illegally leveraged their OS monopoly to eliminate competition to their browser. In addition, they leveraged their effective monopoly in office applications and Win32 development tools toward the same end. You want to install Office 97? Internet Explorer is required. Same if you want to install Visual Studio 6.0. Same if you want to install any other Microsoft application. I will be surprised if to gain higher browser share from Mac IE, Apple bundles Safari with Final Cut Pro for instance. Moreover, it can be argued that a consumer-oriented operating system is useless without a browser & an e-mail client, so why not allow operating system vendors to distribute this software with the OS? Apple has clearly chosen this course, bundling all manner of application with their OS to gain competitive advantage over other operating systems (read: Windows). The problem arises, of course, when the operating system vendor has over 90% of the operating system market. Thus the correct solution to the MS antitrust case was not one OS company and a few application companies, but several OS companies and several application companies. The Economist magazine's editorial page got this right, but no one else I read at the time did. And as a final point, if Apple choosing a browser to bundle with the OS is inherently anti-competitive, then Safari shouldn't change anything as they've been bundling Mac IE with OS X for awhile, and the Mac browser market seems to be pretty healthy.

Another interesting aspect of this is that if you read Judge Jackson's findings in the Microsoft anti-trust case, the court defined Microsoft's market to be operating systems running on x86-based systems, explicitly ruling out other architectures (though they do note that even counting these other architectures, Microsoft still has an OS monopoly). Even though saying that any company with 3% of the market in anything has monopoly power is a bit silly, and an argument based on this would never be given the time of day in court (hopefully), still in this regard Apple theoretically could be accused of having a monopoly in PowerPC-based operating systems (server OSs don't count either, using the government's definition). In addition, one of the major benefits Apple will get from Safari is a system-level HTML rendering engine to be integrated into the OS and available to all applications (and they need since their current implementation sucks pretty hard). Microsoft wanted the same thing with IE, and it does add value to their platform, largely through DHTML extensions if my understanding is correct (e.g. full-featured Windows Help; free HTML e-mail message renderer; the "task bar" on the left of Explorer windows in 2000 & XP, if you have it enabled; and many other examples). Another similarity is that one of the prime government contentions against Microsoft was that they intimidated OEMs into putting the IE icon on the desktop rather than Netscape's. Since Apple is its own OEM, you will almost certainly get Safari on the dock on all new systems. So in these respects Apple's position and intentions parallel Microsoft's. And Apple has already done the same thing by integrating the Address Book with the system in 10.2. If third-party developers ever use this to any degree, it will be difficult to compete with Apple in this space, unless you're content writing your own front-end over their API & data store.

Even taking all of this into account, there are still big differences between Apple and Microsoft. As many have pointed out, it is and most certainly will be possible to drag Safari to the trash if you don't want it, and this point is absolutely critical. This is not possible in Windows with IE (or any of their bundleware, such as Windows Media Player). Apple has not colluded with other browser vendors to illegally divide the market between them. Microsoft did. Apple does not vigorously attack all middleware providers (Sun with Java, for instance) as threats to their OS, as Microsoft did. And so on.

However, that said there is still a good chance that Mac users will end up disproportionately using Apple's browser if for no other reason than because it is made by Apple (we all know the same herd mentality applies to most Windows users), thus sending a chill through the third-party Mac browser market. Whether that will be a good or bad thing remains to be seen.

And to respond directly to the point of this article, I've never used it but from what I've heard Opera on OS X is crap, so they've got some balls putting this as a pseudo-ultimatum to Apple. The folks in Cupertino are probably shitting themselves laughing.

Sorry for the long post.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

To expand: Microsoft manipulating licensing agreements and fees to prevent OEMs from bundling Netscape or making Netscape the default is bad. Microsoft using mshtml in Outlook, Outlook Express, Explorer, Internet Explorer, is fine, but if they used their marketing muscle to prevent bundling/packaging of other software is bad.

The kool-aid tastes good, doesn't it?

The apple situation is different because there aren't any OEMS to bully! Apple couldn't tell hardware companies what they could and couldn't do with the MacOS, because they are the sole hardware vendor.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[ffsnjb]

So Apple doesn't have a "monopoly" in the OS market on their hardware just like MS doesn't have a "monopoly" on X86 hardware? (Monopoly in quotes because neither MS nor Apple have a monopoly on their respective platform; they're both part of an oligopoly in their respective markets.) It really is pitiful how little geeks know about economics.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple OWNS the Mac and the OS. MS does not own HP, Compaq, Gateway, Dell...Apple has every right to develop, in any way it sees fit, for its own systems. MS ATTEMPTS TO FORCE COMPANIES THAT IT DOES NOT OWN to do things that are anti-competitive, hoping to crush development of software that competes against their products. MS threatened Acer over Lotus, HP and others over Linux. You can't even buy systems from major vendors without MS products preinstalled, and if you remove windows, you can't even get hardware warranties honored. Who's your monopoly?

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[arth33]

I'm not a programmer, but here's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong). These safari interfaces are well documented and open(ish). Other software programmers know how it works and can do the same thing with their browsers. Apple is trying to encourage greater innovation and a focused effort on their platform.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[arth33]

I'm not a programmer, but here's my take (correct me if I'm wrong). There safari interfaces are well-documented and open(ish). Other programmers know how to do this with their browsers and are free to do so. Apple is trying to encourage innovation and a focused effort to develop a browser on their platform that takes advantage of their OS.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Melantha_Bacchae]

babbage wrote:

> After all, Safari already interfaces with both Rendezvous
> and AddressBook right in the main interface,

Any third party can access both due to Apple providing APIs, and in the case of Rendezvous, opening its source. Address Book is now a system wide database.

> and it offers simple gateways to helper applications like
> StuffIt, Preview, etc.

StuffIt is a third party application that any browser worth its salt on the Mac provides access to.

> Not only that, but one of the long term goals for Safari
> seems to be to make the KHTML engine available to third
> party application developers.

It is already available, since it is open source to begin with. What Apple has done is make it possible for a third party to use the engine to build a browser around with more bells and whistles than Safari, and then be able to sell it if they want to. Hardly anti-competitive.

> If this isn't "integration", what is?

Tightly integrating your browser so bad that it "can't" be removed without disabling the operating system. Taking years in court to get to the position where you will allow the browser icon to be hidden on the desktop.

BTW, Opera is just a big baby. They didn't have any problem competing with IE bundled on the Mac. Why is Safari such a great threat to them?

Windows: "Go talk to my friend, an 800 pound monopoly-abusing gorilla!"
Mac: "And here's my good buddy, the 66,000 ton Godzilla!"
Godzilla: Stomp! ;)
(Godzilla switched in 1993's "Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla 2".)

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[babbage]

Hi. I said nothing about monopolies, whether or not the integration qualities I cite in Safari are in any way unique (I agree, they aren't), whether or not what they are doing is "anti-competitive" (I have no opinion on this angle and so did not comment on it), etc. Please chill out, re-read the post & the thread if necessary, and try to re-evaluate if I was *really* trying to be as antagonistic as your reply suggests.

Someone said that Safari isn't "integrated" with OSX, at least not yet. I argue that if you break down what is meant by integration -- that each system component is "tightly coupled" with others while at the same time, you also have "loose cohesion" -- any given component can be pulled out without too much pain -- I think we'd agree that Safari meets both of these criteria. This has absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft, anti-trust, or competition. This is good software engineering. One has nothing to do with the other.

Damn you people are testy about this stuff -- I don't even disagree with you but make a separate point and everyone seems to be painting me as some kind of Microsoft apologist.

Note to self: be more precise in the future so as not to lead to silliness like this thread... :-)

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Frymaster]

no. for three reasons:

1. one of ms's defenses was that ie was an integrated part of the operating system. you couldn't uninstall ie without damaging windows. with safari, you just chuck it in the trash and it's gone.

2. os x will almost assuredly continue to ship with ie "on the desktop" (ie in the dock). this shows a level of browser agnosticism that ms did not display, thus prompting the suit.

3. apple is a widget vendor in a broader computer market and, thus, does not represent a monopoly.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[mbbac]

I can drag QuickTime Player to the trash even though QuickTime is part of the OS X foundation.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[ProfKyne]

I think you raise some good points, friend, but I feel I should point out a few things...

