Opera Browser Creators Planning IPO

Iphtashu Fitz writes "Norwegian web browser developer Opera Software is reportedly planning an Initial Public Offering on the Oslo Stock Exchange next month. According to a press release issued today, Opera's revenue for the last quarter grew 108.7% and CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner stated that 'After developing and refining the technology and commercial side for nine years, Opera Software is now ready for public listing.' Opera has, according to CNET News, gained popularity in the past few months thanks, in part, to having ported their well-known browser to smartphones."

Comments

I wonder which

[cyt0plas]

I wonder which would start higher, Opera or Google?

Re:I wonder which

[TiMac]

Why wonder? Everyone and their mother uses Google...a small fraction of the world uses Opera. I'm all about rooting for the little guy (Opera) vs the giant (Microsoft), but there are so many other alternatives out there for various platforms (such as Firefox, Galeon, Safari, OmniWeb, etc) that I can't see a company based around a browser succeeding in going public.

Frankly, I'll keep my money in safer places....

Re:I wonder which

[aacool]

Opera's revenue is about a third of Google's last quarter. Google's ad-words program ensures revenue. Not sure how Opera can ensure sustained revenue for a freeware browser that has a low share of the browser market(????)

So, I would assume, Google. Also factor in the demand factor for the shares, expectation of being the next Netscape, etc.,

Will be interesting to see how Opera performs as a public company

Re:I wonder which

[demonic-halo]

Guess it would depend on what you define as higher.

My guess is Google will have a higher market cap.

Pricewise, there is no telling. Is there some way to get information on # of outstanding shares there are?

Re:I wonder which

[eidechse]

Opera isn't freeware. It has a free version with ads and a paid version without the ads.

Re:I wonder which

[Anonymous Coward]

So what do you recommend for someone who wants a similar browser for FreeBSD, Linux(Debian) & MS Win?

Re:I wonder which

[grub]

I wonder which would start higher, Opera or Google?

Slashdot needs a "-1, Rhetorical Karma Whoring Question" moderation option.

Re:I wonder which

[Anonymous Coward]

Um.. Firefox?

Not sure if it supports FreeBSD though, that is a server-only platform as far as I'm concerned.

Re:I wonder which

[IANAAC]

Mozilla

Re:I wonder which

[Zebra_X]

Just an FYI - Opera's performance when it comes to security flaws has been worse than I.E.

Re:I wonder which

[Tin Foil Hat]

Opera's browser has gained popularity mostly in one area -- cellphones and PDA's. Although there has been growth in it's PC product sales, most revenue has been from licensing deals in the embedded space. Plenty of room for growth there.

Frankly, I'll keep my money in safer places....

Oh, you betcha. But it's not as off-the-wall as it seems at first glance.

Re:I wonder which

[Smallpond]

wget

Re:I wonder which

[neko9]

Opera :-)

Re:I wonder which

[Axoiv]

> but there are so many other alternatives out there

Not really. Not for handhelds for example.

Opera still has their "one page 2 one column" feature.

Re:I wonder which

[nelsonal]

You could look for form 14As on edgar (the SEC's database of corporate filings) as the offering approaches. This only works for google, but I'm sure there is something similar in Opera's home country. Right now there are only a few filings related to Google. Related to google the early pricing guesses have been between for something like 10-12 billion. I've not seen any estimates for Opera, but figure a value in the range of 30-50x earnings, or about 3x-7x annual sales, perhaps a bit more than that and you can estimate a value. This would be the offering price, not the first day close.
In the US offerings are usually done to get offering prices in the teens, although google and other high provfile IPOs are likely to go in the 20s. With the anticipation for this one, expect a nice first day bounce. Each foreign country has it's own customs for share pricing, (British companies keep their share price in the single pound range).

Re:I wonder which

[Anonymous Coward]

Long story short given the info in article, sue me I read it after posting, it's likely to have a market cap around NOK 600 million, or roughly USD 90 million.

Re:I wonder which

[LaissezFaire]

Opera isn't (as far as I can tell) banking on making all its money by selling directly to end-users. It has a very big push to embedded devices. If the development aspect of Opera is better than IE's, then they have a good chance.

Re:I wonder which

[BuckaBooBob]

With todays highly fickle speculative stock market... IPO's for companies generating positive revenue is nothing more than a money grab before the company falls flat on its face... Why did google put off its IPO... I bet ya they figured out thier high revenue stream will last for quite some time and if they wait a while its likely they will be able to sell off thier shares for much more at a later date... I have no doubt in my mind the top level people at google will have virtually no shares aftera short time period of the IPO unless the price keeps soaring higher and higher.. Which is doubtfull... I can see after 3 months the price of google stock being below its IPO price.. I am sure the same iwll happen with Opera or any other company that has a established product that has a positive cash stream.

Re:I wonder which

[Unregistered]

firebird^H^H^H^Hfox

Re:I wonder which

[Anonymous Coward]

To the best of my knowledge Opera is not recommending that users manually type in URL to avoid spoofed redirects.

Re:I wonder which

[The Cydonian]

Not sure how Opera can ensure sustained revenue for a freeware browser that has a low share of the browser market

By teaming up with Google. Starting with v7.2, you can get Google's text ads on Opera. I was planning to buy a full version of Opera (there's a student discount), but heck, I like those ads. Very useful if you're searching for something and aren't sure you got the right keyword combination right.

Re:I wonder which

[arekq]

I think FreeBSD should be able to run the linux version of Firefox. ==> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/h andbook/linuxemu.html

Re:I wonder which

[arekq]

Oops, the link screwed up:

Linux Binary Compatibility

Re:I wonder which

[Anonymous Coward]

opera????? useless. WHY would ANYONE pay for a web browser? and a browser that is INFERIOR or that matter. opera is irrelevant.

Re:I wonder which

[bhtooefr]

Actually, Opera's a shareware browser, and utilizes Google AdWords in the unpaid version. I should know - I see an AdWords block up on the top of my browser.

Re:I wonder which

[iMMersE]

And we all know how hard that is :

$oneColumn = str_replace( "</td><td>", "</td></tr><tr><td>" );

Re:I wonder which

[Anonymous Coward]

Errr, dumbass, surely you mean :

$oneColumn = str_replace( "</td><td>", "</td></tr><tr><td>", $html );

And besides, I doubt Opera is coded using PHP.

Re:I wonder which

[Zebra_X]

that's becauase an attacker can simply write some nice nasty java script to blow away your files.

Re:I wonder which

[lazybeam]

I'm using Opera right now, you insensitive clods!

Re:I wonder which

[Zebra_X]

There is no FUD in them there hills:

Found on the bugtraq mailing lists, opera features a wide range of buffer overflow, aribitrary code execution, local file access vulnerabilities, etc. etc. Have a look. Some of them are quite nasty.

There have also been instances where Opera has not been quick to respond, these too are documented in the dicussion groups.

As far as I can tell the last Opera Only reported vulnerability was 12-23-2003.

Opera Vulns

As far as open vulns go, that doesn't happen much these days. The hackers usually contact the vendor before posting their exploit.

Thanks, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, but I'm still holding out for the Google IPO.

Woohoo!

[TypoNAM]

Is it time to start buying stock? :)

If at first you don't succeed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck to Opera on their IPO. Just remember, it isn't over till the fat lady sings!

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd buy that for a kroner.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Kroner is plural. Either you buy it for a krone or several kroner.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but kroner sounds similar to dollar, thus making the RoboCop reference complete.

Re:Hmmm

[Killswitch1968]

krona, kroner is the plural.
Not to be pedantic or anything :)

Re:Hmmm

[gnarlin]

You assume the language in question is Danish (kroner), but in Icelandic (which is closer to the original germanian language source) the plural is kronur. one krona many kronur Than of course the word will also change by the context it is referenced to :)

Re:Hmmm

[Dionysus]

krone, not krona.
Not to be pedantic or anything :)

Stupid Question?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does anyone care about this non-free browser with Mozilla around?

Re:Stupid Question?

[blixel]

Well, I wouldn't put it quite like that, but I tend to agree. A few months back I gave Opera a fair shot. I ran it exclusively for about a month. There were a few weird things about it that I didn't like. (Where the heck are the tabs? Oh - it's not called tabs in Opera even though Opera says it has "tabbed browsing". And I don't like integrated e-mail in my browser, personally. And the Opera e-mail client "sucked", in my opinion.)

There wasn't anything about it that I liked well enough to make it my new browser of choice. I had heard that it was the fastest browser available in terms of rendering HTML. So I wanted to give it a fair try. I don't have an Open Source axe to grind. If a proprietary product is genuinely better, I'm willing to admit it. That doesn't necessarily mean I'll use it, but I don't have any problem owning up when something else is better. But personally I just didn't see any fantastic speed increases. (Or even non fantastic speed increases for that matter.) And the ads, they are annoying when you aren't use to having them. I'm sure I could get use to them, or I could pay to get rid of them. But why bother when FireBird (now FireFox)/Galeon/Mozilla is just as good (better)?

Re:Stupid Question?

[jazman_777]

But why bother when FireBird (now FireFox)/Galeon/Mozilla is just as good (better)?

Because they're _not_ as good (better). Opera is better than all of them, I've tried them all. If you disagree with me, you must be an idiot or a moron, at least; worst case, a terrorist.

Re:Stupid Question?

[Azari]

Personally, because Opera's tab and mouse gesture implementations are far nicer than Mozilla's. I like to browse in a very minimalist way, with only tabs visible, so decent mouse gestures are pretty important to me (I noticed in the Firefox release notes that it's now boasting a bigger viewable area than [the default in] other browsers.) I drop in on Firebird or Firefox (or whatever it's calling itself on any particular day) occasionally, to see if it has caught up, but so far have been disappointed, which is a shame because there are some extensions which I really like. The 7.5 beta of Opera is also very nice, so far.

Opera

[MysteriousMystery]

Opera is a nice browser, but honestly how many people do you know that actually regged it? Most people are using the ad supported version. With the company going public it makes me wonder about how many ads and to what level the ads will be showing up in future releases. Instead of just a banner at the top maybe pop ups FROM Opera? Perhaps I'm just seeing things negatively but this certainly makes me wonder about the product. I will say it is nice to use on a Zaurus though.

Re:Opera

[gl4ss]

why does 'going public' always equate into 'after this they must try to bring in all the cash they can in and sell their souls to the devil too!'? you know they don't have to have a businessplan like that!

the more intresting news is that they made profit..

seriously, they're doing this to get some financial flexibility afaik, you can be more stiffed for maximum profit with private investors..

Re:Opera

[sl0wp0is0n]

But, it's still commendable that these people built a business around a free browser. OTOH, I don't think that warrants an IPO and I'm convinced that they will realize their mistake soon. I hope they have something better in mind behind that IPO. And, I hope they don't slam all the financial burden on the users in one way or the other, directly or indirectly, like you mentioned. All said, as a user, it's always good to have options around and I hope Opera hangs around.

Re:Opera

[Beolach]

Instead of just a banner at the top maybe pop ups FROM Opera?

I doubt it. One of the selling points for Opera (like Mozilla) is built-in pop-up blocking. If Opera started making their own pop-up ads from the browser that would presumably bypass the built-in pop-up blocker, it would completly negate the benefit of that feature. And I think the people at Opera, like most reasonably intellagent people, realize that end users hate pop-up ads so much that they are not a reasonable form of marketing.

Re:Opera

[sndtech]

ok first off Opera specifically has a feature to turn off all pop-ups/pop-unders.
so this would be beyond easy to step around.
most people who I know who use Opera use it just because of this feature.
and the mouse gestures are nice too.

Re:Opera

[Richardsonke1]

I am happy to say that I registered it. Granted, I only had to pay $20 because I am a student, but the browser it absolutly amazing. I have had a few problems with crashing every once in a while (no more than IE), but the browser saves your every move in each tab so that if it does crash, you come right back up where you were. Also, their small screen versions are amazing. Pretty much any page, no matter what, will fit on your screen with no horizonal scrolling (like the stupid PocketIE). If only they would create a PocketPC version, I would gladly fork over some more money.

Re:Opera

[Gregory S Patterson]

For what it's worth, I've been using Opera exclusively since version 3.something in 1998. When they switched to ads, I used a cracked version for a couple months, but then regged it after the guilt got to me. Considering that (excluding operating systems) I use this piece of software more than any other, I probably owed them a lot more than it cost. Though I must admit that I'm the only person I know who gave them any money, and I know about a half dozen other people who use it regularly. I assume most of their revenue comes from licensing deals w/ mobile phone makers.

If you're willing to learn the interface and customize it to your liking, there's no doubt in my mind that there's nothing faster. Most importantly, you can use it with either the mouse OR the keyboard without any loss of efficiency. From my experiences, most other browsers have functions that can only be done with one or the other.

just my $.02

Re:Opera

[fyonn]

well, afaik the free/ad supported browser (and the pay for one too really) are the window dressing. it's what gives them some name recognition. I thought that alot of their income comes from selling the embedded version of opera to other companies to include in their products, like celphones, pda, etc.

dave

Re:Opera

[iainf]

honestly how many people do you know that actually regged it

Well, I've paid for it (v5 and v7), on my own Linux and Windows boxes, as well as the Windows boxes of my parents and brother. And my girlfriend has paid for it for her iMac.

Re:Opera

[Liselle]

Opera is a nice browser, but honestly how many people do you know that actually regged it?

Add me to the pile of people who answered your rhetorical question. I registered Opera after using it for a few weeks. I get so much mileage out of it, if they asked me to register again, I'd do it in a heartbeat. My recommendation, and this even extends to Firebird/Fox users, is to try the browser for 30 days. It takes about that long to see all of the nuances that will knock your socks off. There's a great introduction to the browser (in 30 days, no less) right here.

Re:Opera

[zxSpectrum]

Opera is a nice browser, but honestly how many people do you know that actually regged it?

Well. Let's see.. Opera is the standard browser on:

• All Sendo X phones
• Nokia 7700
• Nokia 6600
• Sony Ericsson P900
• Sony Ericsson P800
• BenQ P30
• Motorola A920
• Nokia 9210i
• Psion Revo+
• Sharp Zaurus

in addition to being available as perhaps the only real browser for Nokia 3650/7650, Nokia N-Gage and Siemens SX1, and Opera also has partnerships with several companies

Re:Opera

[Roofus]

I did. Why? Because IE is dangerous, has no popup blocking, and no tabbed windows.

What about Mozilla/Firebird or whatever? I don't like them either. I never have. To me, Opera is a better browser than all of them. I'd be using it now, but I registered Opera for Windows, and I'm using Safari on OS X now.

Definitely worth $39.

