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

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.

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.

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

[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.

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: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!

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.