1. Rendezvous and AddressBook are wide open APIs. Thus, Opera or any other application is welcome -- no, encouraged -- to make use of them. (After all, that only means a better user experience on the Mac and increases the value of the Apple brand.)
2. AFAIK, WebCore is not really a Safari component, rather, it's going to be an OS component. So rather, it is Safari that is dependent on the OS, not the other way around. (I could be wrong about WebCore, though.)
3. Yes, Safari is well-integrated into MacOS X but that isn't so much a Safari thing as it is a MacOS X thing. Take interapplication Services: would you say that Stickies is tightly coupled into the Mac because you can Make New Sticky Note from any selection in a Cocoa app? Or Search Google?

I see the direction of MacOS X/Cocoa development leading to more integrations like this. The difference IMO is that they are orthogonal enough that they can be removed without depriving the OS itself of significant user experience, and they are generally well-documented and public interfaces.

(that said, I have no idea if this was the case for IE, I never totally understood the case against IE on Windows... but then I'm not a windows user)

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[phoenix_rizzen]

Actually, the prime difference is that MS made IE so intertwined with Windows that upgrading one is the same as upgrading the other. You cannot upgrade IE without also upgrading a lot of Windows components and system dlls.

Upgrading Safari will be as simple as installing a new binary. Don't like the new version, delete it and install the old version. Whoop-de-do. There's no behind-the-scenes upgrades to the OS or anything like that.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[phoenix_rizzen]

The problem with IE on windows was that you could not remove IE, nor could you upgrade it without upgrading your Windows system.

Having an HTML rendering engine as part of the OS can make sense if done right. Use it for displaying help pages, use it for displaying HTML messages, make it available for third-party browsers to use for web browsing. But don't make the main browser a part of the OS such that upgrading it upgrades your system.

There is *NO* difference between Windows Explorer the file manager, Explorer the shell, and Internet Explorer the web browser. They are the same binary, and the libs are system DLLs that cannot be removed.

If you don't like Safari, just delete it. If you don't like Opera, just delete it. If you don't like Mail.app, just delete it. If you don't like IE on Windows, too bad, you're stuck with it, and all it's bugs and security issues.

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

Repeat after me: it is not and will not be an antitrust law violation. Period, end of sentence. I've done this for a living. Honestly, would you want to hear lawyers talking about open source development?

Re:Opera sues Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera is not important on MacOS Platform. Too slow. Opera will loose nothing to stop Opera for mac and Mac user won't loose anything in the same time.

It's like asking "to you this 20 th plane of KTM is more beautiful in green or in red ?"... In fact ? Don't care.

Opera X dead?

[Anonymous Coward]

Insert joke about a fat lady singing here.

Opera isn't dying!

[SweetAndSourJesus]

No, really. They acknowledge that Opera 6 sucks pretty bad, and promis that 7 will rock ass on OS X.

If anything, though, I'd think Chimera would be the one hurting Opera the most.

The fact that it costs money certainly doesn't help matters.

Re:Opera isn't dying!

[anarkhos]

I've heard that song and seen that dance before...

What about KDE?

[EccentricAnomaly]

If Konqueror doesn't use the Opera engine, will Opera drop linux support? Since they've released a Windows version, they must've gotten Microsoft to use the Opera engine in Explorer...

Yeah it sucks when Apple releases a free version of your App... but it would suck more if there were less Macs to sell your app to. Apple releasing a web browser was a very neccesary step for Apple to keep tha Mac platform alive and to try and take away the Wintel market share. The more mac users, the bigger the market for Mac developers.

Opera has a head start on Safari... instead of giving up, they could just try and out-innovate Safari they way Watson has out-innovated Sherlock.

Re:What about KDE?

[TheJesusCandle]

Opera has a head start on Safari... instead of giving up, they could just try and out-innovate Safari they way Watson has out-innovated Sherlock.

Problem is, and we have seen it before, end users dont really care what browser they use ( or other applications for that matter), as long as long as they can check their webmail and surf. Lots of browsers do this just fine. Some do it better than others. But the fact remains that most end users will just use use what came with the system.

Ive used opera quite a bit on pc's and it's pretty fast. Bout a month ago i put it on my macintosh, a blazing 80Mhz runnin macos 9.1. It was dog slow compared to ie on that box.

Re:What about KDE?

[Genevish]

I have said for years that I would gladly pay for a browser when they become as good, or preferrably better, than my current browser. So far, no one has been able to meet the challenge.

The single biggest problem has been simply viewing pages. Some browsers crash on certain pages, others don't display them properly. Omniweb has gotten closest so far, but it's still not good enough.

uhmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't they just say they were happy about Safari about a week ago?

Grow up you fucking idiots and stop trying to pull a Microsoft on Apple. Go right ahead and stop developing Opera for the Mac, nobody wants to pay for it now that we have Safari anyway.

Re:uhmmm

[jbolden]

Didn't they just say they were happy about Safari about a week ago?

No, that was Omni (a NeXT software company that has moved over to OSX). They produce a different browser but are thrilled about the Webcore (open source) engine since in their opinion this will allow them to make a better interface without having to worry about the engine. Omni believe it or not actually is better at cool looking easy to use interfaces than Apple (which is saying a lot).

Re:uhmmm

[mbbac]

Just to clarify. Omni Group hasn't commited to using WebCore or KHTML for OmniWeb 5. They have stated that it is a possibility in addition to the redesign of their display engine that had already begun.

Re:uhmmm

[jbolden]

Correct, webcore is only in beta. Besides they aren't public and webcore is free so I"m not sure what "commit" would mean.

Opera has to be competitive.

[bmetzler]

If they can't produce to web browser that will cause people to buy it over Safari, then they should just not develop Opera for the Mac. There's nothing wrong with that.

And before anyone says anything, this does not mean that Apple has an illegal monopoly. There is nothing wrong with not propping up third-party developers.

-Brent

Re:Opera has to be competitive.

[commodoresloat]

More importantly, if they insist on charging for something other companies are willing to give away free, they had better make it worth the money. And it probably isn't in Opera's interest to continue developing a commercial browser for a smaller market that now has 2 outstanding, fast, free browsers (3 if you count Phoenix, but that one still needs work). I haven't seen iCab since Jaguar but the last version of that I saw was also outstanding. It makes a lot of sense for Opera to abandon the Mac market, and concentrate on Wintel, but there is no need for them to act like it's apple's monopolistic practices that led to this. Chimera blows Opera away on os x and it has for longer than anyone even knew Apple was working on a web browser. And most people don't want to pay real money for a web browser. So Opera should concentrate where their strength is, which is not OS X.

Re:Opera has to be competitive.

[cbuskirk]

Somebody in the last 7 years has purchaced a web browser?

Re:Opera has to be competitive.

[h0tblack]

Wise words indeed. In the early days of OS X, I purchased OmniWeb as I prefered it to IE/Netscape/iCab et al and also wanted to support the company (OmniGroup). It was (is) a very nice looking browser with some great features - allthough it's compaitibility is slightly lacking these days. Opera must be mad, they're using excuses which have been viably used in the past for different projects by different companies to cover the fact that Opera is not and never has been popular on the Mac and they're going to leave the market. I'm truley amazed at their stance, there could have been a possibility that Chimera or OmniWeb be helped along by Apple and bundled with machines... but Opera.. what are they thinking! Finally, as others have said, Apple have provided the frameworks to the developer community, some of whom - read OmniGroup - have taken this as a positive thing, and will use this to build a full-blown feature-filled product. This approach is far more positive, you get the rendering engine done for you, then work on bells and whistles to create something people will pay for. OmniGroup could do well with their WebCore-based browser, and their attitude shows thought and maturity. Opera on the other hand seem to be overstating their position in the market, and threatening Apple with no, or very little basis, because of their own lack of ability to innovate.

No loss...

[fault0]

It's not like if the Mac version of opera was good anyways.. it really wasn't.

And I do like opera on Linux and Windows (especially Opera 7 on windows).

Re:No loss...

[baryon351]

I think you've summed it up well there. Opera on the macs I've used it on (400Mhz G3 with Jaguar, and a few G4/Dual G4s also with Jaguar) just doesn't compete. It's noticeably slower than IE, chimera and Safari, and featurewise doesn't offer anything I can't get on the other browsers.

That's not to say there aren't other people with needs that Opera addresses just perfectly, however.

Re:No loss...

[Aram Fingal]

It is a bit of a loss for people using PowerMacs in the PPC 601 to 604 range that can't go beyond Mac OS 9. I would love to upgrade many of these systems we still have to ones which can run OS X but we just don't have the money now. Opera is a fast and compatible option for these systems where there are not as many other choices.

Re:No loss...

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera on every platform I've used it on has pretty much sucked. Even on Windoze, it has never fully supported Javascript or CSS. Most pages don't load properly.

