Opera 7 to be Released for Mac OS X

hoist2k writes "CNET is reporting that Opera 7 is going to be released for Mac OS X. I might have to take advantage of their discount for buying the Mac, Linux, and Windows versions all at once!" Opera 6.02 is slated for release on Thursday (the download page currently has Opera 6.0 for Mac OS and Mac OS X, though it erroneously says it is only for Mac OS). Opera 7 is expected "soon," with no word given in the CNET articles for whether it will be for Mac OS X only.

Comments

Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would pay for Opera on Mac OS X when they can use IE (free beer bundled with Mac OS X), Safari (free beer download for Apple fan boys), or Mozilla (free speech download)?

Re:Opera

[seinman]

Because it's good software that's well worth the money. The same could be said about Windows, and yet I still paid for Opera, even though IE, Mozilla, and Netscape are all free.

Re:Opera

[wtmcgee]

not on the mac though.... i agree opera on windows is a top notch browser - but the mac version is well behind other FREE alternatives right now.

i'm glad to see opera developing on the mac platform - it's great to see so many competing browsers for a change - but i just don't think they have what it takes to be considered even one of the top 3 browsers on the mac right now.

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet it's folks like you that buy all that bottled water I see in stores...

Re:Opera

[singularity]

The only thing missing from Camino and Safari (or any browser, for that matter) is the filtering power of iCab.

Use iCab for a week, and use the filtering power.

Want to always save cookies from Slashdot, refuse cookies from Doubleclick.net, and expire others at the end of the session? Done.

Want to identify to your bank as Netscape 7.0 and all other sites as iCab 2.9? Done.

Want to filter out images coming from a server named *.ads.*, or images that link to *.sponsor.*? Done.

Want to allow your favorite anime site to open new windows on opening, allow a pictures site to open pictures in new windows on clicking, and refuse pop-ups from everyone else? Done.

Yes, I realize that Mozilla can do a lot of this, but iCab provides a relatively easy to use graphical interface to all of this.

I think the world would be a much better place if people took a look at iCab's Filter Manager.

[I still use iCab for about 60% of my browsing, with Safari taking up the rest. iCab is just getting too slow and is not compatible with enough stuff]

Re:Opera

[critter_hunter]

I'll agree that Opera 6 for Mac sucked, and sucked hard. I downloaded it about as soon as it got out of beta, but it still felt like a beta version. It was slow and unresponsive, and it crashed a few times (in very little time, and crashed HARD). I went back to Camino (which back then was still called Chimera, I think).

However, Opera 7 on both PC and Linux has been a HUGE improvement over O6. Hopefully these improvements will carry over to MacOSX. Afterall, they have a lot of competition on a small market with Macs (Mac users, however, seem to pay for shareware more readily than PC users). If they still want to compete, it must be because they feel they *can* compete, and they are confident that their product is better than the other parties' offerings.

So anyway, I'd wait till I see it before I say that it's going to suck.

Re:Opera

[Echnin]

I bet it's people like you who sleep in a bench in the park instead of getting a house.

I know that's a stupid analogy. So was yours. Opera is vastly superior to any other browser.

Re:Opera

[numpins]

The only thing missing from Camino and Safari (or any browser, for that matter) is the filtering power of iCab.

Cookie management?
Identification options?
URL Filtering?
Privacy options?
All with a "relatively easy to use graphical interface?"

Have you tried OmniWeb yet?

OmniWeb has all these great features and more. The Omni Group is a cool company; I recommend you check out all their cool applications. You can get a one-day trial license at the store. They update OmniWeb much more frequently than the iCab developers. They're working on a WebCore-enabled (Safari's core) browser now. I liked iCab a long time ago (four years or more), but it was too stagnant and buggy for me to stick with it.

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

You will find that most questions that start with "who would" can be answered with the word "idiots".

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

your signature file makes no sense. or it's just lame. or both.

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

In what way could Opera even hope to surpass Safari? Safari has been the most stable beta product I've ever used. It's more stable than many "release" products! (And I use the word "release" loosely, of course.)

Unless Opera 7, I don't know, turns my 768 Kbps DSL line into a 1.5 Mbps DSL line or something, it's utterly unnecessary.

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera is vastly superior to any other browser.

Except for those that are better than Opera, of course. (cough*Safari*cough)

Re:Opera

[avendasora]

iCab is just getting too slow

Hmmm...could it be all the filtering rules it has to process just to open a URL?

Re:Opera

[Mikey-San]

And the only thing missing from iCab is ...

Remotely good CSS1 and CSS2 support.

Good JavaScript implementation.

Good interface.

Multithreading.

Tabs.

iCab is a dinosaur. It hasn't had any improvements to its rather--okay, /really/ weak rendering engine in a very, very long time.