Re:Opera

[jazman_777]

I too have bought it. I tried Foxfire, it doesn't cut it (although it is a fine browser). I like being able to disable images and switch between author and user mode quickly. I like how I can click on the current tab and it goes to the previous one, and then back again (nice for when I'm in tab 5, and the new one is tab 8, and it makes it easy to go back to tab 5 without having to know 'this is tab 5 I need to come back to'). I like being able to close the browser and it saves my current state, so I get back to that state quickly (I can even save sessions). I like page zooming. I hate not being able to view certificates. I very rarely have any problems rendering pages, posting, etc. I like how it feels light and fast. I like how I can delete all private data in one fell swoop, cookies, cache, passwords. It doesn't crash anymore, early version 7 was pretty bad for me that way. I like how they implemented Google ads on the ad bar (I use the free one at work).

Re:Opera

[sharkey]

Opera is a nice browser, but honestly how many people do you know that actually regged it?

*raises hand* I've been a paying customer since version 4.

Re:Opera

[neko9]

i'm using exclusively since version 5 on Windows. now newest version on Linux. i use almost all Opera's functions (Mail, Notes...) including keyboard shortcuts. i can't imagine browsing only with mouse... customizable like no other. definetely worth its price.

Re:Opera

[Moloch666]

I finally switched to firefox. all of the above functionality can be acheived through extensions on firefox.

Re:Opera

[LaissezFaire]

I've bought every version from 3.x on. It has a lot of excellent features, like mouse gestures, and is completely keyboard navigable.

Probably its best market, though, is the embedded devices. I like it on the desktop, but it has to keep bug-compatible with IE for display.

Re:Opera

[hoist2k]

Companies go public for 1 reason: to raise capital. Their CFO has decided it is (at this point in time) a better (read: cheaper) way to raise money than issuing debt. It's as simple as that. So many of us are stuck in out 1999 view of going public and IPO and getting rich that we forget why it actually happens. Companies don't want to give up control - they want the cash for new expeditures so that they can grow.

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

People who support John Kerry are SO HOT! Have you seen his cousin, for instance? Unbelievable! What is it about Kerry supporters that makes them so attractive?

Deaniacs should just go home. Ugly people have no place in politics.

Re:Opera

[lpret]

Yeah, i've been a part of Opera since 5.x and used the cracked version for a total of 2 weeks before I too realized I needed to show how much I like their product.

Mouse gestures are a pr0n viewer's best friend...

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, most people just aren't "reasonably intellagent".

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the ex-developers is in my japanese class, and he told me they don't make, or plan to make money selling their browser to the private market. What they make money on is customization and the embedded market

Re:Opera

[josephpate]

I use it for popup blocking (well really I disable javascript entirely) mouse gesures (fantastic mouse gestures. Better than Mozilla's) Tabbed browsing (better than mozilla's again) and most importantly (to me anyway) quick enable/disable of images.

I'm on dialup and lord knows if I had to sit through every frikkin image loading I'd go insane.

I disable images by default, then when I want to look at porn^H^H^H^Himages I just click a button (twice) to load them all.

Has mozilla incorporated this feature yet? (either included or as an extension?)

Re:Opera

[TekGoNos]

And the main point of pop-up ads is that they attract attention, instead of banner ads that are just scrolled away. Opera ads cannot be scrolled away, and everytime you type in a new URL, you come close to the ad and may look at it. I personnaly think that Opera ads are far more effective than pop-ups. At least personnaly, I've never clicked intentionnaly on a pop-up ad (I was just once confused by a fake close button). But I did click a couple of times on Opera ads, so for me it works way better. That's why I dont think they will ever change their ad-presentation.

Re:Opera

[TEB_78]

As far as I've understood the Opera browser is aiming for the embedded marked. That's where they get paid. The PC-versions are more like good PR-versions. They get paid (either by ads or by people who don't like ads), but I don't think they expect to be rich on the PC-version. After all they only have 1% of the browser marked (if the statistic is correct).

Re:Opera

[incal]

I never seen anyone who used ad-supported version of Opera. People which are computer-literate enough to know Opera and use it, know also www.cracks.ru.

Its not hard to get ridden of ads in Opera.

Re:Opera

[MrMickS]

It's not the standard browser on my P800. I have downloaded and tried out Opera on my P800 but prefer the built in browser to it.

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

You actually still see the ads? You must not spend much time on the web...

I'm using Opera 7.32 on GNU/Linux/KDE right now. I've got a bunch of shiny blue icons at the top of my browser window, a bunch of shiny colored icons in my taskbar, a shiny flashing gkrellm on the right side of the screen... and, I presume, Opera ads in the top right corner. Yet all I actually "see" is the page I'm visiting. The rest gets tuned out.

In fact, the only time I'm reminded Opera has ads is when I'm reading posts like this. Same as with banner ads on web pages I guess: my brain just filters them out. But maybe that's just me.

Re:Opera

[Troed]

Umm .. care to explain why? The built-in browser can't display anything, an Opera displays everything .. :)

Yes, I have a P800 and I run Opera on it, of course.

Re:Opera

[ccp]

I thought that alot of their income comes from selling the embedded version of opera to other companies to include in their products, like celphones, pda, etc.

I agree, so the question is: Why don't they make the browser free (as in beer), and own the field.
It's really that good, but nobody pays for browsers anymore.
I know there are a lot of people here saying they've registered Opera, but they sound like Opera employees astroturfing.

Opera makes its well-deserved money from embedded, cell-phones, and the like. They have (almost) nothing to lose.

So, Opera, PLEASE: make the Opera browser free (gratis) and end the browser wars.

Cheers, posted from Opera 7.23.

Re:Opera

[lazybeam]

I'm on dialup and lord knows if I had to sit through every frikkin image loading I'd go insane.

I first used Opera in version 3.21. it was great on my 486 with 4MB RAM and Windows 3.1 (16 colour VGA mode on a 8.5" passive-matrix LCD screen :) it just "felt" better than the alternatives of the day. I also remember upgrading from 2400bps to 33kbps (and then that phone line didn't support v90, so the next modem upgrade was useless)

I'm on broadband now and Opera still feel better, has better support for standards, etc. It had always been MDI, so tabbed browsing is more natural for Opera. It was a great joy when the tabs plugin became an official part or the browser. My favourite part is the cache, going "back" actually goes "back"!

I just click a button (twice) to load them all.

Yes, G, many times I have hit that when using the little rubber mouse in my Thinkpad... If I wasn't so lazy I'd learn all the keyboard shortcuts though. :)

Has mozilla incorporated this feature yet?

I remember Netscape 3.0 had a button on the toolbar for the purpose of turning images on/off, I remember thinking IE was so backwards for not having one!

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if you've tried Opera 7.5, but the ads have actually been made -less- intrusive in recent versions. I wouldn't worry.

Why Pay?

[Slack0ff]

Why pay for Opera when Mozilla v1.6 is out. Support free software and may pay software face eternal dmannation. Okay maybe eternal was overkill. But I would like to see a period similar in length to Cali's Death row.

Re:Why Pay?

[kannibal_klown]

I like Mozilla, and usually support free software, especially OSS, but I don't see what's so wrong about liking payware. It's not like I'm dirt poor, and can't afford the registration fee.

Free Software and Open Source software is great, but not every company is Microsoft; some are benigh or even benevolent. There's nothing wrong with paying for software if you like it more than the free alternatives.

Re:Why Pay?

[Slack0ff]

True, But im am happy to live with a program that might not be up to par with a pay program just so I dont have to support the company that makes it. Its not about the money its about principles.

Re:Why Pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I thought Mozilla was good till I put it on a Pentium computer (133Mhz to be exact)... s - l - o - w - - -

Opera just rox on older systems, and you don't have to limit yourself to Twm.

Re:Why Pay?

[Slack0ff]

I'm sure you didnt put the latest version of all your software on that 133. Why then should you expect to be able to put the latest version of mozilla? Sure the latest version of opera may work fine but none the less if you tried to put on a new version of mozilla whos to blame?

Re:Why Pay?

[74nova]

because there is nothing wrong with the adware version. i have no reason to reg, so its free, just like mozilla. not only that, but mozilla is ugly IMO. really ugly. it does seem to handle some of the multimedia stuff a little better than opera for now... i just really prefer opera, it seems faster, its prettier, and i love me some gestures. more power to both of them, however.

Re:Why Pay?

[FePe]

You don't have to pay for Opera. It's an adware application, which means that you have to look at a small adverting window. In Opera it's just a small window in the top right corner next to the toolbar, so it's really not that bad.

Re:Why Pay?

[NanoGator]

"Why pay for Opera when Mozilla v1.6 is out."

A.) I'm not actually paying antyhing from a cash point of view. There are text based ads in the upper right portion of my screen that otherwise does nothing. (They used to have comics in there, I miss them.) Small price to pay for a browser with such a heavily refined UI.

B.) I like Opera's interface more than Mozilla's. It's friendlier and more attuned to my personal tastes. I've boosted my productivity considerably with Opera.

C.) If I support 'free software', is it really free anymore? Making money off it defeats the purpose of working on it.

Sorry, but I'm going to use what's better for me. If you think that's evil, then yeah, whatever. I'd rather reward the people who've made a better product for me than encourage a group of people to maybe possibly consider working for my benefit.

Re:Why Pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera is smaller and faster than Mozilla 1.5 (haven't tried 1.6). It is smaller but appreciably slower than FireFox 0.8 (tests on same machine, same day, same sites, subjective observations).

I think the ergonomics of Opera 7 are slightly better than Mozilla or Firefox.

I would be prepared to switch from Opera to Firefox but for an apparent booboo in handling downloads. FF says that it will automatically open M$ Word files and the like. This is dangerous on a Windows machine (presumably not on a Linux box) because of VBA viri. Opera asks you if you want to open or save the file, so you get a chance to check it for viri.

Re:Why Pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

"True, But im am happy to live with a program that might not be up to par with a pay program just so I dont have to support the company that makes it. Its not about the money its about principles."

translation...

I'm a tightass.

Re:Why Pay?

[ChickenAintDone]

What do you have against the people who make Opera? Or are you just against every business?

Re:Why Pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla anything above 0.7...take your pick.

It's heavily bloated and it's getting worse. Opera 7 was completely rewritten.

As for getting a better computer, well it's my second system (laptop) which I use once in a blue moon now. Guestures work, clicking on the tab bar to get a new tab works ... it all works at a decent speed.

Why spend over $1000 dollars to uprade a system when Opera with Ads is free? As for latest software, no not the latest drawing progs, but then again I've held off buying major software titles for a move to the Apple G5 platform. Sick of hardware not working. Try getting a Wacom Tablet to work in BSD/Linux.

Opera works fine on the old and new Apple Macs aswell. I've move to FreeBSD to get used to the environment (and yes I love it, will never look at Linux again) and Opera behaves EXACTLY like it does in Linux and MS Windows. Guestures and all!

Re:Why Pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the slashbot attitude around here, unfortunately. The zealots here believe in destroying the western programmer's job, all for the "principles". When you hear the word open source, what should immediately spring to mind is socialism.

Re:Why Pay?

[neko9]

100% agreed.

Re:Why Pay?

[real_smiff]

have you tried Tools > Options > Downloads > File Types > .DOC > Change Action > Save to Disk ?

Re:Why Pay?

[next1]

myself and a friend of mine both actually found that on linux, the opera adware version just stopped working after a certain amount of time. thought it must be time limited or something. i liked it while it worked! but when that happened, just went back to mozilla.

Re:Why Pay?

[sysopd]

Opera has more features than mozilla yet it is faster, uses less memory, is smaller (both download and install), and does what it does-- better.

Mozilla has some of the features I love from Opera (tabbed browsing, gesture support, to name a couple). However Mozilla copied these features from Opera, they were not the first on the block with them. As a result Mozilla's support for these features is lacking compared to Opera. Case in point: gestures. I have regularly had gestures crash mozilla, or make webpages inaccessible (or both!).

Opera innovates. Gesture support and tabbing are Opera first for the browsing world. Check out the 'quick download' feature on the transfers window. You paste a link there and it starts downloading automatically. Or the fast forward/rewind features. Say you're looking through a forum and you have to click on the message, click back to the thread, and click the next message repeatedly. With fastforward it only takes one click. With this feature you can be browsing through images on a webpage and click fast forward and go to the next image without having to go through all the other clicks inbetween. Opera has the "reload every..." option where I can have a webpage (such as slashdot) reloaded every so often automatically. Opera integrates a search toolbar into the app, with google as the default. This has been around for some time and keeps getting better with more search options such as low price search, ebay searches, and domain name search- all from the toolbar, quick and simple. Mozilla's FireFox app has taken the hint and added the google search idea. What innovative ideas has Mozilla brought to the table? I don't know of any this level but I'll bet we'll see these copied from Opera in a future version.

I have 10 pages open in Opera right now and 2 transfers going and its using 16MB of memory. I have one page open in Mozilla 1.6 (google) and its using 23MB of memory (same page in FireFox v0.8 still uses more (17.3MB). The Linux version of Mozilla is a 284% larger download than the largest version of Opera for linux (13.9MB versus 4.9MB).

Opera consistantly starts faster, renders pages faster, uses less memory, has awesome tabbing and gestures that work well, continues to innovate and support more platforms. This is the reason I pay for Opera.

Re:Why Pay?

[E_elven]

Socialism, when properly implemented, guarantees a job for everybody, unlike some other systems. Maybe read up before posting?

Re:Why Pay?

[E_elven]

It's not time-limited. Your GNU/Linux sk1LLz just weren't 1337 enough.

Re:Why Pay?

[Master of Transhuman]

>Socialism, when properly implemented, guarantees
>a job for everybody...

at one tenth the wages of other systems.

And as long as you support the government in power. (When you figure out how to implement socialism without a government, call me - and prepare to prove it.)

And ruins the economy to boot.

Austrian economic theory has proven socialism to be totally unworkable for decades now.

You read up.

Re:Why Pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but sometimes I want to open a document on a URL known to be safe. In that case I want to choose "open" from a dialogue, not to hunt down something dumped on my desktop.

Re:Why Pay?

[bhtooefr]

Actually, you can change the banner to an actual banner ad, instead of a 468x60 position for an ad. I'm not sure, but there might still be comics in there. Opera does seem a bit slower with the graphical ads in here, however.

Re:Why Pay?

[E_elven]

Oh, I wasn't arguing that the current (or past) so-called socialistic economies (which have, in fact, been more in the lines of oligarcic state capitalisms) are necessarily better options. I specifically amended "-- when properly implemented, --"

I should also mention that the 1/10th wage is a misleading figure -first of all, I'm not sure where you get the number and secondly, it's irrelevant due to the nature of the economy. A great deal of money is not /required/ to buy commodities as now.