Safari is nice, but far from perfect. Of course, since it's still in beta, I have high hopes. Until Apple irons out some of the bugs (no tabs, not being able to specify a download location, etc.), I'll keep using Omniweb (which, while also not perfect, is thus far the best browser available for MacOSX).

Browser market

[larry2k]

The only people who gets hurts by this is the MacUsers.

Imagine every browser development company saying:

"we must rethink developing (insert browser name here) for the Mac."
We have to return to the IE browser? or we will have a only one browser plattform?

Re:Browser market

[SmackyTheFrog]

I could see this example working for somthing else but not browsers, currently for the mac the main browsers are: IE, Mozilla, Omniweb maybe Opera and now Safari. I'm new to the mac platform but from what I understand IE hasn't been updated in a very long time (its still on 5) and its dog slow. Omniweb is a great browser but no tabing, it doesn't render all pages correctly and its costs money. I haven't tried Opera yet on the mac but from what I see in the coments it looks to be in the same boat as omniweb. Safari shows great promise for a first release and I look forward to seeing it grow and become more robust. Mozilla and its sister browser Chimera on the other hand are open source, have tabbed browsing, is free and its pretty darn quick.

Basically what I'm saying is if I woke up tommorow and IE, Omniweb and Opera stopped developing for the mac there would not be great loss. You still have safari being made by apple and a fantastic open source browser with nightly builds.

Re:Browser market

[feldsteins]

Imagine them all saying "gee, maybe we should make our browser suck less!" And if they can't or won't say that, then I don't think the loss is as great as you suggest.

Why all the fuss?

[akgunkel]

IE already comes with all Macs.
Safari will probably take IE's place as the default.

Is Safari really already so much better than IE that Opera and others see no hope in going up against it?

Is the sole selling point of alternative browsers really just that they're not from MS?

I don't understand why there's a willingness to work on alternative browsers when the default is from MS, but not if the default browser is from Apple. If Apple makes a feature complete, windows version of Safari available for free, how many of the alternative windows browsers will close shop?

Re:Why all the fuss?

[ealar dlanvuli]

Is Safari really already so much better than IE that Opera and others see no hope in going up against it?


Honestly it is so much better that it raises the bar of competition significantly. I have a very strange feeling IE7/win will try and adopt many of it's concepts (because to be quite honest for 99.99999% of the world [including most powerusers] Safari has everything you need in a nice clean interface)

Re:Why all the fuss?

[fault0]

> because to be quite honest for 99.99999% of the world [
Except for the three to ten percent of us who use Mozilla (and derivatives), Opera, or Konq, which all have TABBED BROWSING.

Re:Why all the fuss?

[cappadocius]

Is the sole selling point of alternative browsers really just that they're not from MS?

Of course.Are you new here? £:-)

Re:Why all the fuss?

[ealar dlanvuli]

You fail to notice probably 20-30% of safari users came from tabbed browsers. I don't really think there are that many people in this world who really utilize tabbed browsing, so making a mainstream browser with tabs is silly (have you tried teaching it to someone who barely gets WIMP, it's rather like beating your head into the wall).

Tabbed browsing does not belong in a clean interface. Peroid.

Re:Why all the fuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to check out..
www.apple.com..funny that site uses tabs.

Kyder

Re:Why all the fuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, because it works when all the tabs are similar. This is really a dead argument, see the bijillion posts on the subject to see why tabbed browsing is evil.

Re:Why all the fuss?

[commodoresloat]

Tabbed browsing does not belong in a clean interface. Peroid.

Tabbed browsing, or its functional equivalent, will be incorporated into Safari, and the interface will be so clean you'll want to lick it. Mark my words.

Re:Why all the fuss?

[rjung2k]

I'm using Safari, and I miss the tabbed browsing from Chimera, but I'm coping anyway -- because as neat as Chimera's tabbed browsing is, Safari's faster and more stable, and those mean more to me than tabs do.

Re:Why all the fuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it sure as hell won't be remotely similar to any prior browsers attempts at tabbed browsing then :)

Re:Why all the fuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess I am not a power user. Chimera is still my choice. I haven't had a web page yet that Chimera could'nt handle. I can't say the same for Safari.

Re:Why all the fuss?

[mbbac]

Not everyone that uses Mozilla (or Opera, or Konq) uses tabbed browsing.

Re:Why all the fuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

Adopt its "concepts"? Wtf are you on? It's nothing more than a speedy, stripped down beta, lacking currently in features that people actually need (cache control) and want (tabs). You'd have to be pretty willful in the fanboy way to use it in lieu of the more powerful Chimera.

Re:Why all the fuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok seriously, were were discussing UI's not rendering engines. I have no doubt the webcore team will end up fixing all the remaining quirks in KHTML, but seriously thats as non-sequier as you can get.

Re:Why all the fuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, get over yourself.

As a inital release beta it's quite a solid product. It's currently my primary browser because chimera is still slower than molases in comparison to either Safari or Phoenix. None of those features are things I care for, in fact I have found myself in lack of want for features so far. Perhaps I might care if those features effected me in *any* way...

Re:Why all the fuss?

[tuxedobob]

Not likely. Tabbed browsing smacks of MDI, which goes against the Aqua Human Interface Guidelines.

I frankly don't see why tabbed browsing is such a big deal. Since Safari supports pop-up blocking (as a menu command, no less!), as well as a shortcut key for switching windows and a list of windows in the Window menu, the only advantage I see to using tabbed browsing would be to see a list of all open windows without having to click on a menu. Or maybe to watch pop-ups spawn behind the window you're in.

Oh, and speaking of pop-ups...

Re:Why all the fuss?

[commodoresloat]

Interesting. It's not like Apple has never contradicted their user interface guidelines, but the link you gave was pretty unequivocal. It's too bad, I really like Safari, but for me tabbed browsing or some kind of MDI in web browsing is essential. It's not just seeing a list of open web pages but also being able to have simultaneous sessions going on and switching sessions without redrawing windows. Switching between tabs is a lot faster and more efficient. I'll be sticking to Chimera if Safari sticks to the guidelines you quoted.

(By the way I do understand why avoiding MDI makes sense from a MacOS v. Windows perspective in other apps, but in a web browser where my primary activity is reading hypertext and following links, MDI is extremely useful).

Re:Why all the fuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's absolutely no reason why you can't download Mozilla (and derivatives), Opera, or Konq (yes, can be run in OS X now) and use tabbed browsing if you want it. But the users who are most likely to find tabbed browsing confusing (entry-level users), are also the users who are least likely to replace a web browser that is bundled with the OS. So I can see why Apple wants to make the browser bundled with the OS as simple to use as possible.

P.S. Yes, I have heard the argument "if you don't like tabbed browsing, you don't have to use it." But every extra button and menu item in the interface inevitably adds increased complexity.

Re:Why all the fuss?

[tuxedobob]

??? Surely something has to be redrawn when switching tabs. As far as fast and efficient goes, though, my favorite has always been Cmd-~.

From the article...

[greenhide]

"We think Safari is one of the best and most innovative browsers in the world, and it seems our customers do too," the Mac maker said in a statement. "No one is making Mac users choose Safari over Opera--they're doing it of their own free will--and Opera's trashing of Safari sounds like sour grapes to us."

Boy, that sure doesn't sound like someone in Public Relations would say. It'd be interesting to know just who it was at Apple who said this, as it seems more inflammatory than anything else.

Re:From the article...

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a strange feeling it was taken out of contex or from an anonymous source.

C|Net isn't know for quality fact checking... More often they are just trying to get links from /. I think.

Re:From the article...

[jbolden]

The purpose of public relations is to recast things. Apple may be trying to recast the developers who complain about competitive products poorly so that they don't get public support.

Think of it this way. Because of going to OSX Apple has access to tons of Unix software which is very good but suffers in the ease of use area. Apple as a software company specializes in making products more user friendly this is far and away their #1 skill. While they may have a very tough time beating the price of a barebones x86 machine for years to come, they aren't going to have that hard of a time beating the price of an x86 machine which includes: an OS, office suite including databases, digital entertainment applications, high amateur - low professional video, sound and picture editing, games, publishing suite.... In other words they can create a tremendous value add by bundeling in tons of software on their platform. If they do this however they will devestate the independent Mac publishers that survive on selling truly mediocre products in the $25-75 range.

Re:From the article...

[analog_line]

Of course it's inflammatory. How isn't an ultimatum from Opera Software inflammatory? Just sounds like Apple responding in kind to me. The Apple response wasn't in the story earlier. It's less inflammatory than, "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA," or "Opera? Opera who?" which I imagine gives the gist of the responses by the Apple reps when they heard about this.