It's a good thing I can filter all of those sites I can't render properly! Whew!

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the original poster was calling for other web browsers to copy what iCab has done, not for people to use iCab.

(And the newest beta of iCab looks a lot like Safari and supports tabs.)

Re:Opera

[Mikey-San]

It still is a hacked-together Carbon app that goes out of its way not to be multithreaded, so who cares?

iCab will never be able to get better until they stop updating the app alongside the 68k version.

"Wtf?"

Re:Opera

[singularity]

OmniWeb has all these great features and more.

On your advice, I downloaded OmniWeb and gave it a try for about ten minutes. From what I can tell, OmniWeb cannot do half of what I listed in my original post.

These comments are what I was able to find after playing around for ten minutes. I migh tbe wrong on some of these, but I was not able to figure out where to change some of these.

Want to identify to your bank as Netscape 7.0 and all other sites as iCab 2.9? Done.

OmniWeb only seems capable of changing the value globally. You are not able to set it on a domain by domain basis.

Want to always save cookies from Slashdot, refuse cookies from Doubleclick.net, and expire others at the end of the session? Done.

Am I only able to do this when the server tries to save a cookie? I would rather be able to set these up (and edit the filters) in a seperate window. OmniWeb seems to allow me to edit and delete cookies, but not work with the cookie filters themselves.

Want to filter out images coming from a server named *.ads.*, or images that link to *.sponsor.*? Done.

OmniWeb does seem to be able to do this. I do like iCab's ability to filter an image from the contextual menu, though. Right click "Image:Filter..." and set it up right there. OmniWeb also apparently only has default ad image sizes, where iCab will filter based on any size you want.

In addition, OmniWeb seems to only be able to filter based on the server the image is coming from, and not the server the image is pointing at.

Want to allow your favorite anime site to open new windows on opening, allow a pictures site to open pictures in new windows on clicking, and refuse pop-ups from everyone else? Done.

Once again, this only seems to be a global setting, and not changable based on the site you are looking at.

OmniWeb also does not seem to support tabs.

In all, OmniWeb's filtering power is pretty weak compared to iCab's. I suggest you download a copy of iCab and see aht I am talking about.

[Note to everyone else who is responding to my original post - I am not saying everyone should use iCab. It is slow, and not compatible. I mention these two problems in my original post. Instead, I was writing to suggest that other browsers would come a long way if they were to copy some of the features found in iCab.]

Re:Opera

[rockforever]

Good software? Boy, that's debatable! Look, I admire Opera for sticking to their guns, and really believing in their product. It is light, and quick. But Opera needs to get its act together, and offer a free browser that can better support standards...I know they're a business, but how can I, as a consumer, sit there, and reasonably pay for a browser, when so many others offer free alternatives? Having sampled all the browsers, I'm not convinced that Opera is so superior that it's worth shelling out the loot.

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but OmniWeb cannot even come close to matching the control power that iCab provides.

iCab is a control freak's dream. iCab is the benchmark that all others must follow when it come to features.

I personally love it for its comprehensive contextual menu options and its compressed web archives but there is so much more in the thing.

There is still a fair way to go but for a one man show, it's a miracle it got this far in such great shape.

I happen to be a registered user and as such have access to the Betas, and believe me they come thick and fast. There may be a perceived delay on the Preview releases but that doesn't mean development is not forging ahead at a rapid pace.

The latest betas have some much wanted ('trendy') features in them. Version 3 promises a lot more on the compliance front but I don't know when that is planned for release.

If your requirements put features over near100% compliance then iCab may be what some people are looking for. I'm perfectly happy to see some wonky sites (because of iCab's CSS shortcomings) in return for its productivity boosting features.

That of course is if the sites you visit regularly work well enough in iCab (around 95% of mine do).

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say that a rather large amount of people care. All the iCab users that use features that simply aren't available in such a powerful form in any other browser.

Think about it. Even with its CSS problems and suchlike, people STILL think it has a lot to offer IN SPITE OF those deficiencies.

Maybe if some of the other browsers actually offered iCab-like features then maybe we would be getting somewhere. But Safari and Camino go out of there way to make it clear they are SIMPLE browsers.

So we are really talking about two different groups of users here.

As for 68K support. Well, it obviously can't go on forever, but seeing as iCab has absolutely NO COMPETITORS on that platform it seems to make good sense to be on it (as long as the amount of users continues to justify developing for 68K - or Classic MAC OS PPC for that matter)

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with the interface?

Ever since the Crystal Icon set became a default I think the GUI looks really good.

Is it because it isn't metalised? I personally hate the metal look.

Re:Opera

[Erik K. Veland]

I suggest you download PithHelmet for Safari. That should take care of most of your filtering woes.