In any case, Austria is hardly a socialistic country. Having a decent social security infrastructure doesn't mean the country is socialistic. You might also look at the Nordic countries for reference on the model of Austria but implemented better.

Re:Why Pay?

[orasio]

Not to say that everyone is not entitled to his own ethics, but some of us feel it is unethical to use software that restricts peoples freedom.

So, for me there is something that is wrong about non-free software, that it restricts peoples freedom , who cares about the money??

For many of us (everyone who supports the FSF, for example) there is something wrong with paying for non-free software, it's great, though, paying for the development of free software. When you pay for non-free software, you are funding a company that bases its revenue on restricting people's freedom. Non-free software restricts your freedom to help other by sharing the software you have, your freedom to help yourself by improving that software, and to help others again by distributing your improvements.

If you use GPLed software, you gain all those freedoms, plus the assurance to keep them throughout the whole life of the software project.

-- There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels. --

Re:Why Pay?

[kannibal_klown]

Wow. You need to turn the zealousy down. I'm all for freedom too, but what does that have to do with anything? I could understand if you were talking about Microsoft's or Adobe's shadier business decisions, but this whole rant is a bit out there.

It's not like Opera prohibits you from viewing immoral webpages or anything, it's just a tool. Sure, you can get a hammer for free from a neighbor, or buy one at Home Depot. Both will hammer just as well, but the bought one might have a nicer handle, or the older hammer might be of longer-lasting quality. You compare both before deciding.

It's all about preference. I CHOOSE to use the payware in this instance because I have the freedom to choose, and I personally like Opera just a little bit more. Who's to say I don't also choose to use OpenOffice or Linux at home. I choose to use those tools as well.

I think Opera did a good job here, and the company deserves my small payment. I could just as easily stick with the free version, or find a cracked version out there, but I choose to compensate them for their efforts and the little bit of happiness it has brought me.

Or should development shops (large or small) suffer just because they chose to charge for their product?

Re:Why Pay?

[orasio]

Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough, but paying is not the problem. RMS himself charged for Emacs, back in the time. The problem is paying for non-free software, I would much rather pay for free software.
The difference is that when you use Opera you don't and can't know what is happening with your computer, and you can't share it with your friends, and you can't improve it, legally. And you are supporting a company that takes away that power from people.
If you follow the link in the parent, you can see it better explained by the FSF.
It's not the money, it's the freedom!

Sounds interesting.

[Sheetrock]

Are there any special fees or complications in buying stocks from Sweden, or is this something that's completely unavailable to people out of the country?

I'm sure there are quite a few people that'd like to get in on this, but not if it's prohibitively expensive.

Re:Sounds interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

buying stocks from Sweden

RTFA. Opera isn't Swedish.

Re:Sounds interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Any competent retail broker will do this and the currency conversion required.

Re:Sounds interesting.

[bitva]

Yes you can. Read this:

http://www.thestreet.com/pf/markets/asktheexpert /1 0121118.html

I guess you can buy direct into foreign markets, or you can buy ADR's, which are some sort of vouchers.

Re:Sounds interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

"...apply for public listing on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE)..."

My dear friend, Oslo is in Norway, not Sweeden.

Re:Sounds interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes... that is why he is asking if there is anything stopping him from buying stock being in Sweden. RTFP!

Re:Sounds interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct. That is why he is asking if there is anything stopping him from buying stock being in Sweden. RTFP!

Will this be an end to a decent browser?

[bobdole369]

I hope some other multinational conglomeration doesn't steamroll over them and buy them out.

I fear the day when google goes public. It will be the end of usable websearching as we know it. (Hides from the corporate whores jumping up and down and foaming at the mouth)

Re:Will this be an end to a decent browser?

[nomadic]

I hope some other multinational conglomeration doesn't steamroll over them and buy them out.

I bet they hope some other multinational conglomeration steamrolls over them and buys them out.

Re:Will this be an end to a decent browser?

[bonch]

You've already labelled EVERYONE who disagrees with you a "corporate whore." Nice way to be objective with your opinion...

Amazing ...

[midspot]

amazing how 2 free to use apps can be both offering stocks in 2004. Do i see a bubble rising in the tech sector again??? I better get back to buying domains for selling cat skinners, corn row straighteners, and board stretchers!!!

Re:Amazing ...

[El]

Hint: ABC, NBC, and CBS also offer a "free to use" product.

Re:Amazing ...

[D-Cypell]

This is exactly what we are looking for.

The market is simply crying out for fresh new corn row straightening and board stretching products... here is $20 Million... pay it back when you can!

Unfortnatly we cannot assist you in your other venture. We are already aligned with one of your competitors. Apparently there is more than one way to skin a cat!

Crashes...

[npistentis]

I know I'm not the only person who experienced dozens upon dozens of spontaneous crashes when I was using Opera... I switched to Firebird, excuse me, FireFOX, and with the addition of one extension have mouse gestures, tabs, built-in google search... all of the "features" with a fraction of the crashes. What makes Opera so appealing, and are they ready to go public?

Re:Crashes...

[Bronz]

This could be completely OS dependent, but Opera on Win32 is a dream. (And to be honest, I don't recall it ever having a problem for me on suse or debian either).

Opera is appealing because it's not just a viable replacement for IE or Mozilla, but it's actually an alternative. It's code base is unique in that it has no common ties to the gecko browsers. It's fast. Really fast.

Mouse gestures in Mozilla and IE are (literally) an after thought add-on. Due to Mozilla's design, I'm not sure that a mouse gesture can even register while a page is loading. Little things that destroy the UI if they aren't done right.

Re:Crashes...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still using a P2-366 laptop as my main machine. Opera is faster and more responsive than Firebird/fox. On some complicated pages, when I open it in a tab in the background, Firebird/fox would freeze for about 2 seconds. Opera would slow down, but the main page remained responsive. I've noticed this even on a P4 1.8 ghz, though to a much smaller degree.

Re:Crashes...

[Dixie_Flatline]

I used to have crashes here and there, but I found I didn't care very much, since Opera is good about knowing what sites you were visiting when the browser crashed. So, I can always restore my state to the last thing that was going on when it died on me.

Opera's crashes are very much version dependent. Some are much worse than others.

Personally, I could never get used to the way that Mozilla did ANYTHING. Without Multizilla, I was forever opening new Windows instead of new Tabs. For my browsing needs, I never want to open a new window except under very specific instances. I found Mozilla opening up new windows all the time.

Also, Mozilla's tabs are exactly one size, regardless of the size of the original window. Opera's tabs are little windows, maintained within a big window. Sure, I normally have them maximized anyway, but it comes in handy now and then to have them resizeable.

I dunno. Both browsers, from an overall view work similarily, and both do a good job. For me, it was the little details that made Opera more appealing. It's hard to explain all the little things that I like about it, but at this point, I'm too familiar with it to change, unless something monumentally better comes along.

Re:Crashes...

[Anonymous Coward]

I really tried to like Opera, because it gets so much hype. But I just don't like the "feel" of the program. I keep going back to Galeon.

Re:Crashes...

[74nova]

i dont have any crashes at all, same as these other folks answering you. as i stated above, mozilla is friggin ugly, for whatever diff that makes. opera is fast, clean, and has the mail client that will leave pop3 mail on teh server(i admit, i dont know how common that last one is, but outlook wont do it)

my one complaint is multimedia. flash and quicktime are good, but anything that is supposed to use windows media player doesnt work yet. not huge, but annoying.

Re:Crashes...

[NanoGator]

"What makes Opera so appealing, and are they ready to go public?"

Not everybody has those stability issues. I'm running Opera on 3 different machines and do not have the instabilities anybody is mentioning. A friend of mine has a computer virtually identical to my own, and Opera frequently crashed on him.

So, to answer your question, not everybody is sharing your experience. When Opera is stable, you get a hell of a browser. When it's unstable, then Mozilla is a far better choice. I just wish I knew why it behaves so well on some machines and so poorly on others.

Re:Crashes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I found the nearly hourly crashes in Opera to be a good thing. A good reminder that it's time to get off the computer and go do something else. Don't use it any more though. The ads are just irritating. Why get use to them when you don't have to?

Re:Crashes...

[ljaguar]

here here brother!

I used to use linux and freebsd. I still use windows at work. Guess what? perfect/seamless dreamy cross platform-ness. the skins, config files, everything, just work exactly the same all across the three OS. (they have native version for freebsd too) I just copied the whole config directory from home to work. (I'm a big fan of the beos skin)

I've been using opera since opera 4/5 days and only recently given it up because I use mac os x now. I use safari and waiting for opera 7 for mac.

Re:Crashes...

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Opera on many platforms, all work in the same way. 7.23 rox in Win95 (yes ... it's my TV/Tivo) Win98, Win2k, FreeBSD, Debian & Knoppix.

I love the ZOOM (CTRL+Mouse wheel), Guestures, and cross platform uniformity ... NOTHING comes close.

Stability on Win2k and FreeBSD with SMP kernel is rock solid (except for some java issues which are insignificant - quick preferences).

Re:Crashes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Outlook WILL just download the headers if you set it to!

And as for Windows Media Player, your config must be missing something. I just cheat and install an old version of Netscape 4.08 or 4.7 (communicator) and then install Opera. It grabs the Netscape plugins and uses them.

Re:Crashes...

[iksrazal_br]

"What makes Opera so appealing, and are they ready to go public?"

Turn graphics off by hitting 'g' - no other browser I'm aware of can do it. See the annoying ads on this page? One key stoke and they're gone.

Plus open in background keeps the focus, unlike say mozilla. And mouse gestures feel more natural for me with opera.

As for going public - don't care, just like the browser.

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." Stephen Hawking

Re:Crashes...

[gnalre]

I think a more pertinent question is why the hell anyone still uses IE, apart from the fact they are to lazy to install.

I use fire thingy exclusively now and it makes my life so much more fun.

Re:Crashes...

[FlipmodePlaya]

Your OS dependancy theory seems about right to me. I am posting this using Opera on Suse 9. While I love the features (yes, I know most of them are available in Moz, I have that installed but don't get much use out of it), but I do get all too frequent crashes. I find that they are often tied to certain web pages, but go away after another try or two at the site. Thankfully, restarting Opera only takes a few seconds, and restores all opened web pages to their previous forms (scroll positions, entered text, etc.).

I recently 'converted' a Windows user to Opera, from IE. This person is a good friend of mine, and I've gotten the chance to use Opera on XP quite a bit over the past month or so. I've yet to experience a crash in the Windows version, and neither has he. I'm not sure if this is a product of our different browsing habits, a coincidence, or what.

Re:Crashes...

[harmonica]

I'm having problems when Opera / Windows is running for a long time and has been used heavily. Maybe problems with the cache directory? There is enough disk space and free memory, but it has a limit in the preferences to what it can use. Maybe it has problems once that limit is reached.

Older versions crashed on me more often.

Re:Crashes...

[SpooterMM]

"Due to Mozilla's design, I'm not sure that a mouse gesture can even register while a page is loading."

Just FYI, it can.

I Was Getting Afraid

[kannibal_klown]

Phew, I was afraid Opera was in trouble. They haven't released a new version in a long time (at one point it was every 2 weeks or maybe a month). Then again, Opera has been pretty rock solid on my systems, with the only crashes occuring during an occassional FLASH ad on tvguide.com/listings.

I'm glad the company is still going strong, as Opera is my browser of choice. While I like Mozilla and it's brother FireBird, I still think Opera is the finest browser available. People may laugh at me for buying licenses, but the overall experience has been great.

Re:I Was Getting Afraid

[stratjakt]

Who says they aren't in trouble?

Who says the IPO isnt so the current owners can line their pockets with cash, and let the public take the bath when the company goes under?

Re:I Was Getting Afraid

[Dan-DAFC]

They haven't released a new version in a long time

They are busy working on 7.50, which has some failry major changes to the layout of the GUI. A preview version was made available a few weeks ago (search the opera.beta and opera.linux newsgroup archives for a link). The new version includes an RSS reader, a spell-checker, a cookie editor, an IRC client, the much-requested ability to apply their small screen rendering to hotlist panels to make just about any web-page a side-bar panel and lots of fixes and enhancements. The preview is alpha quality but it looks interesting, I expect a beta must be near.

Re:I Was Getting Afraid

[bonch]

They regularly release betas. In fact, they just released a new one with a redesigned interface intended to remove clutter.

Re:I Was Getting Afraid

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a 7.50 beta available for download in the Beta Testing section of the Opera forums.

my.opera.com/forums

Re:I Was Getting Afraid

[bhtooefr]

I really prefer the old layout, though. I'm running 7.50p1, but I've changed the layout back. It's also got tons of new features under the hood, including a learning filter (don't call it Bayesian on Opera Forums, or they'll flame you) on M2, RSS support on M2, and a new Hotlist system.

Can someone explain...

[pla]

Can someone explain why companies love going public so damn much?

They already have a product (so no money needed to front the development). They alreay show a profit. Wouldn't an IPO just mean they need to share their profit, in exchange for a wad of cash that they don't really need for anything, and that will actually cost them, in the long term?

Same idea applies to Google. Single most successful search engine in history, and they want to share their profits by going public?

I just don't get it...

Re:Can someone explain...

[Shut the fuck up!]

If it is VC financed, the VCs probably want their money. If it isn't, why bemoan the people who own the company for wanting to reap the rewards of their hard work?

Re:Can someone explain...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an easy way to 1) raise capital 2) spread risk around.

Imagine you are in your kitchen baking cookies, and you sense that your cookie-baking will make you rich someday. You just need some money for advertising and a bigger kitchen. How can you do it? You can try and grow slowly, but you might never succeed. You can take out a loan, but what if you can't pay it back? You're screwed. So you can try and convince people that your business is growing, big time, and you will offer to sell pieces of the business for a high price (higher than the value of all your equipment at least). You take this big mass of cash, grow your business, and everybody gets rich as your income grows and the value of your stock goes up accordingly. And your company is in neat little pieces that can be bought and sold as needed. Instead of just you owning your business, all these people own little pieces of it.

And if the business flops, you don't owe these buyers anything, because they assumed the risk when they buy.

Pretty simple really...there's also seconday benefits like exposure and PR but the basic point is to raise capital.

Re:Can someone explain...

[lpangelrob2]

There's a few reasons, and most of them on their own probably aren't good enough to merit an IPO.

Maybe they're interested in using some of their cash to advertise their browser in the media.

Maybe they want to hire more developers to get more features (God knows what) into the browser.