2 things about this...

[nocomment]

1>I think this is sounding like Opera might be in some trouble. This sorta reminds me of when Be Inc said "Open up your specs or we'll stop developing".
What does Opera think it will accomplish other than they won't have to spend money to make opera?

2>If this was to start a war like the early NS vs M$, I don't think Opera would have a chance. For one thing Safari is based on {GPL'd}KDE software and therefore Apple has released it's changes to the source code. It's a lot faster than Opera. Opera just sucks! I don't know what happened, it used to be the fastest browser around circa version 3. Maybe they need Helmar back in charge of Project Magic?

Is he still hanging out in Africa as was his last post to the Opera NNTP server several years back?

I have an Idea, how about Opera, instead of trying to force it's outdated browsing engine on others, why don't they just go grab apple's changes and use those at _THEIR_ new engine?

Re:2 things about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent, excellent point. There's nothing stopping them from taking advantage of all the work Apple has put into WebCore, and largely without any cost to them.

Chimera vs Mozilla vs Netscape - all based on Gecko. Safari vs WebCore Opera? Perfectly conceivable and possibly one way for Opera to survive as it seems to be struggling a lot with an engine that seems quite stale and old. Suddenly Opera can be re-born as a standards-compliant, open source-based browser that is actually fast (assuming they don't cr*p it up), something that people are being more attracted to these days.

And not only on the Mac - implement it on all platforms they develop for, add some useful new features and advertise it as the "Safari compatible" browser for all platforms.

Whaaa?

[Lurkingrue]

Opera makes an Mac version? Who knew?

Seriously, though -- Opera must have a smaller "market share" than iCab, let alone OmniWeb, IE, Gecko-flavors or...well, smaller than ANYthing that browses on the Mac.

All I've ever seen from Opera is a delayed, three-steps-behind version that has been seemingly produced as a grudging, halting afterthought on the Mac. Why should I care? Essentially, we're being told "A product that nobody used BEFORE Safari came out is being discontinued because something else that IS popular has been released.". I'm supposed to care about something that is inferior, under-supported and over-priced?

Re:Whaaa?

[Alex Thorpe]

I suppose that I agree. It's the only recent browser for the Mac that I've never tried. I have Safari and OmniWeb on my dock, and also have Mozilla, Chimera, and IE in my Applications folder(though I threw out IE once, the Jaguar update put it back). My father is a die-hard iCab user in OS 9 on his rev B iMac. I even used CyberDog as my main browser fron '97-'99. Never have tried any version of Opera, though; I've just not heard any compelling reasons why.

Re:Whaaa?

[bursch-X]

Hellooo? Moderators? Anybody there?? The above post is a troll? WTF?

To me it sounds like the truth. That was exactly my expericence.

Re:Whaaa?

[Drishmung]

Seriously, though -- Opera must have a smaller "market share" than iCab, let alone OmniWeb, IE, Gecko-flavors or...well, smaller than ANYthing that browses on the Mac.

About 1-2% sayeth CodeBitch

All of them

[jbolden]

If Apple makes a feature complete, windows version of Safari available for free, how many of the alternative windows browsers will close shop?

I'd say all of them. First off I understand the question you meant to ask and I agree with you in that limited scope Safari would be "just another browser". In real terms though Safari uses webcore and Aqua. To creata a "feature complete" version of Safari for Windows would mean having Quartz for Apple and Microsoft would go on a jihad to stop that. You'd see Microsoft spending the kind of money on I.E. that they were in 95-98, and nobody can keep up with that. Its only because I.E. today isn't improving the way it was in the mid 90's that have managed to catch up and beat them in many areas.

Re:All of them

[TheJesusCandle]

You'd see Microsoft spending the kind of money on I.E. that they were in 95-98, and nobody can keep up with that. Its only because I.E. today isn't improving the way it was in the mid 90's that have managed to catch up and beat them in many areas.

I dont think the problem with the whole web using experience today has a whole lot to do with web browsers. I think it has more to do with web content, and thats where you see microsoft spending a lot of it's money. Browsers are jam packed with features, so why cram in more useless features when you can spend more time and money working on things in the back end side, where all the content comes from...

Re:All of them

[jbolden]

I dont think the problem with the whole web using experience today has a whole lot to do with web browsers.

I can think of lots of things that web browsers could do differently. Why isn't i.e. fully integrated with Word the way outlook is? What ever happened to front pad editor? When I view source from i.e. why does it come up in notepad and not that frontpad/page editor? How come I can't develop more complex relationships for bookmarks than inclusion (for example keywords)?

As for the browsing experience, why not many more easy to change configurations? For example "safe site" which allows popups, while "noisy site" doesn't allow popups? Why not a toolbar construction kit? I'd love to have "amazon search" built right in. Why not have much better drag and drop for text, images, movies...?

Think about the feature list for Excel or Word and think about the feature list of I.E. Which do you think most people spend more time with; which is equivelent to asking which can people handle more complexity?

I think there are tons of features Microsoft could add if they wanted to.

Re:All of them

[TheJesusCandle]

Why isn't i.e. fully integrated with Word the way outlook is?

Who cares? Word converted to html is bloated and clumsy.

When I view source from i.e. why does it come up in notepad and not that frontpad/page editor?

It can, if you bother to configure it to. I have, works great.

Not to nitpick, you do have some good ideas here though that i like:

How come I can't develop more complex relationships for bookmarks than inclusion (for example keywords)?

I find my self writing apps that interface to web pages. Mainly because it provides a simple, easy to use interface with out having to have people install software on their machines. People can access the software from any machine, independent of OS and hardware.

But i find many of my clients have problems. Problems checking email, problems entering in url's for websites. Problems finding the little 'x' in the upper right hand corner of the active window to make it disappear, and problems keeping food off the keyboard.

The last thing your average user wants is a bunch of shit all over their screen theyre afraid to click on. All too often people go in and dick up all thoes wonderful settings programmers were nice enough to provide options for. Things like default fonts, colors, and size. Stuff like positions of buttons and the like.

Entering in keywords to sift through your favorites list is cool, but all too often you find that sites in your favorites directory no longer exist anyway... The browser is just a window you look through to view dynamic and static content. Id like to see people spend more time making things simpler and easier for other people to use. Piles of features are great, but really, when was the last time you felt like watching a movie in your web browser...

Re:All of them

[Chris Canfield]

How about an integrated spelling checker into all textboxes? It would sure improve the quality of Slashdot...

System wide bookmarks would also be nice, as would the ability to have bookmarks in multiple folders. So too, would be the ability to remove menu items, and otherwise prune the interface down to what you want. Quick cookie swapping would allow you to change identities on the fly, without the tedious task of logging out / logging in.

But then we're talking about the power user, and not the simplicity and elegance of OSX. We're talking about Opera.

Opera: Baffling newbies since 1995

-C

Re:All of them

[jbolden]

How about an integrated spelling checker into all textboxes? It would sure improve the quality of Slashdot...

I was including that in the Word editor (since the whole thing was MSFT specific) but absolutely.

I like your cookie management idea as well. Explicit cookie management would be wonderful.

And BTW you can have power and simplicity at the same time. You just have one menu item that sets level of difficulty. As the difficulty increases the number of options increases.

Re:I'm sorry?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry bout the AC posting, but I think you're confusing Opera with OmniGroup and OmniWeb.

Ken Case, the CEO of OG and developer of the OW engine, said they would take a look at WebCore. I don't recall hearing anything out of Opera until now.

I think the most disturbing thing about this article is that CNET's treating Opera's whining as actual news.

Re:Holy shit

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that I might go make a way to integrate fritos and windows. Witos. Then people will really bitch. It will only run on Acorn.

This is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

See this article -- Chimera Developer Considers Dropping It as well. Quite honestly, I don't think that this is a big deal. As others have already pointed out, Apple was already bundling MSIE with OS X, and I never saw anybody complain that that was killing Chimera or Opera. This is simply another web browser for OS X. If you find that Browser X suits your needs best, then simply download Browser X, and drag Browser Y to the trash.

Re:This is news?

[ickyfreak]

reality distorsion field, anyone?

poor loser

[bhawbaker]

opera was already losing their edge awhile ago.. they had plenty of time to to catch up, and they did not.. so their problem.

Why not force IE to use Opera engine instead?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Opera wants its engine used in Safari, why does it not want its engine used in IE? hmmph?