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they should look into developing a product that is not given away be so many people. They've shown they can make a good product, now they just need to change their focus to a product that is easier to sell.

Opera 6.02 already available

[Anonymous Coward]

ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/www/clients/Opera/mac/602/e n/Opera_6.02_en.smi.sit

Sure

[Photar]

Surely you mean Mac OS 9 old chap.

Fools! Heed the past!

[ihatewinXP]

When Safari was first released and the Opera team made some moronic pr statement about what Apple should do.... Well in all my years I have never once seen an issue so one sided, and this page will become a repeat of all thats been said - Opera, its good for windows, far behind the free on mac, a shitty port trying to penatrate a highly biased market.

The only way this makes any sense is to conclude that they arent making a dime on the Windows side of things and are fool-crazy and desperate enough to develop and sell something we all told them to shove up their asses.

Re:Fools! Heed the past!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't mod this up enough

Re:Fools! Heed the past!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you can't mod it at all now that you've posted to the discussion.

Re:Fools! Heed the past!

[Anonymous Coward]

it doesn't work if you post anonymously...

Re:Fools! Heed the past!

[NanoGator]

" Well in all my years I have never once seen an issue so one sided..."

Don't read the comments here much, do ya? ;)

Re:Fools! Heed the past!

[Anonymous Coward]

logout & post.

Anonymous while logged in does not work and will remove your moderation without giving back the moderation point, which sucks.

Opera 6.0.2 for Mac is Out

[Anonymous Coward]

Download it from here: ftp://ftp.task.gda.pl/pub/opera/mac/602/en/Opera_6 .02_en.smi.sit

Opera 6.02 was released, not Opera 7

[Anonymous Coward]

The FTP sites have been updated this morning with Opera 6.02 for Mac, not with Opera 7. Are you sure the headline is right?

Re:Opera 6.02 was released, not Opera 7

[CptChipJew]

Opera 6.02 is slated for release on Thursday

You weren't paying attention to the article. It said Opera 6.02 would come out Thursday, which could very well be your Wednesday night.

Opera is the odd man out

[MalleusEBHC]

I don't really want to rag on Opera as it is given for free (assuming you don't mind a small ad), but there really is no room/place for it in the Mac market. Safari, Camino, Mozilla, Omniweb... the list goes on. While the OS X browser scene was once so barren that IE was one of the best choices (thank you Omniweb for saving me from IE), I would use any of those browsers I mentioned for daily use if I needed to. (I'm basically using Safari, with a little Camino still.) Hell, even Phoenix/Firebird is coming. It renders like none other, although the dev team has violated certain unbreakable rules at this time. (COMMAND-H SHALL HIDE THY CURRENT APPLICATION!!)

On the other hand, Opera for Mac is a piece of shit. I admit having never tried it on Linux or Windows, but I can't see how anything related to its Mac version could be considered a passable browser, let alone one worth paying for. The UI is neither intuitive or graphically pleasing. The customization in other browsers is not present. There are no tabs. It renders well most of the time, but fails miserably on some tables in my experience.

If they were smart, they would quit whining at Apple for releasing a superior product and stick to the Linux/Windows market. Until there, I'm just happy it is their money being thrown away, not mine.

Re:Opera is the odd man out

[squiggleslash]

I don't see why anyone would pay for it, but I do see why it would be in Opera's best interests to ensure that there is a Mac OS X version: how else are Mac-based web developers going to test their pages for cross-browser - including Opera - compatability?

You'd think that compatability with IE, Mozilla, Netscape 4 (under Classic), and Safari would be enough, but in practice every single "family" of browsers has quirks that do not immediately show themselves. Opera, for instance, has problems in Javascript if you attempt to replace a dynamically generated frame with one pulled from the net using a relative URL (ie currently the frame has a URL of "javascript: top.GenerateTheFrameHTML();" and you replace it with "/blah/wibble.html"), a problem the other browsers do not have.

There's no way, in the application I maintain, I'd have known about this without the browser on my machine to test it with.

Re:Opera is the odd man out

[kalidasa]

There are actually only five other native graphical browser rendering engines for OS X in wide use, even if there are many browsers. There is the Mozilla family: Camino/Chimera, Mozilla, Phoenix/Firebird - lots of different UIs, but the same rendering engine, Gecko. Next there's IE, based on Tasman - a giant load of crap that is only better than the Windows version if you prefer eyecandy to standards (the OS X version can only handle a few text encodings, for instance). Safari, another promising browser, based on KHTML/WebCore. And there is OmniWeb (and there's talk that OmniWeb might switch to WebCore, which would bring us down to three other rendering engines). Finally, there's iCab, which is dropping behind it seems.