Maybe they want to differentiate themselves from other software out there... that maybe somehow, an IPO makes you look better. Doesn't make sense to us, but average Joe goes, "Hey, Opera, aren't they in my fund?"

Maybe it's a good thing a company wants to go public and set its sights higher... and actually have the innovation to back it up.

Re:Can someone explain...

[Jaywalk]

Can someone explain why companies love going public so damn much?

Because it makes money for those who own the company and/or finances further development. If I have a company worth a million dollars that I own privately, I can sell it in an IPO and have the million cash. Or I can sell some fraction of it, retain some control and put most of the money into development. Just because I have a product doesn't mean I don't need funds to develop a second or improve the first to keep it competitive.

Besides, a lot of times the company is not really owned by the person who came up with the original product, but by that person's investors. And the reason investors invest is that they think it will make them money.

Re:Can someone explain...

[tverbeek]

An IPO is a quick way to get a lot of money, which can be used to "take it to the next level".

It also converts the "value" of the company from being measured in terms of payables, receivables, and assets, to being measured in terms of stock price, which the owners (who end up holding a bunch of this new stock) might find more favorable.

Re:Can someone explain...

[gl4ss]

also they may have legal reasons for it.

I'm not familiar with Norwegian law (nor with any other but..) but there are certain sets of rules that are different for privately held and for
publicly traded companies(funding/reporting or something).

their word is that it gives them more (financial) flexibility, I don't know who owns them now though(where their starting and working capital is from? they must have had a bundle of it though if you look at previous years!).

Re:Can someone explain...

[AhBeeDoi]

Liquidity. Stock of a publicly owned company is much more liquid than that of a privately held company. Stock options become as valuable incentives, current shareholders can cash out on some of their holdings and there is greater prestige in a publicly owned company. Liquidity means flexibility and flexibility means more available options. The core business is no better or worse for going public but the company itself has put itself in a better position. Of course, there are downsides to being a public company. Investors can be unforgiving and have a short term outlook, often no longer than one quarter. Investor logic, being an oxymoron, can lead to adverse changes in share price because of unrelated events. Public companies are subject to bogus shareholder lawsuits spurred by attorneys who are motivated only by fees.

Re:Can someone explain...

[NanoGator]

"Can someone explain why companies love going public so damn much?"

Golden parachute?

Re:Can someone explain...

[bluGill]

Your looking at it all wrong. The things you don't like are not a product of public companies, but a product of big companies. There are a lot of little companies that are both public and innovative, but because they are small you haven't heard of them. Some will never be big, others will become big, some will be bought out by bigger companies, and some will go bankrupt, but it has nothing to do with being public.

If you own a company, you can only sell your entire part. A public company divides your share up so that you can (or not at your choice) sell just a part of it. If you want some extra money and all you have is a company this is a good way to get it.

Likewise if you own part of a company, you might discover that too many of your eggs are in one basket. Since you never know when someone is going to patent a better and cheaper mousetrap that drives you out of business a smart person would sell a part of his company and invest in something else just in case.

Last, if you have a good idea for your company, but don't have the money to get there, you can sell part of the company to get that money. (Normally you sell to a venture capitalist who waits for your idea to make money and then goes public with his shares)

Several big companies (UPS) have went public in years past because of phony stock that they were selling in their retirement plan, managing all the paperwork was as much work as being public, so why not go public with those shares and let investers deal with some of it.

If you have a lot of partners it is often easier to just be public. Indeed laws may require you to go public just because of the number of partners you have. (Goggle is in this position)

Re:Can someone explain...

[ryantate]

They already have a product (so no money needed to front the development).

According to this page on the Opera site, the product was, in fact, self-financed until 1999, when the company borrowed $15 million, perhaps to finance the phone browser, perhaps to compete more aggressively on the desktop. The company says the money was borrowed from "financial investors," which could mean a bank, venture fund, private "angel" investors, relatives or personal credit cards.

All of these investors have one thing in common: they expect to be paid back, plus a premium for putting their money at risk. Imagine being tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and then imagine there is a way to pay off all of those debts and also avoid going to bankers for new capital for a long time, possibly forever. This is the appeal of an IPO.

Also, even if there is no debt to pay off, issuing shares has the distinct advantage over any other kind of debt in that it does not have to be paid back. If you blow the money, you may get booted personally as CEO but your company will not be foreclosed upon and sold or liquidated ... excepting a hostile takeover. Of course, this "free money" does come at the cost of control of the company.

Re:Can someone explain...

[jazman_777]

Can someone explain why companies love going public so d*** much?

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's a stupid idea.

Buying Opera

[hcetSJ]

95% of nerds: If I've never had any inclination to buy the Opera web browser, why would I bother to buy their stock?

95% of others: Ooooh! Tech stocks! It's the next '90's!

Re:Buying Opera

[__past__]

The other 5% of nerds: I bought the Opera web browser just because they support may favourite OS, so I might as well buy stock!

Personally, the small ad banner never really annoyed me, I'm currently using Operare for Solaris with ads. I did pay for my copy of Opera for FreeBSD though, not because of the ad, but because I thought it was great that they chose to support FreeBSD, and that it would be important for FreeBSD to have an example of a commercial software firm supporting it for pure profit reasons.

worthy?

[segment]

For the quarter ended Dec. 31, Opera earned 1.3 million kroner ($190,000), compared with a loss of 21.4 million kroner ($3.1 million) in the same period a year ago.

Not to bang the drum slowly here but if Netscape which was already paired with a money maker (or loser depending on your view) such as AOL, and it's pretty much a dead product nowadays, I wonder what Opera is thinking aside from making a quick dollar. Even if they made a measly $190k they lost $3.1 that will eventually have to be paid back if not done already.

Now, Opera is alright as a browser, but as it stands the majority of `quickie' users tend to be - dare I say it? - IE (l)users, and with Microsoft making it pretty much the first thing a new computer user sees, I wonder what is making Opera think they can compete with the (s/^/crooked/g) Microsoft 400lb Gorilla.

Re:worthy?

[Kenja]

Well for one thing, people are actualy working on Opera and have been since the start. Netscape died becuase the devlopers gave up on it long before the soruce was released. This is why Opera is a good product and Netscape started to suck long before they started going out of business.

Re:worthy?

[segment]

Netscape crashed and burned following Sun's lead and spending millions chasing dreams in a court of law against Microsoft. Not because they gave up so get your info straight. They lost because they decided to focus their resources on fighting that same 400lb gorilla I just mentioned.

Personally I use Lynx most of the time or Firebird for my personal use, but as for work I use Windows IE. So here is just another little quip, the majority of corporations (big money spenders) have (or at least should have) policies against software being installed, and I doubt they'd be willing to dish out more money for something already "FREE" (note the quotations before you flame back), "FREE" on the OS they were conned into buying/upgrading. It's called IE.

Re:worthy?

[Kenja]

" They lost because they decided to focus their resources on fighting that same 400lb gorilla I just mentioned."

Yes. They should have spent their time writing software. They chose to litigate rather then develop their product and as such I have no sympathy for them at all. Especially given the amount of money the got for "failing". I hope every day that I get to fail like they did.

Re:worthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Personally I use Lynx most of the time..."

Oh Jesus. And you write letters to the local paper with Vi...

Re:worthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape died for a lot of reasons. They died because they failed to sell server software. They died because they were selling Standard and were coding proprietary APIs. They died because they threw out 2 years of work on Netscape 5 and started Mozilla. They died because Apache killed the market for their web server. They died because Mozilla vastly overreached and took 4 years to become usable. They died because Microsoft set out to kill them by illegal means. They died because the web ad market collapsed. They died because they sold themselves to AOL and never provided anything that AOL wanted to use.

If there ever was a corporation that should be dead, it was Netscape.

Re:worthy?

[rolfwind]

I wonder what Opera is thinking aside from making a quick dollar. Even if they made a measly $190k they lost $3.1 that will eventually have to be paid back if not done already.

It might be the creditors who gave them the 3.1 million in the first place might be the ones pushing for the IPO to get their money back. AKA venture capitalists. To them, it doesn't matter whether the business floats or sinks afterward, they just need to get their investment out of it anyway possible.

not a good idea

[mabhatter654]

This is not good...the only way the net has survived so far is that very key, very identifiable PRIVATE companies have been involved. They might as well sell it to the highest bidder right now and save the trouble of the IPO. Perhaps they could get IBM to pick them up, or maybe Google! ...as a best case...

Their board will get slammed by the "big kids" trying to get a piece...the directors will get sick of it quickly and quit within a year...Either way the "standards compliance" will be the first thing to go when the corps take over...and that is Opera's only "killer" feature...If the directors want their money, sell it to somebody like google, or OSDN or IBM...somebody that's big enough and "in tune" enough to appreciate it....unlike the whole AOL/Netscape thing.

It's about time...

[tipiyano]

Opera gets some more recognition. I love the mouse gestures, image off browsing, autosave links for when you need to reboot the system but don't want to bookmark all the open pages and lots of other cool features.

Now only if they could get a search keyword highlight (like the google toolbar), I will stop using mozilla (which has a google toolbar lookalike).

Re:It's about time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera not only has a Google toolbar but also a find in page, Amazon, alltheweb etc toolbars. The search fields can be place anywhere in the gui.

4.2 Million USD

[mhesseltine]

For the currency impaired, that's the revenue for this year. Last year was 2.0 million USD

On a similar note, 108% revenue growth isn't that impressive when you're talking about this small of an amount. Now if IBM showed 108% revenue growth, then there'd be something to talk about.

Sorry, but color me unimpressed.

Re:4.2 Million USD

[74nova]

isnt that the point of it being a percent? its large for them

Bad timing.

[-kertrats-]

This news on the same day that Firefox 0.8 comes out. With everyone all gung ho over the new mozilla browser, no ones gonna give a rip about opera.

Re:Bad timing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone? Yeah, if you define 'everyone' as 'dirty, smelly, long-haired hippies who live in their moms' basements and have never so much as touched a human female'.

Re:Bad timing.

[bogie]

Maybe OEMS who want to license Opera for mobile computing will care, but your right. As far as the oh so bold %3 of people who don't use IE, longterm they'll probably all end up being Gecko users. The reasons for using Opera over Firefox for general browsing are slim to none. Before Firebird/FirefoxPhoenix came out they really had a point about Opera being lightweight as compared to the big monolithic Mozilla suite. But that was then and this is now. Nobody wants to pay for what you can get for free. If Opera can't establish itself as "the" browser for handhelds/pda's they don't have much of a future besides being a takeover target once their stock dips to sub $1.00 levels.

Opera simply rocks

[Purple_Walrus]

I don't know whether I'd go and buy their stock but the web browser is amazing.

My advice is this...

[D-Cypell]

Take your 108.7% increase, give the staff a nice bonus, and keep on developing.

Why is it that every tech firm thinks that making a profit means sell up as fast as possible? Why put yourselves in the hand of people that have no idea about your technology, company culture or internal standards and just expect you to keep turning profits at all costs?

Keep the money, keep your company and keep inovating.

Re:My advice is this...

[grasshoppa]

Why is it that every tech firm thinks that making a profit means sell up as fast as possible? Why put yourselves in the hand of people that have no idea about your technology, company culture or internal standards and just expect you to keep turning profits at all costs?

Keep the money, keep your company and keep inovating.

This is something that I, too, am having a problem understanding.

Maybe I just don't know of any tech companies that went IPO and did well, or maybe I don't understand what an IPO brings to the table.

Anybody?

Re:My advice is this...

[Citizen of Earth]

Take your 108.7% increase, give the staff a nice bonus, and keep on developing. Why is it that every tech firm thinks that making a profit means sell up as fast as possible?

I think they must see Mozilla/Lesszilla/whatever coming and they realize that it's a good time to cash out. Their market is going to be eaten away by big-F Free software. Surely they realize this. They were counting on Mozilla not going anywhere.

Re:My advice is this...

[D-Cypell]

Well my understanding is this... (IANA number junkie)..

An IPO provides an oppurtunity for a company to make serious money real fast, which is great, except the second the bad news rolls in (a drop in profits for example) its sell sell sell!

The stock price drops, more people sell, so it drops some more etc etc.

Pretty soon you are cleaning out your desk and switching off the lights. The winners are those that played the stock correctly and managed to make a profit, the losers are those interested in tech and have to wave goodbye to yet another potential competitor to a certain software monopolist.

So basically, its a greed thing...

Re:My advice is this...

[rcastro0]

Maybe I just don't know of any tech companies that went IPO and did well, or maybe I don't understand what an IPO brings to the table. Anybody?

In theory (that is, in a purely technical, unpolitical or uninterested world) an IPO would be an alternative source of capital, just like going to a bank and asking them to lend you some money. Well, if they are equivalent which one would you chose ? One pecking order, ranked by cost-of-capital (lower cost on top, meaning if all you need is the money, get it there first) would be:
1)Ask your parents, relatives and friends
2)Mortgage your house
3)Get money (grant) from state development fund
4)Get a bank loan -- if they will lend you
5)Get money from an IPO
6)Get money from a VC/Private Equity fund

Usually you would never think about jumping a step, unless you had no alternative, if you were *only* interested in getting capital to expand your firm.

Now, there are all sorts of BS reasons that seek to justify an IPO (in my opinion, none of them relevant):
1) Clients like to deal with listed cos, for they are transparent (duh! do you buy that after Enron/MCI ?)
2) Employees like to earn options/stocks of the company they work for (more than share of real profits ?)
3) It gives managers a measure of their management performance (cash flow not good enough ?)
4) It gives currency to make acquisitions - like in stock swaps (often trading funny money for funny money, though)

However, the main reason greedy owners go for an IPO is because then they, personally, are able to cash out a portion of what is, essentially, their largest asset. For instance, say you own 100% of Small&Trendy Tech Company. You would like to have a nice sports car. You would like to have a boat. You would like to have an exotic vacation. Well, people say your Small&Trendy Tech Company is worth a lot, but you can't afford all of those things though you own Small&Trendy. So, what do you do ? You...

a) IPO
b) Wait a while
c) Sell some of your own stock
d) Buy house/car/yacth/vacation/girlfriend, etc...

Who can blame them, though ?

Re:My advice is this...

[Tin Foil Hat]

They've been in business for nine years. I wouldn't call an IPO now "selling up as fast as possible." An IPO is a business decision, and like all business decisions, the smart company will weigh it carefully before embracing it. Opera has survived too much for too long now, and can certainly not be described as stupid. I don't claim to know the reasoning behind their move, but I'm willing to think it is worthwhile from their point of view.

Hell, their reasoning could be that it will make the founders very rich. Sucks for the rest of us, but if it were my decision, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Re:My advice is this...