Re:It's the MacOS user community's own damn proble

[fault0]

> Frankly, KHTML is trash, pure and simple. The 2.x version can't handle CSS2 worth a damn, I see the 3.x version crash and burn on more sites than *Netscape 4*, and the design philosophy attempts to be to bring WinMSIE's boneheaded and f***ing annoying bugs to other platforms.

What are you basing this from? there is no KHTML 2.0 and 3.0? What are these magical version numbers for KHTML coming from?

Re:I'm sorry?

[fault0]

Opera != Omniweb.

Opera 7 is probably more robust than KHTML, which is more robust than Opera 6.

In some ways, Opera 7 is more standards compliant than Gecko is.

However, their Mac version is a POS.

The new kid...

[Iron Chef Unix]

1) Opera is out playing on the playground and bragging about how fast he is. 2) A new kid shows up and is actually fast. 3) Opera yells some obsenities. 4) Opera takes his ball and goes home. Kind of a testament to how good Safari is. Do you think Opera would be making this stink if Safari was no good? It's like saying, "the Mac browser market was pretty easy to compete in because all of the browser were mediocre, but now Safari raises the bar and we don't feel like jumping" I know there are some definate advantages to being backed by Apple, but I still think no one would be complaining (except Apple fanatics) if Safari were just another average browser.

browser integration: MS vs Apple

[frankie]

Before any of you post another comment, please pay attention:

1. Apple does not illegally control 95% of the computer market
2. WebCore is LGPL
3. There is no step 3

And that's why Apple bundling/integrating Safari is not at all the same as Microsoft bundling/integrating Explorer.

Re:It's the MacOS user community's own damn proble

[Viqsi]

"2.x version" = that which shipped with KDE version 2, all the way up to 2.2.2.
"3.x version" = that which shipped with KDE 3.0.x. (I haven't tried 3.1, as it's just released.)

Big whoop.

[Tar-Palantir]

I know some people like Opera for Mac, but personally I couldn't care less. I am tired of fighting with horribly buggy betas that crash constantly. If Opera wants to compete, they need to produce a robust full version of Opera, without ads, that lives up to their speed claims. As it is, I'll use anything but IE over Opera.

I am not trying to troll here - I genuinely would like Opera to succeed. The company just needs to get their act together.

So Opera is Open Source?

[bluestar]

One of the obvious reasons Apple chose KHTML was that it's Open. If Opera wants to GPL their engine that's fine with me.

Let me get this straight...

[The Fink]

... they want Apple to put part of their browser on each system, or else they won't develop their browser at all for that platform? Huh? So effectively you'd have two browsers which have the same rendering code, or none which use that rendering code?

Riiight. Somehow I don't see Apple buying this, particularly given that KHTML is an arguably "better" renderer, and I'd imagine costs a lot less to work with than this particular "option".

Looks like Opera just don't want to cross-develop, and they're going to blame whoever they can for their reason. No great loss; there's heaps of resonable-to-good browsers on the platform, so I'm sure we can live without.

Rally to the flag!

[pr0nbot]

Clearly what Opera should do is quit whining, adopt open source, and bring all their fabulous innovations to the KDE source base... right?

Oh, and also: ??? Profit!

Scuttlebutt

[MacAndrew]

A reliable source mentioned to me a while ago that Opera was negotiating with Apple for a place on their desktop. Perhaps at the time Apple was debating whether to re-enter the browser market after having abruptly jilted poor old Cyberdog, and was contemplating an alliance outside of IE. So maybe Opera felt it had some assurances in place that their product would get a needed boost from Apple and relied on that to develop Mac product that was otherwise not worth the trouble, and maybe Apple pulled a fast one. Apple has been known to undermine developers in the past, and while it certainly has the right to do so it shouldn't deliberately alienate them. I know Apple feels it has to keep its next "killer app" under wraps until the next MacWorld, but there must be ways to telegraph intentions (or sign NDA's) with allies w/o tipping off competitors.

All guesses. But it does make Opera look less irrational.

Was back when I thought it took a great deal of time and effort to develop a high-performance browser, and bought Opera's performance claims. Then I met Chimera Navigator. Whatever happens, I think the for-profit model of browser development is dead.

Opera logic?

[gsfprez]

by Opera's logic, we should hear the following press release... "Microsoft has just announced its own web browser, dubbed "Internet Explorer", and in a fit of childishness, we no longer see a point in developing Opera for Windows." because if we don't.. then its obvious that they are basically just pussies.

(Note to opera guys - you make a browser for Windows, and so does Microsoft. A little consistency with your whining would be nice)

if its not as obvious as the dead-squirrel on Congressman Trafficant's (D) head - the real issue is that Apple, in about 5 minutes during Steve's demo at MWSF, proved to the world that they can flat-out out code Opera and beat the bajezzuz out of them at their own game of "lightweight, small, fast, easy to use broswers".

They are pissed that they got so soundly defeated by a "hardware" company.

Life's tough, get a fscking helmet. - Dennis Leary

And damnit, that goes for everyone else who's whining about Apple making applications for Mac OS X and are complaining that Apple is "killing" the "small developers.

Good God... they GAVE you developers tools free with every copy of the OS, and have a website that guides you by the hand for FREE on how to make apps.

There are tons of tiny apps - PageSender, Watson, Interarchy, VueScan jump to mind - that are small, cheap, and GOOD!

At least guys like Waston have sack. They admitted that they were on their laurels, and - and this is the most important thing....

Watson is the BETTER thanks to Sherlock 3!

Its called competition. At all levels. As soon as someone makes a better video editor than iMovie - then bully for them.. i'll use it.

I might have paid "twice as much for my Mac as what i could get for a Windows box" but you know what?

i don't think or feel like i did, and things like Safari are the reason why.

Re:Opera logic?

[drewness]

if its not as obvious as the dead-squirrel on Congressman Trafficant's (D) head
Totally irrelevant point here, but they kicked Trafficant out of Congress, and he's in jail. But good point about his hair :)

Seems like heavy handed whining but...

[oscarmv]

Anybody else would like Apple to bundle a whole bunch of browsers with Mac OS X? There's a number of arrangements to be made so it is made clear that Apple isn't responsible for anything but Safari, but it could be easily done.

It would also be a good PR move. Bundle Safari, Omniweb, Chimera, IE (yuck), iCab and even Opera (demo version) with the OS, and let people decide what they like best. Everyone competes on mostly equal ground, and Apple looks like the Good Guys(tm)

Safari is a Red Herring

[Matthew Weigel]

Look at Opera's history of competing with bundled browsers:

• Opera never complained to Microsoft about bundling IE.
• Opera never complained to Apple about bundling IE.
• Opera even felt that going up against a bundled browser in an extremely marginal operating system (OS/2) was an acceptable money-making proposition.
• Opera is even up for competing against free software browsers in Linux.

But, somehow, a beta product is going to cause Opera to leave the Mac market?

Please. The real reason is buried in the article:

"It's not a platform where we've earned a lot of money," said Tetzchner.

Opera simply wasn't successful on the Mac like it was on Windows. I personally suspect that that's because Opera didn't make the switch to the Mac UI very effectively (hard to describe, but it just felt weird relative to using it in Windows), and didn't have the same feel for performance programming in MacOS, making Opera feel sluggish (unlike its trademark lightning-fast performance in Windows).

I think Opera just can't compete on the Mac, knows this, and has made a token "hell why not" offer to Apple to stick around for big money to have an excuse to leave.

Re:Safari is a Red Herring

[digitalcowboy]

Your post sums up my feelings quite well. I've tried just about every browser out there for both Mac and Windows.

(Windows at work because it pays the bills and Mac at home because all those Windows problems pay my bills quite well. :-)

My default browser on my NT box at work is Opera 6. (I recently downloaded the Opera 7 beta and gave up the first day. They've got a long way to go with THAT beta before it's ready.) I made that decision because it IS fast and compatible and feature rich. I epecially like tabbed browsing, especially on Windows. It makes up for some of the other fundamental flaws in the Windows interface.

(For some reason, tabs are not nearly as important to me on a Mac. Haven't thought it through, but for some reason they're not as valuable. I've used Chimera but don't miss the tabs on my Mac. I've become almost dependent on them in Windows. It has something to do with the giant suckage that is the Windows GUI.)

On my Mac at home, I've tried them all and had settled on Omniweb (prior to the intro of Safari) because it had hands-down the best text rendering and most Aqua integrated interface. It was a true pleasure to use except that it sometimes choked on complicated (non-standard) Javascript and some CSS. I had to keep IE as a back up for the occasional site that OW puked at, but I used OmniWeb 99% of the time.