The more competition there is in the browser market on all platforms, the bigger the win for standards. The further that standards pull ahead of non-standard (i.e., IE) rendering, the bigger the win for developers. The bigger the win for developers, the more time developers can spend on what really makes the net worthwhile, innovative content and presentation, and the bigger the win for consumers.

Let a thousand browsers bloom!

Re:Opera is the odd man out

[Sir Holo]

On the other hand, Opera for Mac is a piece of shit.... The UI is neither intuitive or graphically pleasing.

Looks fine to me in its default. You can also use custom skins and such, I hear.

There are no tabs.

Wrong again. I'm typing this in a tabbed window in Opera 6 for OS X right now.

It renders well most of the time, but fails miserably on some tables in my experience.

It renders most pages just fine. All browsers have trouble with some pages some of the time.

Please don't make stuff up.

Re:Opera is the odd man out

[TheRaven64]

I like using the same browser on all the platforms I use (Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac). I use Opera 7 on Windows and Linux because it is the one that suits how I use a browser best. I use Opera 6 on FreeBSD and Mac because that is the latest version availible for these paltforms (although I think the Linux version of Opera 7 can run in FreeBSD but I haven't tried yet). From my point of view, Opera 7 on the Mac and on FreeBSD would be useful.

When I emailed Opera a few months back to ask if they planned to release Opera 7 for the Mac, they said yes, so I assumed that this was common knowledge...

Re:Opera is the odd man out

[mtm]

Ah, but right now I'm doing some J2ME development and find myself needing to test some WML pages. Opera is the only browser for OS X that supports WML (as far as I know; someone correct me if I'm wrong).

And, of course, it never hurts to have another browser to test against.

Re:Opera is the odd man out

[fermion]

I agree with you to a point. Prior to Camino nee Chimera, Opera was the best browser for OS X. IE, though serviceable, was so user hostile and complicated that it was, and still is, only good for specialized content, such as porn or company specific intranets, and it's requirement often indicates lazy or incompetent programmers. Likewise, Mozilla was so unstable as to be nearly unusable. I was very happy to have Opera, and was eagerly waiting the real OS X release so I could send them money.

Unfortunately, the production release never came for OS X. But while, for whatever reason, Opera was released for every OS except for X, Chimera, and later Safari, were created and released. These browsers more than adequately filled the needs of the Mac market.

So, IMHO, Opera is not a bad browser. Rather, it is the only browser that requires the user to pay money, and it no longer see as sufficiently unique as to justify that payment. I believe that, unfortunately, the have lost the race. The open source engines are good enough to make Opera's previous advantages insignificant.

mmmmmhhh... virii...

[Anonymous Coward]

is it really opera? who knows.

Re:mmmmmhhh... virii...

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, the word is "viruses," you dumb shit. There's no such word as "virii."

And secondly, when's the last time you saw a virus for the Mac? And, more importantly still, has there EVER been a recorded incident of a virus for Mac OS X?

What a maroon. What an ultra-maroon. What a nin-cow-poop.

Re:mmmmmhhh... virii...

[Virus1984]

First of all, the word is "viruses," you dumb shit. There's no such word as "virii."

First of all "virus" is a latin word, and its latin plural is in fact "virii". Learn something before you call others "dumb shit".

Re:mmmmmhhh... virii...

[hobbit]

Why don't you take a leaf out of your own book and stop making yourself look like an absolute idiot?

http://www.perl.com/language/misc/virus.html

Re:mmmmmhhh... virii...

[nycroft]

Well, not in English, anyway. Perhaps the chap was trying out his Latin. The plural for virus, a first declension masculine noun, is viri, pronounced WEER-EE. The latin meaning is "a poisonous liquid, slime." A more obscure reference would be "venom." Perhaps that's what he means. Maybe the last time he downloaded something, his computer got covered in slime.

I'm still not downloading Opera anyway; Safari works very well.

Re:mmmmmhhh... virii...

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, the word you were looking for is moron. If you need an example, find a mirror. Why would virus writers bother with OS X? If you actually want your virus to spread, you want to write it for an OS that has users.

Re:mmmmmhhh... virii...

[Anonymous Coward]

The plural for virus, a first declension masculine noun, is viri, pronounced WEER-EE.

Wrong. "Virus" is a plural, or by some interpretations an undeclined mass noun. An analogy in English would be the word "milk." How many times have you heard the word "milks?" (Not the verb; the plural noun.)

There is no recorded Latin plural for "virus," and no evident applicable rule for making one.

Incidentally, "viri" is the plural of "vir," meaning "man." "Viri" means "men," not "viruses."

Re:mmmmmhhh... virii...

[Anonymous Coward]

security through obscurity?