[Lord Omlette]

No one cares about these: technology, company culture or internal standards.
Everyone cares about these: profits.

Yay free market capitalism! Whoo!

Re:My advice is this...

[KjetilK]

Not at all. I know a few people there, and they're thinking is that as long as there is more than one browser, there's is always going to be a market (or niche, whatever) for Opera. They have always welcomed the competition by Mozilla and Konqi. Real competition is good, but the malicious attacks by MS are bad. So, we're in this together.

Opera OK

[Simonetta]

I use Opera 7. It does a good job at blocking pop-ups and I can zoom the text size easily.

But it doesn't work with Ebay. My password is rejected everytime I use Opera and accepted everytime I use Internet Explorer 5.

Also whenever I use Yahoo! mail with Opera and I am entering my password, the prompt JUMPS to the user name box and the characters that I type appear appended to my user name. Again this doesn't happen in Internet Explorer.

I sure wish they could fix this nonsense.

If you want stock gain, buy into a company that does really nasty things to people. For instance, the company that makes Tasers, those guns that shoot darts that police use to zap protesting college students with 50000 volts of electricity, has seen their stock price go from $2 to over $120 in a year.

Re:Opera OK

[Simonetta]

Or buy into Wackenhut or Corrections Corporation of America. These creeps run private corporate prison camps in the USA. What with the RIAA getting ready to throw tens of thousands of college students in private corporate prisons for the crime of listening to music, you can expect to see big gains in their stock price!

Especially when they start to cut back on the overhead by shipping their 'product' to distant third world countries where the costs of human storage are rock-bottom.

God bless America, land of the free and home of the brave!

Re:Opera OK

[KILNA]

If you want stock gain, buy into a company that does really nasty things to people.

Automated slashbot response: So which should I buy, SCO or Microsoft?

Re:Opera OK

[saberworks]

Ahem, I use opera for ebay all the time. Maybe you're typing your passwords differently? Maybe you've got it set to identify as IE when it should be identifying itself as opera? Why not contact their support department?

Re:Opera OK

[neko9]

Also whenever I use Yahoo! mail with Opera and I am entering my password, the prompt JUMPS to the user name box and the characters that I type appear appended to my user name. Again this doesn't happen in Internet Explorer.

have you ever heard of feature in Opera called Wand?

Re:Opera OK

[Anonymous Coward]

I have had this happen with Mozilla as well. Seems many pages load slowly, and set the cursor in the username box as the final act upon load completion. This catches me most often on sites that try to load a lot of adverts, which I don't see because they are blocked. I am typing my username and password before the page has finished trying to load.

Re:Opera OK

[Anonymous Coward]

While Microsoft does do nasty things to people, I think the parent poster forgot to include the "Self Destruction" percentage.

While Microsoft is pretty much 50%:50%, or 1:1 on the Making gobs of money:pissing people off, SCO is not only a much smaller percentage, but also negative, somewhere around -25%:100% or -1/4.

Re:Opera OK

[Rune Berge]

But it doesn't work with Ebay. My password is rejected everytime I use Opera and accepted everytime I use Internet Explorer 5. That's strange. I use Opera, and have no problems with eBay passwords.

Listen up, people

[prostoalex]

This browser IPO is going to be huge! It will turn Microsoft Windows into pile of poorly debugged device drivers and everything will be run from the Web browser!

You simply cannot lose launching a Web browser company!

Re:Listen up, people

[El]

Are you quoting from a Netscape press release from the mid-90s?

Re:Listen up, people

[prostoalex]

I am not sure whether it was a press release. I think it was a quote one NSCP (oops, that should be ex-AOL, oops, that should be TWX) executive became known for.

Opera the worst browser

[Anonymous Coward]

If it weren't for the developer of Opera I might not be browing the web right now. I hate internet explorer and netscape they always crash for me when I'm in the middle of downloading, thats why I'm gonna go and buy a copy of Opera right away because its one of the best web browsers. Go Opera

If it weren't for the developer of Opera you might not be browing the web right now. I hate opera it always makes me read your pathetic ramblings, thats why I'm gonna go and short Opera's stock right away because your one of the worst posters. Go IE!

because Mozilla 1.6 is bloated

[Via_Patrino]

After one our browsing slashdot it is using 55MB of RAM, I can't type on composer real time (I type and it show up few seconds later), it takes 8 seconds to open a new window and once you get a lot of registers on history/bookmarks/download manager performance sucks because parsing xml is very inefficient.
My specs are: k6-2 266mhz, 128MB ram, pretty common around here.

Re:because Mozilla 1.6 is bloated

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, 1995 called. It would like its computer back.

Re:because Mozilla 1.6 is bloated

[Slack0ff]

With the specs of your computer I dont think mozilla is really to blame. They produce a powerful package that needs more then you have to offer.

Re:because Mozilla 1.6 is bloated

[Anonymous Coward]

Those aren't specs, they're a history lesson. I've thrown away computers faster than that...why not take out a $200 loan and get a computer from a more recent decade?

Re:because Mozilla 1.6 is bloated

[1000101]

266 MHz pretty commom? Yeah, in 1999. Most people around here probably don't have the latest and greatest 3.4 GHz P4, but you aren't even at 1 GHz. Hell, you aren't even at 500 MHz! I can't believe that you actually expected it to work properly and didn't just install it as a test bed machine.

Re:because Mozilla 1.6 is bloated

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, my cell phone has more processing power than that. Get yourself a new, shiny Athlon XP2000+. It will set you back all of about 50 bucks. The time you save compiling your kernel alone is worth the price.

Re:because Mozilla 1.6 is bloated

[Via_Patrino]

I'm in Brazil, and I have some friends with machines like this. In fact it's a 400Mhz but I can't run it stable at that frequency anymore (no it's not the cooler maybe sh***y MoBo).

I used to run Mozilla 1.0.2 it worked fine and the only visible improvements I see on 1.6 beside the ones I mentioned it's that now it asks me to close a window with multiple tabs, a fancy icon to open a new window and a download manager (to delete the records that was making 1.0.2 slow). It's also a one year difference so I didn't expect much problems with 1.6.

And since everything else works fine I won't buy a new computer just because I can't run 1.6 smooth

Re:because Mozilla 1.6 is bloated

[timeOday]

He could expect or not expect whatever he likes, what difference does it make? Opera works better on the hardware he has.

Re:because Mozilla 1.6 is bloated

[Vargasan]

Yet, Opera works absolutely fine on my Toshiba Satellite Pro 490XCDT.

PII-266Mhz, 64MB EDO RAM, 3.8GB HDD

Mozilla is fat and slow. Even it's "small" counterparts suffer from it's sluggishness.

Thank you, come again.

Re:because Mozilla 1.6 is bloated

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you go ahead and put your life in the hands of a loan shark. The rest of us will purchase things responsibly, with earned money. I bet you're the kind of guy who has 10 credit cards. Haven't you learned anything from the movies? Don't let anybody have leverage over you! Pay your own way.

Re:because Mozilla 1.6 is bloated

[Anonymous Coward]

But opera has as many features as mozilla, but is way smaller and faster.

Re:because Mozilla 1.6 is bloated

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point of all this is...you're not going to be able to run the newest software on the oldest hardware, at least not reliably. I't hardly worth posting a 'you suck' message about a piece of software when your hardware isn't even remotely viable for utilizing new technology and software.

I understand that you may not be able to upgrade, and you have every right to be able to do what you can with what you're able to get. Just don't cry about the latest stuff running slow on your computer. Heck, be happy that you can find anything at all to run on it, that's getting harder and harder all the time.

Re:because Mozilla 1.6 is bloated

[bhtooefr]

Umm... think more like 1997...

My current system is a PMMX-233 with 96MB RAM, and I can barely run Firebird 0.7 on it (I haven't tried Firefox). Opera 7.23 runs almost perfectly (I won't update that system to 7.50 until 7.50 final comes out).

Re:because Mozilla 1.6 is bloated

[Anonymous Coward]

What about a mobo? Probably new DDR RAM, too. It could also be a Baby AT case, so he'd have to buy a new case.

Bad timing

[AhBeeDoi]

The timing for an IPO is bad. Now that they appear to be turning an operating profit, protential investors can only see the limitations of Opera's profit potential. When Opera was still sustaining losses, investors could (unrealistically) fill in the blanks on Opera's potential. I suspect that many investors are savvy about a company whose chief competitor is the 800 lb gorilla of the industry and whose major competing products are free of charge.

How is this relevant?

[El]

Opera is located in Norway, not Sweden -- two neighboring but very different countries. (The Norwegians feel about the Swedes much the same way the Americans feel about Canadians.)

Re:How is this relevant?

[Scaba]

So you're saying Norwegians never think about Swedes at all?

Re:How is this relevant?

[El]

No, they make jokes like "Why do Volvos have windshield wipers on the inside of the windsheild? Because Swedes all drive like this (makes raspberry noise)" Personally, I've never understood that joke either...

Re:How is this relevant?

[jazman_777]

Personally, I've never understood that joke either...

The two moderators from Norway thanked you.

Re:How is this relevant?

[FrankDrebin]

The Norwegians feel about the Swedes much the same way the Americans feel about Canadians.

Given that Norway is smaller in population but richer in resources (ie. North Sea oil & gas) than Sweden, I'd say it's more like the way Canadians feel about the Americans.

Although it could be construed as insulting to any one nationality, the fact is that to the rest of the world, there's little distinction between Canadians/USAmericans and Norwegians/Swedes.

Re:How is this relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will the 3 moderators that thought that joke was funny please explain it to me?

Re:How is this relevant?

[MrHanky]

Will the 3 moderators that thought that joke was funny please explain it to me?

I didn't get to mod it, but I'll explain. You see, the point is that all Swedes are incredibly stupid. In fact, they have the brain capacities of 3 year olds (apart from the really bright ones, like the ones you see in pornographic movies, who sometimes reach the mental stadium of adolescence). If you've ever observed small children playing, you would have noticed that they make a sound somewhat like a car when they play with cars. Swedes are like that when driving their "real" cars (not that Saab or Volvo are real cars), but since they're constantly drooling, they spit on the windshield when they drive. Swedes just happen to be a bunch of in-bred pigfuckers (pig-fucking is in-breeding for Swedes -- there's a reason why they're pink skinned).

Basically, the joke is funny because it's true. Now someone mod me +5, informative. I deserve it.

(Well, actually: The reasons why Norwegians joke about Swedes are mainly historical. Norway was in a union with Sweden 1814-1905 because Sweden looted us from Denmark after Napoleon's wars failed (Denmark was forced to choose the wrong side). Also, Germany didn't bother occupying Sweden in 1940, and Sweden profited quite well from poor Norwegians after WWII. It's old hatred and rivalry, and it goes back to long before 1814.(Oh, and my apologies to the Americans who think the Swedes are offended. Believe me, they're not. They actually do have a sense of humour. Why else would they speak so funny?))

Re:How is this relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, little difference except Canada doesn't invade other countries, doesn't imprison half its population for pot-smoking, and ensures its citizens have health care...

Re:How is this relevant?

[hajjs]

Yep, and Swedes make exactly the same jokes about Norwegians.

Shamelessly copied from http://braathens.com :

Do you know...

* Why the Norwegian laughed on Wednesday?
- He was told a joke on Monday!

* Why Norwegians bring ladders to the stores?
- Because of the high prices!

* Why Norwegians walk in the middle of the road?
- Because they are afraid of the wild flowers at the roadside!

* Why Norwegians keep their hands in their pockets?
- They're afraid to show that their fingers don't have equal length!

------
Footnote: If you haven't understood the first joke by now, I'm afraid you are Norwegian...

good luck!

[whathappenedtomonday]

hope they succeed - ;)

since the press release is a little light on details: presently, 70% of Opera Software ASA are held by its employees. They hope to make some 8 to 12 million euro (9 to 13 million US$) by going public. must be fun working there :)

I hope that...

[FerretFrottage]

the Fat Lady isn't getting ready to sing. It's nice to see a smaller player produce a quality product

That's not funny, that's a business plan!

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep telling you, that would actually work.

You could include the prog on the CD absolutely free!!

No crashes here. Never!

[tipiyano]

For me it's only one reason for opera: mouse gestures

Yes, I have the tried the mouse gestures in mozilla. They are not at all consistent. You have to "draw" the gesture exactly with sharp edges or it failes to recongnize. With Opera it is very robust. And yes, mouse gestures is important to me.

This one might be my ignorance, but I can't get the tabbed browsing to work right on Mozilla. Most of the time it opens new tab for new window but sometimes it will open a new window. Not to mention that the download window always opens a new window. Opera always keeps everything in the same window.

And finally, I love that I can close opera and start it later and have all my open webpages restored. No need to temporary bookmarks. Couldn't find this mozilla.

So until mozilla gets these right (specially mouse gestures), I will stick to opera. Although one thing I miss that mozilla has is the google toolbar. Hopefully, opera will pick it up soon.

Re:No crashes here. Never!

[Apreche]

It sucks because you're using Mozilla. Mozilla is the old and busted. PHOENIX(Firebird/Firefox) is the new hotness. And don't try it ant give up on it immediately. Firefox is the new hotness because you get exactly and only the functionality by adding and configuring extensions. All the functionality that you are asking for is there.

Re:No crashes here. Never!

[TrevizeNet]

I've been opera-centric for quite awhile now, so much so that I havn't seen the google toolbar. Pardon my ignorance, but does it do anything more than provide a quick search feature? I thought Opera had this built-in, plus you can use the same search box to search multiple search engines and in the page.

Re:No crashes here. Never!

[ChickenAintDone]

Does it do anything other than just search? If not, Opera has that, either you have an old version, or you need to enable it. You can also add like 15 other quick searches including ebay, amazon, google groups, and "find in page." I really like the ease of customizing Opera.

Re:No crashes here. Never!

[tipiyano]

Google toolbar is more than a quick search. Here are the features that I would like to see from the toolbar

Most importantly it highlights (optional) the search words in the document. Therefore, you don't have to CTRL+F and type your search world again after you visit one of the search result which is 10 pages of text and look for the relevant section.

Second, the pop-blocker of the toolbar makes a "click" sound and cursor changes momentarily to let you know that a pop-up has been blocked. With opera, you have no idea this happened. So when the pop-up window has some actual content, with goolgle toolbar you can allow the pop-up to see the content. In opera, you wouldn't know what happened.

And finally, the toolbar has a translate button which uses the google translator for converting webpages into english (and other languages) with one click. With opera, you have to manually give the url to google (or altavista) for translation.

See toolbar.google.com for complete details of the toolbar. It does a lot more like autofill, etc.

Re:No crashes here. Never!