I tried Opera for Mac, but it was lagging WAY behind the Windows version and after a few days of use I could not find ONE compelling reason to continue using it. It blew goats. It had at least as many of the site compatibility problems as OmniWeb but wasn't as pretty. In fact, it was downright UGLY all the way around -- page rendering as ugly as IE with an interface even UGLIER than IE. It was not at all faster than OmniWeb. On top of all that, I had banners flashing in my face all the time reminding me I hadn't paid for this load of un-Mac-like crap. AND no tabs. (The primary reason I use it on Windows.)

When Safari was released, I downloaded it the first day but frankly didn't expect much because I knew it was beta. It has been my default browser since the evening of day one. I NEVER open IE anymore and rarely use OmniWeb for anything. I have recommended it to my non-geek mother and sister and they both love it. It's elegant and clean and pretty and FASTER than greased owl shit.

Opera for Mac sucked because those bone heads don't know how to develop for Mac, or don't care to. Either way, their Mac offering sucked and now they're pissed because even their Windows version can no longer honestly claim "Fastest browser on Earth."

If they don't want to develop for Mac anymore, I say good riddance. We still have half a dozen browsers to choose from on the Mac platform and they're ALL better than Opera.

Re:Safari is a Red Herring

[Ilgaz]

I use Opera as a registered user since 6, now I bought it again, the 7 (paid for upgrade).

As a Opera fan I totally believe you are correct.

First of all, Mac is a "cult" with their OWN style of usage (try to make a windows user triple click), anyone not bothering the design guidelines will be dead.

I saw people b*tching about Safari, like it has no tabs. Maybe Mac users doesn't like tabs?

The OSX graphics rendering acceleration (I forgot its name) has NOT been applied on IE, Opera. So, think you have a quad-xeon 2 gig machine but an lowest quality graphics card, without ANY acceleration,nor a driver. You use it 24 bit, via frame buffer (donno if it can be made). I wonder how long it would take for you to run and buy the most compatible gfx card for that PC. As I heard from my Mac friends, its just like that. The display speed of pages really really sucks. Whatever mac you use, it does.
I guess they figured it will be hard to sell that browser, thats all.
Oh, I wouldn't call it "whining". No, they don't whine. They pay wages with the registration/advertising money. They are people earning food money from that browser, not some hobyists with spare time. Its right decision for any company to drop a unsuscessful product or they will lose money and the people like me, using windows version with love will be harmed from that. Increased license fees, less people for support etc, or $100b ;-) I couldn't stand sorry, eheh

I was an Opera user when I switched to Mac.

[DaphneDiane]

I have been a long time Opera users at the point I made my switch from Windows and Linux to Mac. I was a registered user of Opera and used to tell tell all my friends about it. My intent when getting my Mac was to buy the cross-platform upgrade and run Opera as my main browser. However before I spent the money, I tried out several of the other browsers and ended up buy an OmniWeb license. While OmniWeb has pretty bad standard support (especially CSS), it worked with most of the pages I used and I liked a lot of the options and settings it provided. For some reason, I could never place my finger on, Opera didn't feel at home on my Mac. I guess I'd gotten used to the MDI interface under windows... and Opera 5 beta or so just didn't feel polished/user friendly enough when I tried it.

Having mostly used OmniWeb for a while, when Safari came out I decided to try a bunch of different browsers again. Opera 6 looks a lot better than it did the last time I tried it, and I'm actually thinking seriously about switching back to Opera. I've also thought about switching over to Safari once it's not a beta and converting back to OmniWeb after it switches over to WebCore.

Personally I think that Apple's switch to Safari will help non-IE, non-gecko browsers and websites might adjust just a little to handle different browsers. One thing I can't help but wonder is... is this a tactic by Opera to get people to look at/buy there browser. After any media attention is good.

Monopoly

[MacAndrew]

Apple does have a monopoly over "Macintosh" computers because they won't sell licenses. They relaxed their hold for a few years and allowed clones, then changed their mind. There is now no way to build a legal clone, except maybe to cannibalize a working computer for the proprietary parts. If you need a Mac-compatible computer, you must go to Apple, and with it you'll get their OS, too.

A monopoly is not illegal unless abused in some way. Microsoft's monopoly over Windows is not per se illegal. But their attempt to leverage IE by using their monopoly power was, obviously, improper. That IE is free changed nothing -- rather, it underscored that IE was getting a free ride thanks to the underlying profitable monopoly.

Now, within the market of Mac-compatible computers, I'm wondering how Apple bundling more and more products into its ubiquitous OS could not eventually cause the same sort of problem. Unlike what Microsoft was doing by "integrating" Windows, the Apple components are pretty easily to deactivate. However, the Apple products are clearly intended to be competitive, and at some point Apple might be said to abuse its monopoly over Macs to shoehorn in other things.

It's difficult to imagine, mostly because they're not Microsoft, but what if Apple were to squeeze out competitiors by embedding the free stuff or refusing to publish its API's and so on? The millions of Mac users can't just switch to another OS without getting a new computer, and their choices would end up being Apple's choices. [Now that there is a robust open source browser market developing, I don't think browsers will be the next battleground.]

Re:Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

There is now no way to build a legal clone, except maybe to cannibalize a working computer for the proprietary parts.

And what specific proprietary parts would you be referring to?

Re:Monopoly

[srelan]

???!!! Microsoft's monopoly status wasn't over "Windows".. It was over "Operating Systems".... A very big difference. Apple could only be considered a monopoly if the MacOS became a natural monopoly over "operating systems" not Apple computers....

Re:Monopoly

[MacAndrew]

Yes, I misspoke. But you get the point, their OS happens to be called Windows. (DOS is just a bad memory, right?)

Re Apple, the question arise from vertical integration and tying concerns. Microsoft itself was sued under multiple theories, there are several ways to stumble over antitrust (and MS hits most of them). Apple has been extremely open, with the exception of extinguishing the clones, but I wonder if it would make a difference if they radically changed their policies, such as publishing API's (as it has always done with fairly good accuracy). It's a thought experiment. Imagine all those millions of Mac users who rely on Apple -- they can't just up an switch to Windows (god forbid) and linux is not directly comparable (yet).

I happen to trust Apple, that's why I'm typing on an iBook, but it's interesting to speculate. In practical, not legal, terms, I do worry Apple is sowing uncertainty among developers who will worry any app they develop will get whalloped by a free Apple alternative.

Apple was backed into a corner...

[XnetZERO]

...they really had no choice in developing their own browser. Why? It doesn't take long to understand when you look at the current offering of web browsers for the Mac Market. I don't know of a stable browser out there... From what I can tell, Apple intends Safari to be two things. FAST and STABLE. Safari will set the bar for which browsers on the Mac platform are judged. Chimera & OmniWeb will be the greatest competitors to Safari, they will compete by offering features that Safari does not have (tabs, etc). IE will hopefully die away. Opera should just go home and quit. Their product has always been behind in its feature set. They treat Mac users like some sort of 3rd rate citizen. Not to mention that they want us to pay for it is simply rediculous. Opera should do one of two things... Step up to bat and give Mac users a REAL product or they should stop whining and go home.

Re:It's the MacOS user community's own damn proble

[micaelus]

I fully agree. Chimera, even in its beta form, is infinitely faster than Opera. I haven't used Opera or Omniweb in months, and I still use Chimera when Safari bugs out.

Re:ALL Third Party Software on OS X will die

[XnetZERO]

Yo frankie... Take a chill pill and settle down!!! Apple was forced to make their own browser. They've sat by the wayside and watched as not a single browser developer has brought a reliable product to market. If Opera hadn't treated Mac users as second class citizens, they would have a competitive on the market, but they don't. If M$ had brought a cocoa version of IE to market and quashed the bugs user after user complains of, there would be no safari... If OmniWeb and Chimera would come along more quickly there wouldn't be an issue... But no... Not a single vendor has given us a fast and stable product. Safari will do one thing... It will raise the bar for which third party developers to compete. I have a feeling you haven't used Safari, but Apple has taken the minimalist approach... It does two things and two things well... It's fast and it's stable. Omni web can and will build a competitive browser, most likely using the same rendering engine... Chimera will have all the features Safari is missing... IE will hopefully die away as they seem to have no interest in fixin IE. The open source community will benefit from Apple's work here, I don't see what the issue is. Opera can either put up or shut up, their product is inferior...

what nerve

[larrym3]

Opera was always two years behind in coming out with Mac versions. It must piss them off, when they finally have a version that works on System 9.2.2 that it's doomed. When I finally got Safari, the final insult was the totally roundabout way to move my bookmarks. Seems Opera will only import bookmarks, not export. Had to use some shareware to pull it off.