What obscurity? The entire operating system is documented out the ass. There are no OS X viruses because OS X is UNIX, and a UNIX virus is for all practical purposes impossible.

p.s. maroon?

Didn't you ever watch Bugs Bunny cartoons? Or were those before your time? Bugs Bunny always used to say, "What an ultra-maroon. What a nin-cow-poop." I'd forgotten all about that until I read the AC's post, and it cracked me up. I'm STILL laughing.

Maybe you just don't have a sense of humor. Or something.

Re:mmmmmhhh... virii...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever is right, if you was looking for a computer virus collection, you would look for virii and not for viruses. It seems to be l33t like warez or serialz to call the virus(es) virii.

Go to google, enter 'virii collection' -> Computer viruses
Go to google, enter 'viruses collection' -> 'Bio' viruses
Q.E.D.

The dictionaries are just too slow in caching up with the language... ;)

Re:mmmmmhhh... virii...

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to be l33t like warez or serialz to call the virus(es) virii.

Exactly. In other words, it's lame and wrong, and people shouldn't do it.

The dictionaries are just too slow in caching up with the language... ;)

Maybe the language doesn't change nearly as fast as you think it does.

Re:mmmmmhhh... virii...

[nycroft]

You know what? I blew it. Virus is a fourth declension noun, not a first declension, as I stated earlier. The plural nominative is spelled the same as the singular. Sorry. It's been about 10 years since I took Latin.

For milks, there are many kinds: Homogenized, Vitamin D, Acidopholous, non-fat, etc. Most people would probably say, "The store has 4 kinds of milk." But if a computer is under attack by two separate viruses, the plural sounds usable (at least colloquially). "The Black Hats attacked the bank's mainframe with their viruses." Now if I can only figure out how to say mainframe in Latin, I'd be set.

On closer inspection, viri does mean "men" (first decl., plural nom.) but it is also the singular genitive (fourth decl.) of virus. Like many words in Latin, there are similar spellings of different words and their cases relying heavily on context to determine which is which. For example if I were to say viri viri that could mean "men of the virus," but viri virus could mean "men of the viruses". But, like I said, it's been a while, so I could be wrong.

Re:mmmmmhhh... virii...

[Anonymous Coward]

For milks, there are many kinds

Yes, but here you're drawing a distinction between "instances of" and "subclasses of," to use OOP terminology. In English, the semantic distinction is clear, though uncommon: you have "fish" as the instance-plural for "fish", and "fishes" as the class-plural of "fish." That doesn't mean that "fishes" is the correct instance-plural for "fish." If you've got a two trout you do not have "fishes." You have "fish."

With "water," on the other hand, there is no instance plural. You might have two collections or units of water (two glasses of water, two gallons, and so on), but you don't have two waters. If you're referring to bodies of water, however, it's appropriate to use the term "waters" as the class-plural. Usually we just use the word "seas" instead, though.

Same with viruses. In Latin, you never had "two virus." There might or might not have been a word that referred to the class-plural of virus; my Latin isn't THAT good. But there was definitely not an instance-plural.

In English, of course, "virus" means something distinctly different from what it meant in Latin. In Latin, it meant corruption or slime. In English, it refers to an entity with certain properties. So you can have two of them, whereas you cannot have two of the Latin sense of "virus." Therefore, it is appropriate that the plural used be the English formation, "viruses," and not the Latin formation, which is good because the Latin formation doesn't exist anyway.

Consider, by way of analogy, the word "octopus." What's the plural of "octopus?" Many would say "octopi," for the same reason that the plural of "syllabus" is "syllabi." But they're wrong, because "octopus" isn't a Latin word at all. It's Greek. And as such, the Greek plural would be "octopodes," pronounced "oct-oh-POH-dees." But that's obviously not the English plural. The English plural is simply "octopuses."

Same with "virus."

Re:mmmmmhhh... virii...

[nycroft]

Okay. I sit corrected :(

I'm still not not buying Opera though.

No...

[Trillan]

Opera is decent on Windows. It isn't my cup of tea, but I can respect that people would prefer it.

My impression of Opera for the Mac, on the other hand, was that it was a buggy, bloated POS that couldn't render even simple web pages.

Yay!

[zangdesign]

And there was much rejoicing in the land.

And then they ate the developers.

Hurrah!

[dynayellow]

This means Apple won't be going out of business! I know well over a kazillion individiuals who were waiting to buy a Mac, anxious to use it's unique suite of photo, movie, and DVD tools, not to mention the Apple Music Store, but when they found out that there was a fast, reliable broswer that WASN'T skinnable, they became suspicious.

"No Opera!?" they said, "No thanks!"

On report of this news, Smith Barney raised Apple stock to a new "Super-Buy" rating, and gave candy to everyone.

Leave me alone. I'm on NyQuil.