[Amorpheus_MMS]

I like Radial Context, it works like gestures but is a menu with visual feedback, which is very useful when you don't know it inside out.

Re:No crashes here. Never!

[Xenographic]

Well, the thing about Mozilla jestures (from Optimoz) is that they don't care about the shape per se, but that you've gone far enough in a certain direction. E.G. to close a window, it's right-left-right. Provided I go more than a certain number of pixels in the direction (which you can set), you only have to do the RLR thing. I don't remember any of the default gestures, at least, using anything diagonal. So you have to think in those terms rather than in terms of "shapes." Also, it shows you the current gesture in the status bar, so you can see what you've got so far while practicing.

As for tabbed windows, hold down control when you click the link, or middle-click on the links. I have a 3rd/scroll button & I always use that. All of these options are fairly configurable, too.

I thought that the Google toolbar was IE only (?) but I only use it when I have to (e.g. at work). Mozilla does allow you to do Google searches from the address bar, however, if that's what you mean (I love that feature!)

You might try mozdev.org for more add-on features. I seem to remember several related to multi-tab bookmarks & saving state or somesuch. They may not be working 100% just yet, however, I do not know.

Hope that helped.

Re:No crashes here. Never!

[Bevan Collins]

And finally, I love that I can close opera and start it later and have all my open webpages restored. No need to temporary bookmarks. Couldn't find this mozilla.

There is an extension that'll do this for FireFox (not sure about Mozilla) called Session Saver

Re:No crashes here. Never!

[LaissezFaire]

I tried using mouse gestures in firebird 0.7 -- couldn't get them to work consistantly. Gave up, went back to opera. I did have some problems in version 6 of opera getting tabs to come up properly, but since opera has decided that tabs are the One True Way, it's much easier.

Re:No crashes here. Never!

[bhtooefr]

There's actually an extension for Moz that gives you the Google Toolbar, minus PageRank.

IPO means i gotta find a new web-browser..

[Anonymous Coward]

WHY??

I mean.. i love opera.. i use it to test all my web pages against.. because if it works in Opera.. it will work in ANYTHING.

Now they're gonna sell out.. it will become the next NetScrape.. the programmers will get rich and quit and then MS will buy it out so ZDnet can rave about the "BRAND NEW FEATURE! Tabbed Browsing" in IE 7.0

pftt.. IPO my ass.. what a way to ruin a great company.

Re:IPO means i gotta find a new web-browser..

[Anonymous Coward]

Just get firefox already!.

Re:IPO means i gotta find a new web-browser..

[Cyno01]

Yeah, M$ has told us that IE7 wont be out until longhorn is. So we have at least one, probably two years until then, which means for browsers with built in tabs and pop up blocking, people will have to go elsewhere. Not that that's a bad thing...

Re:IPO means i gotta find a new web-browser..

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Xp service pack 2 will add pop up blocking to IE, no word on tabs though. I can't see them adding tabs for it yet.

Re:IPO means i gotta find a new web-browser..

[kawaichan]

actually, XP SP2 includes popup blocker

when will slashdot have an IPO?

[Anonymous Coward]

and will it be in soviet russia?

Re:when will slashdot have an IPO?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, /. 0wnz0rz j00?

I regged it

[Anonymous Coward]

because I think it is the best browser around. It is small, fast,feature-packed and innovative. I use it on a daily basis, both on the desktop and on my SonyEricsson P800. Works a treat. The folks at Opera deserve to be rewarded for their fine contribution to the browser market.

Here's Why...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

why does 'going public' always equate into 'after this they must try to bring in all the cash they can in and sell their souls to the devil too!'? you know they don't have to have a businessplan like that!

Because by "going public" their corporate offices sole responsibility becomes maximizing dividends for the stockholders. I don't agree with this formula, but it's as simple as that.

Re:Here's Why...

[lrichardson]

Puh-leese!

'...sole OFFICIAL responsibility ...'

There's a vast difference between what they are supposed to do, and what they actually do. Enron, WorldCom being perfect examples.

And what time frame are we talking about? The best way to maximize future dividends is to minimize those paid out now, leaving plenty of cash for growth/development. It's a fine line to walk, keeping investors happy and still maintaining future profitability.

Looting a good company is another consequence of IPOs (thankfully somewhat rarer). Normally done by members of the board through 'options', thus deferring the rape till some time after the IPO, and out of the public's attention.

Re:Here's Why...

[Herkum01]

Going public means they are going to maximize the value of the company. Sometimes that means issuing dividends, but alot of companies do not, instead they use profits to grow their company.

Besides a number of companies are not out there to squeeze every last dollar out of a product as soon as possible. Just because alot of other companies do it, does not mean everyone does it.

Re:Here's Why...

[sangreal66]

Actually, their sole responsibility to is to maximize share price for their stockholders. They are under no obligation to issue dividends, in fact some shareholders would prefer the company keep and reinvest the money.

Re:Here's Why...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Most people do not buy stock in IPOs for any other reason than to make money. This is simply the fact. So perhaps no dividends, but the stock price must continue in an upward direction. Note the sleazy actions of the SCO people to float their stock price, an extream example, but non-the-less something that happens.

Re:Here's Why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Puh-leese!

Please don't bring the police into this.

Re:Here's Why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people do not buy stock in IPOs for any other reason than to make money. This is simply the fact.

There are tens of thousands of companies listed on exchanges in North America alone. From pennies to hundreds of dollars per share. Do you believe they're all just trying to float their stock price? I don't. Stock price is important, of course, but so are:

1) Salaries
2) Management bonuses
3) Destroying competition
4) Profit
5) Purchase

1 and 2 do not generally require the stock price to rise (short term, perhaps, but ultimately they require #4, if anything). 3 and 4 lead to 5. Yes, it is possible for executives of public companies to exit from their positions (relatively slowly) by selling off stock. But an excellent clean exit (and one that many venture capitalists will tell you is their ideal plan for their publicly traded companies) is a purchase, generally for as much cash as possible. This will not happen if you have an artificially high stock price. Plain and simple. This will happen if you have strong revenues (and hopefully profits), good business processes, good people, good market share, etc. Yes, everyone will enjoy some short term stock price rising, but if it can't be supported, a high stock price is a liability if anything.

Re:Here's Why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, Opera is a Norwegian company. In Norway, we have other laws than in USA.

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[Dixie_Flatline]

You don't have to pay, you know. You can have the little banner ad up in the top corner doing its thing. With the coming of context sensitive Google ads up there, I actually think it's worth it for me NOT to pay for it. I like those little things up there.

I just wish they'd hurry the port of version 7 for OS X. I miss a lot of the mouse gestures and things that I get with Opera.

Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Not usually pessimistic, but I'm afraid this is the beginning of the end.

When small companies start to favour spending time on commercialization over move forwards technically, I usually goes to hell.

Hope I'm wrong cuz' I love opera.

Mozilla is a bloated joke, to be honest. On Windows I still use IE - it's actually quite good. I'm gonna go wash my mounth now...

Runs on my phone; Re:Stupid Question?

[jdunlevy]

But why bother when FireBird (now FireFox)/Galeon/Mozilla is just as good (better)? Well, as far as I know there isn't yet a version of any of these I can run on my Nokia 3650 phone (Symbian OS). That's why I have Opera. (Then again, as long as T-Mobile's t-zones service is apparently blocking access to port 443, having any web browser on the phone's only "partly useful" to begin with...)

Re:Runs on my phone; Re:Stupid Question?

[Anonymous Coward]

You run Opera on your phone because other browsers can't. I can totally relate. My cable TV provider doesn't have cable Internet service so I bought a laptop instead.

This is (hopefully) the answer

[mykepredko]

I'm more afraid that this will be the CEO/Senior Exec's opportunity to get a whack of cash.

Personally, I don't see a strong reason for Opera going public except to make somebody rich in the short term.

Long term? Well, we're still dealing with the fallout of that from similar companies the '90s - no new products/revenue streams but lots of new Lexuses.

myke

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera is worth the $30 just for the way it zooms not just text but graphics aswell. If you spend an hour a day surfing with a browser, that's less than 10 cents per hour over a year.

Now when you take into consideration how much time you save by using the fastest browser on earth, it's quite a bargain, even pays for itself if you surf for a self owned business. Oh did I mention it's more stable than Mozilla on any platform of your choice!

MOD DOWN THIS FUCKING BASTARD!!

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck Cmdr Taco up the ass!

Answers

[MachDelta]

Yes, I have the tried the mouse gestures in mozilla. They are not at all consistent. You have to "draw" the gesture exactly with sharp edges or it failes to recongnize

Depends on the gesture extension you use. I've found that the "All-in-One" mouse gestures are pretty good. No need for right angles or straight lines, as it bases gestures off of the most prominent movement. So for example, for Down-Right you could draw an "L", or you could draw a curve (like the lower half of a "C") and it would recognize both as being the same thing.
The only thing that I don't like is, as you mentioned, the inability to gesture on a blank page. You can gesture while one is loading, but not if you're still connecting. Kind of annoying, but oh well.

This one might be my ignorance, but I can't get the tabbed browsing to work right on Mozilla. Most of the time it opens new tab for new window but sometimes it will open a new window. Not to mention that the download window always opens a new window

Head over to the Mozillazine forums if you need help with tabs, those guys can know everything ;).
Oh, and about the download thing; in this latest release (Firefox 0.8), all downloads are loaded in to a single window/box. No more screwwing around with 90 download windows at once anymore.

And finally, I love that I can close opera and start it later and have all my open webpages restored. No need to temporary bookmarks. Couldn't find this mozilla.

You can do that with a (very popular) extension called Tabbrowser Extensions (sometimes known as TBE). Under Tools -> Options -> Extensions -> Tabbrowser Extensions -> Startup. Theres a section for restoring sessions (and a sub option for tabs) on restart. Oh, and theres also one for restoring your session after a crash - that one is VERY handy. :)


I know you're not likely to switch browsers, but just wanted to post some answers for anyone else with the same questions. Happy browsing! :)

Re:Answers

[Echnin]

TBE makes my FireFox crash (FireBird too back in 0.7) when I try to use it. Firefox doesn't have the keyboard shortcuts Opera has. Firefox doesn't have half as customizable toolbars as Opera. Firefox doesn't have tooltips showing URLs, so I need to keep the status bar on hogging space (not to mention the menu bar when running Windows). FireFox doesn't have The Wand. FireFox doesn't have bookmark Nicknames. Firefox' inline find doesn't find more than the first result. I won't comment on the crappy tabs support because I haven't gotten TBE to work. However, the fact I haven't gotten it to work is evidence enough that FireFox could be easier to use. The only thing FireFox does have, which is the sole reason I'm using it right now, is an *updated* version of their browser for Mac OS X. Meh. If only Opera could get O7 for Mac out of the alpha stage.

Re:Answers

[MachDelta]

Just a quick note: Firefox has tooltip URLs now :)

Re:Answers

[romi]

Also, FireFox can inline find more than the first result: just hit F3 and you'll keep on jumping...

Re:Answers

[spydir31]

As does opera.

Opera rocks. Seriously.

[Delusional]

I've been using Opera as my primary browser since about version 4. Besides "supporting the little guy" I get a much smaller footprint and better resource consumption than either Exploder (when forced to use windex) or any of the Mozilla variants.

Not to mention all of the stuff that comes in the nice tight package - tabbed browsing, popup blocking (including "block all but requested" - there are legitimate uses for popups, you know), mouse gestures, keyboard browsing, etc with no extra setup or packages required.

Then there's the stuff that's really making them money now - stuff like small-screen rendering, which makes smartphones and the like reasonably useful without requiring the entire contents of the web to be rewritten.

And yes, I like it so much I paid for it (several times by now), knowing that there are plenty of viable free alternatives. It's just that good.

Re:Opera rocks. Seriously.

[stratjakt]

Who cares?

Insightful my arse

[Chuck Chunder]

Look in mobile phone and embedded space. This is the growth market for web browsers and also happens to be where Opera is kicking major arse and Microsofts lockin on the desktop counts for very little (and in some ways even helps Opera, as many phone companies are naturally fearful of letting MS own the platform).

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[jaylee7877]

Not unless *they pay me* for that screen real estate. And to clarify my comment about it being the fastest browser, I said "even if it is" which I have found to not be the case...

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[74nova]

if that banner wasnt there, it would be blank space. it doenst bother me at all. there is no way i can see to make it useful for me and if they want to give it to me for free just so they can put text ads up there occasionally, thats ok with me.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you are moving to slashdot.jp too then? I agree, this dump sucks.

Mobile

[barnaclebarnes]

The big revenue stream for Opera is in the mobile/embedded space. They sell the browser to Nokia, etc. and make money there. The desktop space is probably a lot smaller in terms of market size for them.

Not only desktop computers need browsers

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though Opera has a rather small share of the browser market on regular computers, and they are not likely to make a huge profit there, they are well positioned for other devices like cellular phones and PDAs.

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[jaylee7877]

I don't know what Internet you browse but most of the sites I browse have pages longer than the height of even a 19" monitor at 1600x1200 (and no, I don't have a 19" at 16x12), it's very simple. More space for the web page = less scrolling.

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[74nova]

i dont know what opera browser youve used, but have you used the one from opera.com? the banner takes up no less vertical space than the buttons on the left already do. okay, maybe few pixels, but im not worried about that little amount. its negligable, really. yes, it is very simple.

Congratulations to Opera - WAP on the desktop, too

[ChiralSoftware]

Their smartphone browser is definitely showing up in the logs. Also, their regular desktop browser can display WAP, so they get it both ways: WAP on the desktop, HTML on mobiles. Of course, there is only so much that can be done to transform HTML content.

---------
Create a WAP server now

Because they have to?

[brunes69]

why does 'going public' always equate into 'after this they must try to bring in all the cash they can

A public corperation is obligated (by law even I believe) to maximize profits for its shareholders, by pretty much any means they can. Trust me, if the majority interests think that that can make more money by using pop-up ads, not only *will* they, but if the current CEO doesn't aree with it, they will fire him.

That is the reality of going public; the original owners no longer have control of the company, it is now delegated to the board.

Re:Because they have to?

[Rits]

We are talking about a Norwegian corporation here. Social responsibility is not something to laugh about in Scandinavia. And anyway, a company that does not enjoy a monopolistic control of its market (there are other browsers, even for mobile devices) would have to be suicidal before if harms the best interests of its users.

Re:Because they have to?

[gl4ss]

a public corporation is not required by law to fuck up the company for short sighted gain for few dollars, in fact it's pretty much required not to do that because THAT screws up the investors you can raise capital from with the ipo(and screwing them would be the illeagal thing to do).

in general you don't do good business by running the business down.

the private investors are more noble? unlikely.
the private investors are less patient than investors from mutual funds, smalltime investors & etc? maybe less unlikely but unlikely still.

