Nokia Invested In Mozilla?

Pine UK writes "The Register, is reporting that Nokia has invested in the Mozilla Foundation. This news should come as a shock to Opera, who in recent times have had a very large market share in the area of portable device browsers. Opera has also been the browser choice for Nokia, who ship it with all their Symbian 'smartphones.' Nokia have not yet confirmed nor denied their investment in Mozilla."

Comments

Slashdot crisis!

[Sanity]

Oh no! Mozilla versus Opera, on /. that is almost as bad as Galdalf versus Arthur Dent or Apple versus Linux!

Expect to see large parts of the Internet go down as slashdotters everywhere spontaneously combust due to an inability to reconcile two opposing knee-jerk reactions.

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Expect to see large parts of the Internet go down as slashdotters everywhere spontaneously combust due to an inability to reconcile two opposing knee-jerk reactions."

Make me, punk. :D

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[kunudo]

Oh no! Mozilla versus Opera, on /. that is almost as bad as Galdalf versus Arthur Dent or Apple versus Linux!

Actually, I was under the impression that there isn't such an extreme pro-Apple sentiment here...
And Arthur Dent would beat Galdalf any day of the week... :)

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[Anonymous Coward]

Any day of the week except Thursdays, he's still getting the hang of them.

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would this be a crises?

Slashdot users like free, open source products. Mozilla is free and open source. Opera is closed source and... like.. $50 or something (just guessing at the price, I haven't used it except for a couple days back in 3.x days and then only with a pirated copy).

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[bhtooefr]

Actually, it's not that bad. I'm predicting that 7.51 might be one of the last Opera versions though, or maybe one of the last good ones. Unless, of course, they can get 7.51 over ODIN runing on eComStation, and convince them to bundle it, and 7.51 on a theoretical BeOS Winelib port, and convince YellowTab to move to them. It'd be VERY hard though, seeing as both of those OSes use Firefox...

It's the bundling thing. Here's who's bundled with who:

MSIE: Windows, and it's the biggest because of this
Firefox: eComStation (OS/2), YellowTab Zeta (BeOS), some Linux distros, and they're pretty big
Moz Suite: Some Linux distros, and it's declining (due to Moz Firefox)
Konqueror: Some large Linux distros, is the file manager in all KDE-based distros
Safari: Mac OS, becoming common
Opera: Sharp Zaurus Linux PDAs, one model of Nokia phone (not for long, though), one model of discontinued Psion PDA, and it's only bigger than Safari because it's available on Win32, Linux (x86, PPC, SPARC), Solaris (SPARC), FreeBSD (x86), Mac OS, and Symbian in current versions (the Symbian branch is developed differently than the others, which explains why it's still 6.x).

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[Ilgaz]

Repeat after me:

Opera is a tiny Norway company (still!) and their coders in that freezing country makes money, living money (e.g. buy bread for home) via licensed users.

Please, tell them to spare all their working hours for an OS (which I love) with 0.001 percent of end users or less.

Or you better tell Firefox coders to quit their real jobs and code Firefox exclusively, I really wonder the reply you will get.

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[Rits]

Opera: Sharp Zaurus Linux PDAs, one model of Nokia phone (not for long, though),

Opera 6 ships with the Nokia 6600, 9210i and the new 7610, and the Sony Ericson P800 and P900. Opera 7 ships on some new Kyocera phones for the Chinese and Japanese markets. On most of these phones it is a complimentary product, on some it is the default web browser. See the full list here.

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[The Lynxpro]

"Oh no! Mozilla versus Opera, on /. that is almost as bad as Galdalf versus Arthur Dent or Apple versus Linux!"

What are you talking about? Arthur Dent would crush Gandalf with his, uhm, no, not with his logical skills. Maybe matching up Galdalf vs. Marvin the Paranoid Android would be a better cage match.

And no Linux vendor makes as pretty of hardware as Apple, so there's no comparison. Maybe so after Alienware puts out a distribution...

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[Anonymous Coward]

> And Arthur Dent would beat Galdalf any day of the week... :)

Expecially if he had his towel.;-)

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[FFFish]

As an insider, I can tell you Opera v8.x series is currently under development.

Opera is not going away.

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I was under the impression that there isn't such an extreme pro-Apple sentiment here...

There isn't a particularly pro-Opera sentiment either so I'd say the analogy is about right. There are people here who like Apple, and there are people who like Opera, but both are minorities I'd guess. Most people use Windows and IE ;)

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm, I thought that the Firefox coders (the main one(s) anyway) were employed by people like the Mozilla Foundation (mozilla.org) to... Code on those thhings?

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

Mozilla versus Opera

ANSWER: Mozilla (Firefox)

Galdalf versus Arthur

ANSWER: Galdalf

Apple versus Linux

ANSWER: Apple

EXTRA ANSWER: vi

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[SpammersAreScum]

Newer Sharp Zaurus models have switched from Opera to Netfront.