I'll never register Opera

[truffle]

I like Opera, a lot. It's my primary PC browser and my primary Linux browser. My main computer is a mac, and while safari is my primary mac browser, I still use Opera a fair bit.

I'll never register Opera though because, even with a 35% discount for registering for multiple operating systems, I think it's just cheap for companies to charge you more than once for their software. A good example of a company that does not do this is Blizzard, who ships the Mac and PC versions of their game on the same CD.

Obviously their are additional costs in developing for multiple platforms. But there are also three potential ways to increase revenue:
1. more platforms means more potential users, and thus more sales
2. multi-platform users will be thrilled to use multi-platform software, increasing the chance of a sale
3. sell multiple copies to multi-platform users

Number 2 and number 3 are in competition. I'm not thrilled to pay for the same software 3 times over. I'd have registered long ago if it was one payment for all 3 operating systems. Personally, I think Opera would make more money if they didn't charge for multiple OSs.

Re:I'll never register Opera

[TheRaven64]

Agreed. I use Opera on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac, and while I would be quite prepared to pay $25 for a student license if it meant I could run it on any platform, I am not willing to pay $100 for a web browser.

Mac users struggle to give a shit

[Mikey-San]

Hold on a second. I'm supposed to give a crap about a browser that has a terrible UI and relatively no Mac support (fucking /Internet Explorer/ is updated more often than Opera, guys)? Opera 6 is easily the worst browser on the Mac (slow, buggy, blah rendering engine), and they had the nerve to threaten to pull out of the Mac market when Apple released Safari and wouldn't use their [Opera's] rendering engine at the core [of Safari]?

Opera doesn't care about the Mac, so why should we use their languishing browser? The Windows and Linux versions may be decent, but the Mac versions have always blown hard.

Mozilla/Camino, Safari, OmniWeb 4.5 ... There are better browsers out there. (And for you 9 users, straight-up Mozilla beats Opera with a forked stick.)

Opera: "Hey, Mac users, we've decided to continue to grace your platform with our product. Aren't you grateful?"

Mac users: "Hey, Opera, eat me."

Re:Mac users struggle to give a shit

[questamor]

I don't see the above post as a troll. Opera for mac so far has been THE worst browser on the platform. Even when Netscape 6 was at its worst, Opera was still slower.

When it comes to efficiency and leanness, the Opera versions that have been released for macs are nowhere to be seen. It's small bytewise, but doesn't have anything to show for it. Netscape 7 is faster. Mozilla is faster. IE is faster. Then move up to Firebird, Camino and Safari and they're faster still.

It seems truly a case of needing Ghz machines to get a useful browsing experience from Opera. Why pay money for what's undoubtedly the SLOWEST product in its class on macs?

I admit I haven't used Opera enough to have a really good grasp on how well it renders, or how buggy it is or isn't, but across all the macs I've used it with, it's consistently performed like a machine at a tenth the speed it was actually running on. Ugh

Re:Mac users struggle to give a shit

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see it as a troll either. And I happen to be meta-moderating that post.. :-)

Rules bending

[cgenman]

I too like Opera a lot, and have always promoted their use. I have also registered for two windows versions (older and newer). Does that mean I don't use their Linux and Mac versions too? Of course not.

We register software to support the companies that produce them, not because we are forced to. In the case of Opera, Rijk and the rest of the developers have created a wonderful product that deserves our recognition and our financial support. Now there are whole mythologies about licenses following users not O.S.es and the morality of pirating bug-fix releases, but the fact of the matter is either the guys from Norway get your 40 dollars or they don't. To them, if you use Linux, Windows, or a Mac, they have no additional expenses, but could really use the cash. Multiplatform pricing is a way of getting additional funding from those who can afford to pay for multiple computing environments, but for those students who may have inherited a Mac and built a combo wintel / linux box out of spare parts your payment schedule should vary.

Support Opera. Register the software on your platform of choice, and find codes for the rest. It may not be %100 on the up-and-up, but it is far better for the developer than the alternative. Or be on the up-and-up by purchasing student-discounted versions (20 dollars per OS) based on the adult education cooking course you took last summer.

(Frankly, Opera's payment scheme has always been a bit futzy. Occasionally you get stuck paying for bug-fix releases, or upgrading within too short of a timeframe. If you get stuck paying for something you feel they should have provided anyway, such as promised features or bug fixes, just help yourself to the upgrade and pay next time. Be on the honor system.)

*Note: the opinions expressed here are those of a longstanding Opera user and most certainly do not represent those of Opera Software or its employees. Or its lawyers. Or the judge.