They need the money

[khendron]

That's the only reason I can think of for why they would be going public. When you are public, one of the big rules is get as much money as you can when you have the chance. Right when you cross over to break-even is that chance. Before break-even is silly (we've been through that bubble and are not buying it anymore) and if you leave it too long you might dip below break-even again which would tarnish your image (from the investment point of view).

In my opinion, going public is both the best and the worst thing that can happen to a company, from the employee perspective. I've worked for a private company, a public company, and a private company that went public. In a public company you can make a lot of money off your stock options (assuming you have some). But the atmosphere in a private company is much more agreeable, with the lines of communications much more open. When my last company went public, it was like a door slammed and all information about how the company was doing, and what potential customers we were talking to, disappeared. We essentially woke up after the party, feeling rich, and realized nobody would talk to us anymore.

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[jaylee7877]

Only if your blind and need the Large Icons and Large Text. I use Mozilla Firebird/fox with small icons and limited text. My Navigation bar isn't more than 15 pixels in height.

Smart Cell Phones

[Tin Foil Hat]

The big deal here is the embedded space, as mentioned in the last article. Opera has been making a lot of deals in the embedded markets and that is primarily what is driving their growth. Opera spotted a niche that FOSS browsers were not filling and that IE was not filling well. They worked hard on their browser to make it a good fit for small platforms and now that hard work is paying off.

Whether Opera is popular on PCs is entirely beside the point. Opera's public mind share may be in PCs, but it's market share is in embedded devices and that is what is driving their performance. It's also what makes it a good IPO candidate.

Here's an idea...

[bonch]

But it doesn't work with Ebay. My password is rejected everytime I use Opera and accepted everytime I use Internet Explorer 5.

Also whenever I use Yahoo! mail with Opera and I am entering my password, the prompt JUMPS to the user name box and the characters that I type appear appended to my user name. Again this doesn't happen in Internet Explorer.

I sure wish they could fix this nonsense.

Have you even TRIED changing your browser's identification string? It's a couple of clicks away in the Quick Preferences menu...

Also, I should note to everyone that the latest beta of Opera has a redesigned interface that removes clutter. Let's be honest--Opera is the fastest and lightest browser, and almost all of its innovative features were copied by the freeware browsers. Not that I'm not typing this in the new Firefox right now! But once the new Opera comes out, I may switch back again. Heck, changing skins happens instantly in less than a second with no restart.

Re:Here's an idea...

[ceswiedler]

These problems are not because of the browser identification string. They're HTML or JavaScript issues.

Opera makes it easier than any other browser to change the browser id. You can even do it with a hotkey. One thing I wish is that I could configure it to always identify on IE for certain sites, and otherwise as Opera. I can leave it set to identify as IE, but I don't like to think that webmasters will look at logs and think that everyone still uses IE.

Re:Here's an idea...

[BuckaBooBob]

Not to mention This Skews stats badly letting the general public belive that IE's penatration is higher than it actually is..

All browsers should have to adhere to the W3C's specifications for web based languages and rendering.. Or face being rejected by Apache servers :)

"Your browser is not compliant.. Please download one that is and return to our site."

Wouldn't take long for IE's marketshare to plummet :) Also might add some fuel to the fire to keep MS updating IE and web technologies. as its obvious since the demise of netscape there has been little development in web standards compared to when Netscape was running strong.

Re:Here's an idea...

[lpret]

Try 7.50 beta 1. It's absolutely incredible and does a great job of being smart about the sidebar and clutter in general.

Re:Here's an idea...

[TEB_78]

If that's something you really want then you should tell the Opera Developers. You can tell them on the Opera Community site http://my.opera.com/forums/

Re:Here's an idea...

[bhtooefr]

Umm... I'm running 7.50 Preview 1, and I HATED the new layout. I tweaked it so that it worked like the old version...

Re:Here's an idea...

[lazybeam]

but I don't like to think that webmasters will look at logs and think that everyone still uses IE.

When Opera is set to "identify as MSIE" You can still tell it's Opera:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.11 [en]

(Yeah I'm too lazy to upgrade to the latest version) But usually I leave it to identify as Opera, unless a site gets uppitty at me, then it usually works properly.

My own sites work and look the best in Opera than Mozilla or IE, and that's without me doing anything purposefully browser-specific.

FUD

[Rits]

FUD.

There has been a single handful of security issues in the past years, which were either solved with a fixed build even before the vulnerability was made public, or at most a few days later.

There are currently no open vulnerabilities.

In what sense is this 'worse than IE'?

Re:FUD

[Dirk Pitt]

As far as I can tell the last Opera Only reported vulnerability was 12-23-2004.

Good god! They can even *predict* the bugs, but they won't fix them?! Villains!

Re:FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy - since the bug is probably in new (and as of yet unwritten) code, they first have to write the vulnerable code before they fix it...

Re:FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

"Opera's performance when it comes to security flaws has been worse than I.E." is not an "actual fact". It is pure FUD. Your link proves nothing, apart from the fact that Opera has had some security issues, like all other browsers, and that it is mentioned in many reports about IE.

Quit trolling, lying and spreading FUD.

Your comment was a troll because it was totally untrue and only posted because you are a damn zealot with your head up your ass.

Never crashed...

[bonch]

I don't know what happened for you. That's the first account of instability I've ever heard coming from Opera.

Opera is EXTREMELY fast, takes up very little memory, and has all the functionality and more of Mozilla, etc. In fact, those free browsers ripped off a bunch of their features from Opera (tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, etc.)

I've had Mozilla crash lots of times, on the other hand. And it was always with a lot of tabs open, so I lost them all.

Guess what happens if Opera exits for whatever reason and you have stuff open? The next time you start up, you find out it auto-saved the session for you! You're right back where you left off.

Re:Never crashed...

[GigsVT]

Heh. So you admit you are lying... First you say it never crashed, and then you say that you know it auto-saves your session after a crash.

I used Opera on Linux, I've paid for Opera since version 4 (which I used on Windows). I started using it on Linux around version 6.

It started crashing all the damn time, since about version 7 on Linux... earlier versions were pretty stable. I was very glad when Firebird really started to become viable, because I sure as hell wasn't going to use slow-ass Mozilla.

I use Firebird now (Linux), and it's fast enough, and a lot more stable than Opera(Linux).

Re:Never crashed...

[josephpate]

Heh. So you admit you are lying... First you say it never crashed, and then you say that you know it auto-saves your session after a crash.

Darl? That you? Here's a quote from the granparent post:

Guess what happens if Opera exits for whatever reason and you have stuff open? The next time you start up, you find out it auto-saved the session for you! You're right back where you left off.

The only times i've ever not voluntarily closed Opera is when windows crashes.

Go back to your cave, troll.

Re:Never crashed...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, when Opera crashes, it takes windows down with it? At least on Linux, it's only the browser that crashes.

I've got an idea!!!!

[vwjeff]

How about you use what YOU like. I have used both Opera and Mozilla and I decided to use Mozilla because I liked it's interface. Just because Mozilla is OSS does not mean it is better. (Go ahead and troll me :)

Re:I've got an idea!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Free software enthusiasts don't argue that free software is technically superior; they believe it's more moral.

Re:I've got an idea!!!!

[Master of Transhuman]

Gad, that almost makes me want to give up free software...

Nothing worse than a moralizing moralist.

I'd rather have a straight-up bully.

Please, oh please.

[readpunk]

Don't let the IPO kill Opera, so long as 7.5 delivers on it's alledged features I think I will finally be using a browser in FreeBSD that does everything I want... and fast.

Opera + Google

[Doctor Crumb]

I haven't registered Opera, partly because I really like how it shows Google ads in the banner area (but mostly I'm cheap). Google and Opera have been working together for a while, and I love it; IPOs for either one would benefit both.

Re:Opera + Google

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't registered Opera, partly because I really like how it shows Google ads in the banner area (but mostly I'm cheap)

Phew! Thought I was the only one. You couldn't have said it better.

I know

[geekoid]

we'll sell dog food, over the internet!

Re:I know

[Anonymous Coward]

you didn't do that quite right... lemme help:

we'll sell dog food, over the internet!

there, that should draw in $50 mil no prob.

Good riddance wanker.

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[NanoGator]

"Seriously someone give me a good reason to pay $30 for a browser, even if it is "the fastest browser on earth, that's not worth $30 to me..."

It's got a really nice interface. Not only is it intuitive, but quite powerful too. Here are a few things I do with it: (note: I do not intend to imply that these are things Mozilla cannot do. I'm simply stating what I use it for.)

- I post my artwork on a lot of different forums. For each project, I create a folder. In that folder there's a bookmark linking to every single thread I've started about that project. When I right-click on that folder, I can say "open each one in a new window." That's exactly what it does. When the windows are done loading, the titlebar of each page turns the text blue.

- The magnify button scales up text and images, nice for zooming in on artwork I browse. (Porn too!)

- The transfers window is nice for downloading files. Not only does it stay out of the way, but it also allows you to re-xfer and resume files without having to go hunt down a link.

- Opera's email client is .. well it's different. (At least from Outlook, Netscape, etc...) It downloads one copy of the message. Folders are created, not for copies of the message, but for different ways of viewing it. So one folder might say "Show me all the messages that have SLASHDOT in the headers", but another folder would say show me all the folders with MICROSOFT in the headers". You can imagine that those two emails could overlap sometimes? Well instead of getting dupe messages, you get the one message, but you can see it in either folder. It's sort of like Outlook's categories. I don't really like it for personal messages, but man it's great for email notifications that somebody has replied to your post. When you right click on a link, you can say "Open in background window". So your mail window stays up, but the new window appears behind it. That's great if you want to go down a list of emails and open links to them.

Okay, I babbled a lot on this topic, but I seriously love Opera for forum browsing because of how its email works.

- Opera's customization is surprisingly robust. Add buttons.. remove buttons... reorder them. I am continually suprised by Opera's intuitiveness in this regard. They've really through what somebody might want to do when they click, drag, or right click.

- Refresh every n minutes. That feature's cool if you're waiting for a website to update.

- Linked Windows: Click a link in one window, the response happens in another. This is a GREAT porn surfing feature! (I ain't gonna lie to you guys, porn surfing is important to me!)

- You can transplant it to another machine. This is undocumented, but I've been able to move Opera with all my bookmarks, email, etc to another machine. It took some editing of .INI files etc, but it was doable. You Linux folks may not care, but us Windows guys like programs that aren't overly dependent on the Registry.

- You can turn off images with the click of an icon. I found this useful while travelling once. The dialup connection was HORRID. So I turned off image downloading and boom the internet was much more responsive. (IT's also good for avoiding Goatse links. :P)

Opera's popularity is understandable. Mozilla may have a lot of what I mentioned. At that point, it becomes a matter of personal preference.

Tiny-screen browsing

[bonch]

For you Opera users, here's something fun--hit Shift-F12 and see what your webpage looks like rendered by Opera on a tiny device!

Re:Tiny-screen browsing

[matthewcraig]

That's Shift-F11 (View -> Small Screen). There is no Shift-F12 hotkey, at least not on the current version 7.23 for Windows.

Re:Tiny-screen browsing

[bonch]

I stand corrected. Thanks!

Re:Tiny-screen browsing

[ElNeo]

That is realy cool! I have a HP-PDA running WinCE and a IE-browser, and it just screws up the webpages. Completely useless!

This is why I would consider investing in Opera; There is a huge market for displaying information on mobil devices, and it is growing very fast.

You can make jokes all day about how hard it is, and all the limitations there are with WAP-browsers, and I partly agree with you, but there is no denying that it has lots of users.

With a WAP browser on your cellphone you can access information like weather, up to the minute news, bus and train timetables, jokes and a lot more while on the move. Norway has a popultion of about 5 mill people. In July 2003 87,7% of all norwegians had a cellphone! Just one of the news sites (wap.nrk.no) had 1 mill pageviews/month in Oct 2003.

Some banks have WAP-services where you can check your balance and transfere money.

I use WAP services probably 5-15 min. every day on my black/white tiny cellphone display - mostly for reading news on the subway. For that I pay around 5-6 euro/month to the network provider for data transfer over GPRS.

There is a need for something better then todays WAP-browsers. For mobile devices you need a small, quick, user friendly, keypad only browser. This does not sound like MSIE to me.

Opera is a good browser

[Space_Soldier]

While gecko is a better rendering engine (more standards support), opera is a better browser. I got 7.5 Beta. It works fine, doesn't crash. Anyway XUL is slow, Firefox has a slow GUI/rendering of pages. If one tab is open and loading from a slow server, you can't click on another tab, most of the time the cpu is 100%. Opera is very fast, because it is native and better written. While you should never use DHTML for animations (flash was made for a reason), you can test the speed of the rendering engine on those sites. Opera is faster than IE, while Gecko is slow as hell, the animation takes forever to finish (CPU 100%). Many features of Opera don't come with firefox, you need to download extensions, and restart it. For good tab browsing you need an extension which makes it slow as hell. In opera you can rearrange tabs, take them from one window to another WITHOUT PROBLEMS. What I like about Opera is the ZOOM feature, responsive GUI, fast rendering, and a ton of useful features. Gecko still has problems with the rendering of native widgets, Opera 7.5 now supports XP too. Opera software's revenue, most of it, i believe, comes from small gadgets, they have a monopoly, since is the only solution for phones due to small screen rendering and medium screen rendering.

Opera is not an USian company

[danila]

Most people around here seem to miss an important point. Opera is a Norwegian company and it is going to be listed on Oslo Stock Exchange, not on NASDAQ. Being a small company is not a problem for them. They don't aim for multi-billion capitalisation, just for a way to raise some relatively small amounts of capital to finance their expansion plans (whatever they are).

Mozilla still better

[Sargerion]

In my early days of computer, I was an idiot and used IE for like six monthes. Then, after realizing what absolute trash it was, I moved onto Netscape Communicator for about two years. Coming to another realization that it was just a stupid version of Mozilla, I used Mozilla for about 3 monthes, then switched to Opera 7, which was very impressive...about 8 monthes ago. Then I decided to give Mozilla.org a much deserved visit. Well, I noticed that Firebird 0.7 was out, so I downloaded it and gave it a shot. About five minutes later i was installing the Optimoz tweaks and mouse gestures, and uninstalling Opera. Firebird is sumpremely awsome, and the fact that it's free and OSS makes it surpass any small niceitys that Opera may feature. Opera is a nice browser, but I think they need to be very careful about how big they let their heads get, especially when I see OSS outperforming them, or, at the least, on par with them.