Whiners

[Daleks]

Anyone who develops for the Mac knows that everything is an uphill battle. You have to fight the good fight and make the best product you can knowing ahead of time that your market share will be slim. With this in mind, why are the developers of Chimera and Opera moaning and groaning about competition? Anyone that is a part of the Mozilla organization knows full well of this. Seeing that the Opera developers already compete on the Windows platform, what's the problem with competing on the Mac platform as well? They already compete with IE, OmniWeb, iCab, Chimera, Mozilla, etc. on the Mac platform.

If anyone thinks Apple is going to pull a Microsoft and start saying that Safari is an integral portion of the OS and cannot be removed, let's look at their track record on other bundled applications. iTunes can be replaced by Audion and still have iPod support. Apple does nothing to prevent this. iChat can be replaced by Adium. Mail can be done away with and be replaced with Mutt, Pine, Entourage, etc. iMove, iPhoto, etc. can all be deleted and other applications may be used in their place.

I can drag Safari into the trash and it's gone. Should Apple release a version of Safari that links to WebKit frameworks installed in /System/Library/Frameworks, /Library/Frameworks, or ~/Library/Frameworks, who cares? This makes it easy for developers to write applications that have HTML view's in their own programs. Gecko (CHBrowserView) could even be packaged as a framework and exist right along side WebKit. If you want you can delete any framework on your system that you don't like. While Apple may not give you the option to run Mac OS X on x86 machines, it does provide real software options, unlike Microsoft.

Opera tries to kill Apple's Open Source Intiative

[Anonymous Coward]

shouldn't this really read Opera developers try to kill Apples Open source initiative with Safari? Apple Safari isn't killing Opera, its developer is. I know Apple is the big punching bag for all you apple haters, but lets get it straight here. Apple isn't the bad guy here. Opera failed to get Mac market share long before Safari.

The only thing that Apple needs to do...

[andrewski]

Apple should stop shipping IE now. Put Safari in there, instead. Which is what they'll probably do once it hits 1.0.

I deleted IE straight away. It was an ugly Carbon bruise in the soft flesh of my Cocoa goodness.

Make WebCore pluggable

[HawaiianToast]

Apple just needs to make WebCore and such pluggable deals. OS X would come default with the KHTML WebCore, but you could also use WebCore implementations from Opera, Mozilla, Omnigroup, whoever. Then safari would only be about the interface. You could even have Chimera (much better interface then Safari IMHO) using the default KHTML WebCore instead of the slower Mozilla WebCore it ships with. Having a drop down selection for current WebCore in OS X System Preferences->Internet->Web would be VERY cool...

Re:It's the MacOS user community's own damn proble

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you're hardcore. I like your 'tude.

Browsing the comments, only ONE struck me as honest and balanced. Everyone else is kissing Steve Jobs' swollen apples with the adoration reserved for a god.

Just to restate that all for the record, YOU KICK ASS AND EVERYONE ELSE HERE SUCKS.

Thanks,

Apachenous Coward

Safari

[jbolden]

Well you seem to be describing Safari. As for when was the last time I watched a movie in my web browser, well this morning. I was pulling down some videos. The day before that I was pulling down an educational lecture.

As for the features. If people can handle word they can handle a more complex browser. I don't disagree the browser might need levels that turn off menu items.

Anyway my point was really pretty basic, that if Apple did X then Microsoft would do Y...

bad idea..

[Suppafly]

I can't imagine Opera actually doing this, they barely scrap by as it is. People have to go out of their way to download and then pay for Opera and they don't really get any extra features that can't be had from any of the browsers that people can get for free. I hope Apple tells them to fuck off.

Very Important point being missed

[tm2b]

The Opera folks are getting cranky at Apple, but the fact is that it isn't Apple that's cooked their goose, it's open source that has (via KHTML).

Opera is a result of the duplication of a lot of the KHTML work, and they were relying on Mozilla's bloatedness to be their competitve advantage. All Apple has done with Safari is put a (very nice) wrapper around KHTML.

This is important. Many of the GNU uber alles crowd believe that its their mission to put the proprietary software vendors out of the intellectual property business. This is a success for them.

Re:Very Important point being missed

[defunc]

> This is a success for them. [The GNU uber alles]

That is until AAPL turns around [after having benefited immensely from OS], and crank up a square log from the behind.

I have no doutb that AAPL has contributed its fair share to the OS community, but most of their open work is mostly GUI-less, which is pretty much useless on a Mac. I mean, who in their right mind will install Darwin without Aqua on top ? (I know, there are people out there who does it, but I'm referring to the masses here). What is webcore without the nice GUI? Apple could have easily OS the GUI in exchange for all the hardwork done by the webcore developers. Ask yourself why that was not the case? At least you know where you stand with IBM and MS when it comes to sharing.

Unfair analogy

[Chris Canfield]

1) Opera is out playing on the playground and bragging about how fast he is. 2) A new kid shows up and is actually fast. 3) Opera yells some obsenities. 4) Opera takes his ball and goes home.

That's a pretty unfair comparison. ICab absolutely rocks, and is lightning fast compared to any other browser I have ever used, including Opera 3.62, Netscape 4.75, I.E. 3, and Konqueror. Opera has been competing in ICab's home turf now for some time, and with a ported codebase always a step behind the excellent windows version.

The problem, is that Apple is now bundling something that doesn't suck, thereby reducing demand for an alternative. Apple's bundling of iTunes reduced demand for Audion, an excellent alternative that does basically the same thing. Audion is every bit as good as iTunes, and a bit better, but people don't have a major need to switch. Microsoft's bundling of that horrible little video editor with XP has done nothing to hurt sales of other video editing suites, because other products on the market were significantly better. Opera really is being punted out of the Mac market, a move they should have expected with Apple's suprising propensity to attempt to satisfy customers and the absolute garbage that is I.E. for the Mac. Even if they are "a little bit better" than one of the best, if the best ships as default on most computers there is very little reason to change.

I'm personally in love with the amazingly configurable Opera7, that really does address major issues we have been complaining about since the inception of the project. All of the buttons on all of the toolbars can be easily interchanged, thereby eliminating several bars and making an efficient use of space. Unrequested pop-up blocking has been implemented, and the bookmark pane now combines folders and bookmarks into one view. Links can be dragged to the bookmark pane, entire sessions of windows can be easily saved and played back (finally, there is an easy way to do this). There is an inline print-preview, an inline find ("g opera" searches for opera via google, "f opera" searches for the text "opera" on the foremost window), a new mail client that is *almost* usable, a feat far greater than can be said for Mozilla's...

In short, it is very cool. Is it cool enough to lure people away from the default I.E.? Most definitely. Is it cool enough to lure people away from iCab? Probably not, but it may if they like the functionality. Is it cool enough to lure people away from Safari?...

That's the problem with Apple for small developers. MS is big enough to satisfy only the most base needs of its customers (wordpad? Paint?), but Apple has always had to strive to outperform. Apple tends to create and bundle the best software available for the platform with the OS... Which satisfies customers but pushes out developers. While I will be sad to see Opera leave OSX, I can understand both company's decisions, and just wish they had negotiated with eachother to make a modified Opera the default browser a long time ago.

-c

Re:It's the MacOS user community's own damn proble

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean we will DIE as a result of the availability of another browser? Oh no!!! D:

OT: gtkhtml2 ?

[Stentapp]

A little bit offtopic, but now when it is a lot of talk about different HTML rendering engines (like KHTML, Gecko and now Opera with it's own rendering engine), what's the status of gtkhtml2? Its home page http://gtkhtml2.codefactory.se/ doesn't say much about its current status, and if their goals will be fulfilled soon.

Oh yeah?

[CptTripps]

Other examples of the same ultimatum...

Ultimatum to my neighbor:
Start using my lawnmower to mow your lawn, or else I'm going to stop mowing mine all together...

or..

Ultimatum to my mail man:
You need to use MY shoes to walk up to my house to deliver mail or I'm going to have it delivered somewhere else.

Ultimatum to wife:
(Yeah, like anything I write here would ever fly)

First Chimera, then Opera, next...

[Lord of the Fries]

Tomorrow's Apple/. will probably be something like:

Lynx developers decide to abandon Lynx port to Jaguar.