**Note Note: Blizzard can confidently supply Mac and PC versions on the same CD because the CD is required to run, and the key you purchase is required as your unique identifier when you go online for multiplayer. Perhaps if Opera validated the uniqueness of your license code each time you went online and periodically thereafter, they could be confident that only one person was using your multi-OS registration. But such a thing would be a PR nightmare.

Too little, FAR TOO LATE

[Anonymous Coward]

I had great hopes for the Opera browser. . . . . . 3 years ago.

But those idiots dragged their feet in coming out with a Mac release and when they did finally release a beta version over 2 years ago, it was a disaster. OS X Opera browser remained in beta status for God knows how long.

Opera can kiss my Camino-using and Safari-using brown and hairy ass. I gave up on that POS browser ever since Mozilla 1.0 came out.

It ain't over...

[blakespot]

"Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

(fat lady, singing)

blakespot

Opera rules

[a8f11t18]

I once tried to convert someone by this messy,
lengthy and biased comparison of opera 7
and firebird. Unfortunately, I failed :D, but
still.. Opera rules, and personally I would not
even consider using an apple before opera software
had a good opera browser on there.. which apparantely
they still don't? Sounds stupid, but it's true. OS X
sounds very tempting in some ways, but no way in hell
am i gonna even think about making a switch unless
opera's on.. and the GOOD opera.. :)

Just trying to make the point that for many, the browser
has become more important than the OS itself..

Documentation (Opera 2 - Firebird 1):
Firebird's documentation is good, but getting there is
confusing; the only place help takes you to is the release
notes, and from there you have to browse around till you
find the link for a third party site documentation.
Not good enough. Opera has good, accecible documentation,
and it is also off line: you can pick contents, keyboard
and mouse help directly from menu.

URL accecibility (Opera 2 - Firebird 0):
I don't neccesarily like to have an adress bar up as that
wastes my space at low resolutions. In opera, pressing
f2 brings up a dialog box with dropdown history and
autocomplete. In Firebird, I cannot find anything similar.
A real shame if you ask me, and even IE can do this.
Mozilla has this, though.

GUI customizability (Opera 2 - Firebird 1)
Opera's GUI is very configurable, and a joy at that too.
You can zoom the big set of buttons, customize the text
position, add and remove search fields as well as status
bar fields and a field for clock and zoom. And unlike
Firebird, you can do drag and drop all these elements,
unless you choose to lock them down. Opera also has a
navigation bar, and all bars can be placed in different
places. Not even a contest actually.

Skin (Opera 2 - Firebird 1)
It is more of a hassle to both download and change skins
in Firebird. Also, Opera has the very cool feauture that
you can change the colour scheme of any skin, as well as
turn special effects on and of.

Tab (Opera 2 - Firebird 1)
The tab interface in Opera is simply better. Besides just
looking better, they have better mouse and keyboard
accecibility, and a visual changer as well. Also, it is quite
limiting that in Firebird you cannot choose to open a tab in
foreground. Firebird's reload tab options are a little more
accecible than opera's though, but opera on the other hand
has a handy close all but active tab function.

Status bar (Opera 2 - Firebird 0)
Love this one. Opera's only shows up when a page is loading,
as under normal circumstances, that's the only time you'd need
the status bar! So, this saves space, but if you don't like it's
customizable. Also, opera's can be placed both at top and bottom, and shows lots more information than firebird's. Oh, and many use the status bar for checking out where a link points to and stuff: but in Opera, you can have this information show up in tooltips, so as I said I really love Opera on this one.

Mouse gestures (Opera 2 - Firebird 0)
Well, firebird don't have them by default. Opera's are almost perfect and even customizable. The downloadable gesture plugins for Firebird don't quite do it for me either.

Update notification (Opera 0 - Firebird 2)
Firebird has customizable notification of site updates. Opera has no such functionality.

Context functionality (Opera 2 - Firebird 1)
In Opera, mark something, and by right-clicking it you can search it through a search engine of choice, translate it, or look it up in an encyclopedia or a dictionary. Instead of pasting a link and then pressing enter or clicking go, you can just choose paste and go in the context menu. Double clicking a word also brings up the context menu for easier access. Otherwise the context menu's in Opera are much more filled with options, and at least

Re:Opera rules

[XnetZERO]

Let's get this straight... The only thing holding you back from converting to MOSX is the lack of a 'good' version of Opera? Have you even used any of the MOSX browsers?

Safari (which btw is still BETA) is probably one of the best browsers I've ever used Mac or PC.

Camino is a close second.

OmniWeb is a joy to use.

IE may jump back into the game with v6, but who knows...

And Opera? Opera just plain sucks!

For want of a 'Opera' the kingdom was lost -- or -- Sounds like trolling to me.