With a Gesture of the Mouse...

[i-Chaos]

... the Opera Creators said, "Let there be an IPO!"

If Opera ever had a fatal flaw....

[Killswitch1968]

... it's in the memory. How a 4.0 MB program takes up 8 times as much RAM I will never know.

Re:If Opera ever had a fatal flaw....

[freeweed]

How a 4.0 MB program takes up 8 times as much RAM I will never know.

That's because you don't understand how computer programs work. You don't just load them into memory, and boom! Everything works.

Programs dynamically allocate memory to be used for their internal workings. This is what is commonly referred to as a "heap". It's basically a big "heap" of memory that a program can, at its whim (and within boundaries set by the OS :), use.

Think about what your average complex program does. It's not just math. It needs to store a LOT of data. Things the user enters, and things that result from calculations from that data. Different representations of that data, you name it. The worst part is when you're pulling data from another computer. You suddenly need to store all of THAT data within your own RAM. Kinda like webpages. Opera caches everything insanely well (I can go back in my browser through dozens of links, and the pages will render almost instantaneously). All of this is stored within RAM. The longer you use Opera, the more RAM it will use, and this is a big reason why.

Anyway, if you're writing "hello world", you're correct. Your program will pretty much use only the memory needed to load the executable (and a bit for stack space, plus OS-related information). But anything reasonably complex, with complicated data structuring, and pulling data from other sources... THAT will use a LOT of memory. That's just how computers work.

Re:If Opera ever had a fatal flaw....

[Jugalator]

... and in this case, with Opera, most of the RAM goes to the memory cached web pages and images. The memory cache is user configurable, and I think even possible to disable so you only use disk cache.

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[Dixie_Flatline]

Load times are peculilarily subjective. By far, it's the fastest browser I've ever used. Mozilla was slow in its interface as well as slow when loading pages. Phoenix was better, but never quite as good as Opera for me.

Question

[Adam9]

What the hell is FireFox?

Re:Question

[MachDelta]

Clicky-clicky!

Opera Translation

[Dan-DAFC]

And finally, the toolbar has a translate button which uses the google translator for converting webpages into english (and other languages) with one click. With opera, you have to manually give the url to google (or altavista) for translation.

Opera has right-click translation. Highlight some text, right-click and you have whole load of options including dictionary, encyclopedia, and translation (all powered by Lycos).

Re:Sell.

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you come to believe that Norway was a part of Sweden?

Good to 'escape' while they still can

[nighty5]

With the growing maturity of Firefox, Konqi and Mozilla in the free mix its only a matter of time before Opera becomes redundant on the *desktop*.

It's good to see they have identified this and quickly moved into the Smartphones to gain a greater marketreach.

Trolltech has made a similar move, offering QTopia which operates in Mobile Phones and PDAs.

The future is bright!

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[an_mo]

This are nice features. For those that want some of these in Mozilla, get yourself the multizilla extension (a better tabbed browsing experience) + (for image magnification), get the bookmarklets from http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/ (zoom images in/out, zap images, zap javascript and so on)

Google Toolbar

[Anonymous Coward]

In Opera to the right of the address bar (by default?) is the search bar, it defaults to google, but has many others. Also in the address bar if you type 'g' then your search terms it searches on Google.

Re:Google toolbar

[bhtooefr]

They've had that since version 6.x, or maybe earlier - the only pre-6.x version I used was 2.12 (Web Archive is your friend), and that was just to see how Opera was in the early days.

Registering Opera

[MolecularBear]

Opera is a nice browser, but honestly how many people do you know that actually regged it?

I registered Opera after using the ad-sponsored version for a number of years. A college prof mentioned Opera in one of my classes years ago - specifically bringing up its use of mouse gestures. I tried it out and found that it was far better than IE (was using windows at the time). After using the ad version for all these years, I suddenly decided to register the damn thing. I figured that Opera had been providing me with this great, free browser for all those years, I might as well give a little something back. Not only that, but the money supports a company that has had the guts to compete against Microsoft's illegal, monopolistic tactics.

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[JuggleGeek]

Refresh every n minutes. That feature's cool if you're waiting for a website to update

It also works every N seconds. I use that when spammers forge my domain in the headers of their spam. Once I start seeing the bounces, I eat as much of their bandwidth as I can. Am I going to shut them down? No, I'm sure they have more bandwidth than I do. Will it increase their cost? I suspect that I signifigantly drive up the total amount of bandwidth that they have to pay for. Do I feel bad? Not at all - they've implicated me in their spam, so fuck 'em.

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[GigsVT]

The magnify button scales up text and images, nice for zooming in on artwork I browse. (Porn too!)

There's a mozilla bug number for this one, but as is normal for mozilla, it's a 3 year long discussion with various people talking about how it can't be done, instead of someone just doing it.

You may be shocked by this

[Anonymous Coward]

But businesses can survive if you don't decide to buy their product. You're not that special.

How many registrations?

[emarkp]

Apparently enough to grow their revenue by 108.7%. Well, registrations plus embedded sales.

I have registered version 6 and 7. See, I'm supporting software I use and love. My only complaint is that they don't have a port to PocketPC.

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[ZzzzSleep]

If it's that much of a problem for you, then just press F11 and go into full screen mode.

why people still use ie

[Anonymous Coward]

I use fire thingy exclusively now and it makes my life so much more fun.

Geek.

It's not very hard to figure out why people use IE. Most people in charge of a computer it seems are lucky enough to even end up looking at the desktop, so when they want to go online they are 'preconditioned' as it were so that they just look for the little blue e. That's the same reason people still use (and pay for) AOL.

Frankly, instead of insisting that internet exploder is part of the core of windows, if ms presented the user with the option of installing a list of the most popular browsers, then the market share would obviously be completely different. The reason at this point is only lack of education in the general public, and probably apathy as well.

Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used Opera since version 5 or something, and I've tried out others from time to time, but am so annoyed by the lack of certain features (usually mouse gestures) that I always go back. ok, that's my me too.

As for google - I thought Opera came with the little google search bar right next to the address bar? Or do you mean an actual toolbar, like the IE plugin?

You can also type "g my google search" in the address bar and hit enter, which will automatically submit a google search for the text after the g . ex: g "my google search" does this.

You also never have to fear about losing a lot of text you entered, as it's always patiently waiting for you if you hit back after accidentally leaving the page. It does crash more often than it should, and doesn't handle some things well - especially some logins on sites - but other than that it is a dream.

The ads aren't even bothersome, to me, but I paid for a copy anyway.

Mozilla doesn't even come close...

[UpnAtom]

... in my opinion, though it IS catching up fast.

The answer is that Opera is so much better than the rest it saves me that I would pay $3000 a year to use it, considering how much I use the web.

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[malarkey]

I use and have registered Opera. It can look just about however you want it too.

-Check out their message board and see all the ways Opera can look. With great keyboard shortcuts, the layout can be very simple, with minimal screen space needed.

-Double click on a word or highlighting text brings up a context menu, allowing you to copy to text or note, search on, check dictionary or encyclopedia, translate the words go to a url or email someone.

Fuck you liar

[Anonymous Coward]

God I fucking hate people who claim to use Lynx. Wtf year do they think this is?

Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Let's be honest--Opera is the fastest and lightest browser"

Too bad about that interface.. Yeech.

Overall not bad, but hard to choose when Mozilla is free, Konquoror is free... hell a whole host of good free browsers. Opera is okay, but its not clear why you'd pay for it, much less use it.

as far as i'm concerned they're sunk

[LordMyren]

unless they provide some way to do xml-rpc, xml-http stuff. basically to have the browser be able to call more data from the server without actually loading a new page. there are some hidden iframe hacks you can do, but its light and day between these hacks and actual xmlhttp work.

i understand the desire to adhere to a standard, but its much akin to deciding not to include an axel with your car because there are no axel standards: its just not gonna drive.

opera needs to get off their high horse and do something about this, ASAP. my favorite browser, but i cannot deploy it because its missing the most crucial instrument of DHTML, well, except maybe making snowflakes fall across my page.
Myren

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[74nova]

you know, i never use it full, so i didnt notice that. the ad banner even goes away. huh. i still dont particularly care for it full screen, but it would indeed make the most use of jaylee7877's screen, if its all that important to him

Here's why...

[Mustang Matt]

My post should explain some reasons.

Some of these are a bit outdated and incorrect.

I have switched from Opera to Mozilla but I miss it sometimes.

You are simply wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because by "going public" their corporate offices sole responsibility becomes maximizing dividends for the stockholders.

What kind of crack are you smoking? Dividends are rarely the goal of a public stock, at least when a company is in growth mode as many tech companies are. Had you said "becomes maximizing share price for the stockholders", I -might- have let it slip by, though even it's still not that simple.

I don't agree with this formula, but it's as simple as that.

You've shown a fundamental lack of understanding of securities. It's as simple as that.

Investing is always about making money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people do not buy stock in IPOs for any other reason than to make money.

It's not just IPOs; most people buy stock to make money, period. And well they should! They are called "investors" for a reason.

This is simply the fact.

Well, I hope so. If you are not investing (eg, purchasing stock) to make money, then you are screwed up. Whether you're into long term, short term, or speculative investments, YOU ARE AN INVESTOR TO MAKE MONEY.

What do you think the main goal of investing should be, if not to make money. Or do you consider short term or speculative investing invalid?

Your ignorance is showing

[Anonymous Coward]

by "going public" their corporate offices sole responsibility becomes maximizing dividends for the stockholders.

You are using phrases like "corporate offices" (officers?) and "maximizing dividends" like you're trying them out in public for the first time.

Do you understand what a dividend is? Do you realize that dividends are not the primary responsibility of "corporate offices" (or officers)?

A person knowledgable in securities would not misapply a concept like dividends so easily. What background or experience with securities do you have?

We are all gonna be RICH!!!

[t0ny]

This is going to be the greatest stock since Netscape!

Google toolbar

[TEB_78]

Well, they don't have the Google toolbar, but they have a google search-field up on the addressbar. At least in 7.5 preview 1.

Yeah...

[Kjella]

Not to mention all of the stuff that comes in the nice tight package - tabbed browsing, popup blocking (including "block all but requested" - there are legitimate uses for popups, you know),

...but if you can point me to a site where pop-ups are actually better, and not just a design thing, do tell. Pop-ups and the BLINK tag should die. Permanently. Which btw also goes for animated GIFs/flash sites/java applets mimicing it as well.

Not to mention those funny pop-up alike "tracking" ads that follow you down the page when you scroll. Also incredibly annoying. For some reason, despite having content that is 99,9% like a newspaper, many sites feel it's their right to bombard you with the equivalent of a konfetti "pop-up" in a real newspaper.

To that I can only say: Live by the sword and die by the sword. They massively abused my browser, so I feel no remorse massively "abusing" them by reading their sites without the ads. Maybe in a decade or three we're even.

Kjella

Obligations to Shareholders

[Morosoph]

Actually, by going public, you now need to fulfill the terms under your new contract with shareholders. Your contract does not need to say that you are going to do everything in your powers to maximise shareholder value, although it often does, and to make such a promise might help you to raise more cash.

just FWIW

[Anonymous Coward]

opera does crash on me, but at least it can somewhat recover from crashes, and on my old, slow machine it's much more usable than mozilla, and it feels more comfortable than any "technology preview" that i've tried. so there's my vote.

Re:Sell.

[FreeTheFurniture!]

I'm not that dumb dammit. http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2003/02/14/

Re:I won't be buying any stock...

[implet]

- Opera's email client is .. well it's different. (At least from Outlook, Netscape, etc...) It downloads one copy of the message. Folders are created, not for copies of the message, but for different ways of viewing it. So one folder might say "Show me all the messages that have SLASHDOT in the headers", but another folder would say show me all the folders with MICROSOFT in the headers". You can imagine that those two emails could overlap sometimes? Well instead of getting dupe messages, you get the one message, but you can see it in either folder. It's sort of like Outlook's categories. I don't really like it for personal messages, but man it's great for email notifications that somebody has replied to your post. When you right click on a link, you can say "Open in background window". So your mail window stays up, but the new window appears behind it. That's great if you want to go down a list of emails and open links to them.

Okay, I babbled a lot on this topic, but I seriously love Opera for forum browsing because of how its email works.

Ok, I had to respond to this one. I started using Opera with one of the late version 5s. I'm not some ubergeek. I just loathe IE and Netscape and want something that will work.

Anyway, in 7.0 I finally decided to switch out of Eudora for my e-mail and into M2. What a boondoggle. While I love many of the features that Opera M2 offers, I have two significant problems.

1) My e-mail archives are what I use to store half the facts of my life and, when importing, Opera kept crashing on random messages. It took me a week of dedicated work to get my archives imported, and I had to make duplicate files and delete a bunch of messages before Opera would do it.

2) Opera will spontaneously crash on occasion. When it does, I lose e-mail messages. When I go to look at them, I get the text, "Message body not downloaded."

Aw, heck, it would be nice if Opera's address book were better too. As much as I really dislike MS, the Windows address book is just plain functional. Opera's isn't even close -- and they have no plans to talk to my Palm either.

Anyway, because of the significant issues I have with the mail database, I am looking for something else to move into. I just am worried about being able to export the past year's worth of e-mail messages.

FUD ALERT! FUD ALERT!

[Anonymous Coward]

All browsers have had security issues.

The difference between Opera and Microsoft is that Opera responds to security issues. Claiming anything else shows an incredible level of ignorance.

Stop trolling on Slashdot and get a life.

Re:FUD ALERT! FUD ALERT!

[Zebra_X]

I'm not a troll, have a look at my track record, anonymous coward.

If you would bother to educate yourself about the product that you are defending you would see that they too have had a history of not being responsive to discovered security flaws. Did I ever say IE was "good", no, I didn't.

I'm pointing out that opera, the commercial closed source product that it is, really, has some pretty serious flaws that sometimes, not always, get addressed in a timely manner.

Is that "trolling"?

Unfortunately, I've wasted 5 minutes having to explain something that an intelligent, open minded individual, would have figured out for themselves by actually bothering to read, comprehend and follow what i've written. Or, you might have read my post on an off day.

Re:FUD ALERT! FUD ALERT!

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm pointing out that opera, the commercial closed source product that it is, really, has some pretty serious flaws that sometimes, not always, get addressed in a timely manner."

WHERE do you see this? WHEN have they not done so?

Oh, I get it! It's a closed-source product so now we are SUPPOSED to spread FUD?

Please.

All you do is to make some vague, trollish claims about something, and you can't even be bothered to back it up. THAT IS WHY YOU ARE A TROLL.