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[irokitt]

Falcon Northwest make some very pretty PC systems that far outmatch anything Alienware puts out. Granted you have to pay for it, but you get a custom paint job that's unmatched.

Voodoo PC is also a manufacturer that puts an Apple-sized amount of detail into their systems. While they may be expensive, I would like to point out that they are priced very competitively with the G5.

As for me, I built my own system and made it pretty (without obnoxious windows and lights).

Re:Slashdot crisis!

[asb]

Mozilla is to Opera what Gandalf is to Arthur dent

Or

Mozilla is to Opera what Apple is to Linux

Maybe you now get the joke?

Memory footprint.

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm.. this chart is in bytes, right? Right?!

Re:Memory footprint.

[vena]

compounding this, there seems to be an annoying leak in firefox 0.9... leaving it open overnight resulted in usage reporting as 160+ megs for me, personally. this is in addition to previous reports of leaks on all platforms, though admittedly some were regarding the javascript console which wouldn't be a factor in most installations. firefox will eventually replace the browser in the mozilla suite.

Re:Memory footprint.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trust a seasoned Sharp Zaurus user: Minimo is NO WAY faster or more efficient than FireBloat. It has the same inherent 13MB of RAM for a about:blank page that is identical between all Gecko-based browsers.

Re:Memory footprint.

[rasz]

Currently minimo takes up about 25 mb of RSS. This graph show the memory usage while running the browser against the page loader test.

LOL no :), its in kBytes, minimo takes ~12MB for itselfe + another 24 for the data from Pageloader :)

Somehow doesnt sount as minimal as it should be, I'l stick to Opera.

PS: Anybody got Opera Pageloader stats ?

Re:Memory footprint.

[Dolda2000]

You really thought so? Is it news to you that Mozilla is a memory hog? My Mozilla (suite) normally takes around 50-100 MBs, and right now, FireFox 0.9 is taking more than 100 MBs of RSS mem (almost 200 MBs mapped).

Re:Memory footprint.

[scottj]

I've had 0.9 open for a few days on my XP box right now. It's currently using 101MB, but that's understandable, as I have about 40 tabs open. What's odd is the Peak Mem Usage: 472MB!! Ouch! But at least it cleaned things up afterwards. (Or did it?)

Re:Memory footprint.

[Rysc]

So it's pretty big, but on the plus side... no licensing costs. You picks your down sides and you lives with them.

Re:FUCK IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Girls are like Internet domain names, the ones I like are already taken.

No no, you've got it all wrong. It's "Girls are like Internet domain names, the ones I like go for $9.95."

Which is better....

[JoeShmoe950]

I always found Opera fast, and much lighter than Mozilla. But, with the advent of Firefox, I'd have to say theres not much reason to stick with Opera. I just don't see very many advantages (plus, Firefox is open source).

Re:Which is better....

[bhtooefr]

Opera's still half the size of Firefox, and it's got an e-mail client, IRC client, RSS reader, etc., etc. in there. It's got a Mozilla-like feature set, with a smaller-than-Firefox footprint, and it's one of the fastest full-featured browsers there is (non-full-featured being stuff like Lynx, Links, Dillo, etc.)

Also, I like that I don't have to install 10 extensions to get Opera to behave the way I want it to...

Re:Which is better....

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera still forces you to look at ads. And if you want the text-only ads you have to give up your privacy to Google. From what I've heard, Google logs all URLs you visit, even the ones you don't want anyone to know about (secret web servers, embedded passwords, etc.). Firefox is for those of us who refuse to lose privacy in exchange for minimal increases in speed.

Re:Which is better....

[bhtooefr]

OK, so I didn't realize that 0.9 got smaller (I read another article). It's just a meg bigger, and I have heard that Firefox has gotten faster, especially in UI (however, it was rendering speed that seemed slower to me).

I'm certainly going to try out the new Firefox, but I don't think I'll stick with it if it's much like 0.8 (or Firebird 0.7).

Re:Which is better....

[CeleronXL]

Where are you getting this? Firefox is 4.7 MB (actually with the latest nightlies, there was yet another size decease to 4.4 MB) and Opera is 3.4 MB. Firefox is twice the size? Hardly.

Re:Which is better....

[bhtooefr]

Read my post above yours. I hadn't played with FF for a while, and didn't know the size dropped with 0.9.

However, FF with all the Opera features (that are available as Moz projects) IS twice the size, if not more - that includes Thunderbird, and a bunch o' extensions.

Re:Which is better....

[bhtooefr]

Typing in here as I go along:

Imported Opera favorites, history, passwords, etc., no problem. My homepage was set to /., and my favorites bar was the same as Opera's. THAT is slick.

It seems slower, though...