In a surprise move, Lynx developers feeling dissed by the fact that Apple didn't use the proven Lynx rendering technology have sent iSteve an email (from pine no less!) stating that if Lynx is not demoed at the next MacWorld, they will cease the release of their nearly complete port to MacOS/X. Said key developers, "what really surprises us is that we figured with names like Lynx and Jaguar, we were certain they were destined for each other. We were sure that chosen OS/X code name was a cue to us to continue our work"

BS

[jafac]

I'm sure that Opera could add a few nice little features and beat the pants off of Safari.

Right now, the only reason I use Safari is due to speed - but I'm also rather annoyed at it's lack of Tabs, and "Block Images From This Server" feature (which Chimera is also missing, much to it's detriment to UTTERLY USELESS status).

If Opera could beat Chimera on speed (not too difficult), offer tabs, and image blocking - I'm pretty sure that Safari will never have image blocking, just like Netscape and IE will never have image blocking - then I'd probably pay upwards of about, oh, maybe $10. Add in Flash and other plugin compatability out of the box, (another weakness of any browser other than IE) and maybe I'd pay $15.

Re:BS

[aristotle-dude]

Check out comp.sys.mac.advocacy. I posted a .CSS file that will block many banner ads in Safari.

Re:BS

[Anonymous Coward]

It's quite easy getting Chimera to do what you want it to do. Try here:

http://efritz.net/chimeratricks.html

Re:BS

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want something to do image blocking in Safari, get PithHelmet from VersionTracker.com. And while you are at it, do a Google search for "PDF Plugin Chimera" and "Cocoa Gestures"

All the good stuff for the other browsers is out and can be added to Safari if you just take the time and look :)

Oh, dear Lord!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't confuse moral arguments about what's right and wrong with antitrust laws. Is it 'right' for Mr. Chicken to lower prices so Bob's Homemade Chicken loses money? Maybe it's not morally right (to some), but it's legal in almost every possible instance. (I'll put aside predatory pricing laws because they're rarely invoked.) Apple Computer can't be mentioned in the same breath as antitrust because they are not a monopolist as legally defined. Now, you may want to define Apple as having a monopoly in Apple computers but that has no bearing AT ALL on the legal definition. Apple competes in the desktop and notebook computer markets - as divided into hardware and operating system vendors. These are huge markets and Apple's market power is very small. They can do whatever the heck they want. You may not like it or think it right but they have the legal right. Microsoft can't because it does have monopoly power. My old antitrust professors are rolling over in their graves.

Opera is killing itself.

[kiddailey]

The basic idea of Opera is great. Lots of options, privacy protection, tabbed browsing, separate browser window, etc. I've tried to switch to it - but it's impossible to deal with all its quirks, bugs and slowness.

My biggest complaint is that it does NOT handle tables or forms correctly. I've included some examples to play with (there are many more, just do a search).

For many of these bugs to exist in version SIX of a browser is just plain crappy. Especially considering that Safari and Chimera in their beta versions are nowhere as problematic and render pages beautifully.

Opera is killing itself and they company is using Safari as an excuse.

http://www.gjk.dk/~krn/bugs/opera/ [google cache]

http://www.gjk.dk/~krn/bugs/opera/table-csswidther ror.html [google cache]

http://www.gjk.dk/~krn/bugs/opera/table-whitespace .html [google cache]

http://www.gjk.dk/~krn/bugs/opera/blockoverflow.ht ml

http://www.gjk.dk/~krn/bugs/opera/table-imagewidth .html

http://www.gjk.dk/~krn/bugs/opera/font-vplacement. html [google cache]

http://www.gjk.dk/~krn/bugs/opera/table-inputwidth .html

Safari Killing Opera for Mac OS X?

[skellener]

If anyone is killing Opera, it's Opera. I tried it and I thought it sucked. I tried Safari and Safari rocked! For now though, the best browser is still Chimera. We'll see what else Apple comes up with with the full release of Safari. While it would be a shame to lose some diversity on the Mac if Opera ceased, they should really be trying to make a better product rather than complaining about Apple.

Second That

[Razzak]

Opera on Windows was pretty badass. Speedier than IE and had a few more features that I really liked.

On OSX, Opera isn't that fast, is probably the least standards compliant, has a bulky interface that requires multiple clicks to get anywhere and seems very disorganized.

Oh yeah, it costs money to boot.

As much as I wanted Opera for mac, now that I've seen it I don't know why I was asking for it. Stick to Windows :(

Yes, I paid

[Anonymous Coward]

Well yes, I paid for iCab.

In fact the developer got so many petitions from from people asking to pay for the browser when iCab had no arrangements to handle payments that they had to set up a way to pay just to keep users happy.

Why pay? Use iCab and you'd find out soon enough. There are shareware developers out there that make products of such high quality that fit users' needs so well that it's hard for a person like myself not want to show my appreciation for all the time and effort the developers put in.

When I paid for iCab it had already proved to be worth its weight in gold.

It's incredible the amount of 'new' features that are popping up on other browsers that had been on iCab for ages.

It's not slow (not the fastest either), it's not perfect (CSS support is not finished) but there is so much in the thing in such a small codebase that if you are looking for more control in your surfing habits then iCab probably is the browser for you.

My brother-in-law who is a control freak and pro Linux was positively drooling over what iCab was doing when he came round to check it out.

And it's not even finished yet!

Then watch out, Apple!

[Zhe Mappel]

Omni believe it or not actually is better at cool looking easy to use interfaces than Apple (which is saying a lot).

What?! Better than faux brushed aluminum with little candy-colored dots on it?

Re:Then watch out, Apple!

[jbolden]

Nah they believe in the interface guidelines so you get the aqua look. But the setup panels are pretty, you get a lot of control over how toolbars look, etc..

Re:ALL Third Party Software on OS X will die

[Anonymous Coward]

Please get real!

Do you think that it was crazy for iCab, Opera, Chimera etc to exist in the mac world pre-Safari? Of course not. They knew the world they were entering was dominated by IE but they came in nevertheless. Why? Because they offered features that IE didn't.

That is still the case. Safari has to be one of the most feature devoid browsers out there and that was part of the goal. A simple browser.

Safari will take many more users away from IE than anything else on the Mac browser market because IE appeals to the mainstream.

Very few iCab users will switch because they are using iCab for very clear reasons. Reasons that no other browsers cater for.

Safari will always require the latest and greatest version of Mac OS X to run. Many users will soon have machines that are incapable of running the latest version of Mac OS X (that is when 10.3 is released).

Make a product with modern features, make it run on older hardware/software and you have a virgin market to exploit.

iCab still supports 68K macs and PPC OS 9!

It doesn't take a marketing wizard to realize that there is a market that Apple won't ever touch out there waiting to be tapped.

If your product only offers parity with what Safari offers however, then it is doomed for obvious reasons.

Re:ALL Third Party Software on OS X will die

[Anonymous Coward]

Competition with IE on Mac is easy. IE's not made by Apple. Nobody on a Mac LIKES MS. Competition with Safari by Apple on Apple's own OS is murder. Every Mac user will choose Safari BECAUSE it's made by Apple. If Apple made iCab, iCab would be the number 1 Mac browser.

You know it's true.

Opera's dead. And that is not good for Apple customers. Soon you'll only have one software choice in every category - Apple's offering. The developers will die out or just pack up and leave. And I don't blame them. There's no future here.

But like I said before, Windows is the same problem, BeOS is dead. I'd program for Linux, where you can't be screwed like this because it's *true open source*(TM).

Frankie Filmmaker

You know what's odd?

[Lars T.]

Opera 6 for Mac OS 8.6-10.2

Safari for Jaguar only.

And probably a higher marketshare already. No wonder Opera is scared.

Re:ALL Third Party Software on OS X will die

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes people will go from IE to Safari but hardly anyone will go from iCab to anything else until something comes along that offers more features than iCab and presents them in a stylish package - and that won't be happening any time soon.

iCab users stick with it because it's a feature-rich browser that caters to special needs of users. Nothing on the Mac, Windows or Linux comes close to iCab in this respect.

Why else would users use a browser that doesn't fully support CSS?

If on the other hand your Browser of choice has it's feature set duplicated in an Apple-branded browser, then I don't see the point in continuing with it (unless you want to go after the 'aftermarket' (supporting configurations that Safari doesn't)

Opera, please port to FreeBSD and NetBSD, we like

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera 6 is the most responsive browser on NetBSD, that Ive ever used with 64mb ram (old laptop). I say, port to: FreeBSD and NetBSD. I currently use the Linux binary, however it sometimes aborts (like when checking yahoo mail). I am looking into using the FreeBSD binary, however a native port would be very handy, towards your cross platform availability also!

J