Re:Opera rules

[cyman777]

Even though I appreciate your detailed listing of features Opera seems to offer, you never seem to have used Mozilla 1.3 or 1.4b which offers a whole bunch of features you mentioned with _real_ platform independence not to mention that it is free as in free speech (a term that has been stretched to much, I know, esp. when it comes to projects like Mozilla that are basically funded by one more or less huge company) - but still... On the long run I see more potential in Mozilla / firebird than in Opera. BTW - not using OS X for only having Opera 6 available is sad. Sad for you, because building Gentoo on one of my boxes and lurking in the console most of the time I can assure you: You miss a lot with OS X - it is just there, you can rely on it, even if you played around with it it doesn't let you down on the next day's presentations. ...and, AFAIK this Opera 7 is coming :-) To get back on track: Yes Opera offers a lot, but tweaking Mozilla also brings you Gestures and and even more refined poops - up killer. Just my two cents.

Moderators are on crack today

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not want to complain, but could it be the moderators are on crack today? nearly every second posting is moderated troll or flamebait. Either you guys need to get a live, read the moderation rules or just get some fresh air.

Mmmh, meta-moderation.

Re:Moderators are on crack today

[Anonymous Coward]

Here at Slashdot, there are some sacred cows. If you speak ill of them, you will be modded down. Personally, I read at -1 because even though there is a lot of crap there, some comments end up there simply because they are unpopular.

wml

[Anonymous Coward]

you may want to check wapaka (modify the shell script) and yospace SmartPhone Emulator Developer Edition 3.0

You are aware that the wml pages look totally different on a mobilephone than in opera?

Re:wml

[mtm]

I tried Wapaka (it was broken in various ways). I never heard of yospace, I'll give them a try.

Yeah, I know the rendering doesn't match the phones. I mostly use it to test the navigation and device detection.

Eat this: Safari to hit gold master next month

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you restain your enthusiasm on this?
Safari to hit gold master next month

It is just a rumor, but the site is quite reliable on rumors.

That wasnt a troll, cmon

[ihatewinXP]

While the parent does at a glance seem to be a troll: sweeping statements, needless vulgarity and mean spirited ranting, in this case the man is correct. Opera is a piece. When they said they were leaving the mac community in unison the community responded with raging apathy and honestly if you cant find a good browser (hell, a great browser) for the mac platform today then you probably work for the opera team.

Well If my choices are between: Cyberdog, Netscape 4, AOL, Opera, and MSN for OSX.....I guess I might pick Opera, but I sure as hell wouldnt pay for it.

Mod parent up, metamod troll mod Unfair.

[Anonymous Coward]

He's spot on right. That post should probably be moderated as "Informative."

Performance issues in OS X

[Desperado]

There are aspects of Opera that I like, such as preserving the state of all the tabbed pages
and restoring them when it is restarted. However, the performance is so dismal in OS X
that I browse using Opera 6.? running in a remote X-window from my 450 MHz Linux
box. Not quite Safari speed but better than Mozilla, IE or Omniweb speed.

I complained to the Opera developers and I'm hoping Opera 7 for OS X will have addressed this issue.

Can an Apple story get more than 100 comments?

[Anonymous Coward]

All the stories on this page that are apple only ( the is also one on IBM's PowerPC 970, one on Pegasos, one on Microsoft)the only one with more than 100 comments is one on a Mac made of lego. The question is, does Apple matter anymore?

Re:Can an Apple story get more than 100 comments?

[Anonymous Coward]

If mindshare was measured in slashdot posts, Jon Katz would have his own TV show, case mods would be more common than cars, and Linux would have its own cereal.

Re:Opera still sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

OmniWeb still does not work properly. I tried 6.02 to see if it cleaned up the mess that is 6.0...no such luck. It fails to even render my homepage correctly (the text is rendered on top of other text and is unreadable). It crashed going to their web site to report the bugs. I gave up. I can not believe that they tested this browser at all before releasing it.

Bottom line: not good. Will v 7 be better?

Don't forget beleaguered!

[Anonymous Coward]

Beleaguered Opera plans to release a new version of its browser for the much beleaguered Apple/Mac platform.

C'est tr�s gai

[Anonymous Coward]

Macintosh, feel the word sliding over your lips. Do you feel the rhythm, sure you do. It's definitely gay.

Safari, feel the word sliding over your lips. Do you feel the rhythm, sure you do. It's definitely gay.

IPod, feel the word sliding over your lips. Do you feel the rhythm, sure you do. It's definitely gay.

Gay, feel the word sliding over your lips. Do you feel the rhythm, sure you do. It's definitely Apple.

Don't Get It

[Anonymous Coward]

The Opera people have always worked hard at posturing in markets, but I still don't get it:

Why BUY this browser, with its shortcomings, when you can have IE, Safari, and especially Camino for free?