The new theme feels TOO XPish, but this box has XP, so...

While looking for Qute, Firefox disappeared. I've seen this in Opera FINAL versions, and this is a beta, but I'd still like to see it fixed.

Rendering seems a bit off...

I'm going to stick with Opera, but FF does have a couple of advantages other than it being FOSS - it is a better drop-in replacement for IE, and it's better for kiosks where users have access to the keyboard (or any situation where it needs to be locked down).

The verdict? Well, I'm still typing in Opera (7.23, of all versions - I need to update this box to 7.51).

Re:Which is better....

[jazzer]

Windows Firefox download is 4.7MB, however for Linux it's still around 8.0MB, which is a little high. What's the size of Opera on Linux? To me the version doesn't really feel any faster the nightly Firebird build I was using in January. But that's in my perception, by no means a benchmark, but really what matters more the benchmark or user's perception (in the terms of a browser)?

Personally, I'm happy with Firefox so I haven't checked Opera out. I'll stick with the open-source browser (even if I can't have the nice logo's when using an un-official build (which seems a little restrictive to me for an open-source project, but that's being nitpicky))

Re:Which is better....

[Cyram]

From what I see Opera is in the 3.5 - 5 MB range on Linux depending on which version you get. So the "twice the size" argument may hold for Linux.

Re:Which is better....

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, big difference!

Moron.

Re:Which is better....

[bhtooefr]

Well, what package do you want, what level of QT do you want?

For .deb and .rpm, the range is 3.6MB to 4.9MB, depending on your distro and version (obviously, the .deb is for Debian).
For .tar.gz, the range is 3.6MB to 5.0MB, again depending on distro.

Re:Which is better....

[Thundertje]

It's not like they're going to put a direct FireFox port on their phones or something.
Ofcourse there is going to be a special phone browser, just like Opera has. At least, the Opera browser I had on my p800 was no 4MB+ iirc.

Re:Which is better....

[Ilgaz]

Ahem, most of "Operas" in Symbians (we speak about 300*200 at MOST!) are licensed BUNDLES.

Some wants you to buy them, after 1 month or so, some doesn't.

For GODS SAKE, at least install opera 7.5 and post comments. Opera 7.5 for desktops is an Internet SUITE.

Opera for mobile (Symbian) is the innovator and leader in mobile market. I am speaking about a code, with real low ram can render entire page you are reading now and can manage to find "importmant" parts to display on a tiny screen. Oh, does it without flooding phones memory...

I understand /. people hates Opera since its a commercial program, closed source (allthough one of biggest supporters to QT) and sorry to say, displays 2 lines of damn Google ads but please, please SPEAK IF YOU KNOW WHAT IS THE SUBJECT.

Let me tell straight. Opera is the master of Mobile. Nothing less. If you don't believe, you better call Redmond and ask them.

Everyone around me using Nokia smart stuff bought it already...

Re:Which is better....

[Rits]

Of course there is no 'force' involved here. You can choose between banners, google text ads (just about as bad for your privacy as looking at them in a webpage), and paying a few bucks.

It is FUD that Google stores URLs you visit. Google is not storing this on a IP level, and https sites and password protected URLs are not sent to Google by Opera to begin width.

Re:Which is better....

[Anonymous Coward]

and it's one of the fastest full-featured browsers there is

Shame it has some annoying bugs tho, like the ability in certain circumstances to select two (yes TWO) radio buttons in the same group, and both of those values sent when a form is submitted. Not even IE has this level of stupidity :)

Re:Which is better....

[Janek Kozicki]

your site http://www.utopiasoftware.net/ has all links broken

PS: for sanity I browse with flashblock and javascript disabled.

Re:Which is better....

[bhtooefr]

Show me an example. I'm currently running 7.51 Win32.

Re:Which is better....

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox runs natively on my Athlon64. Opera doesn't. Therefore, Firefox is better.

Re:Which is better....

[bhtooefr]

Of course. It's called Minimo (Mini Mozilla), and it is supposed to be smaller. However, it is a ram hog just like Firefox.

BTW, Opera 6.31 for the P800 is 0.8MB. AFAIK, it doesn't have the mail client, the IRC client, the newsreader, the fancy themes, etc.

Minimo 0.2-b for Linux/ARM is 4.8MB, only .1MB smaller than Firefox.

To make it fair, I'll throw in Opera 6.0 for the Zaurus (Linux/ARM) - 2.4MB, but it's a repackaging (for reloading the OS on a Zaurus without killing Opera).

Re:Which is better....

[Anonymous Coward]

You can choose between banners, google text ads (just about as bad for your privacy as looking at them in a webpage), and paying a few bucks.

You missed option 4, "using Firefox instead". People who don't like any of the ways Opera make their money are welcome to use something else instead of bitching about it. That's the whole point of having web standards, competition, and free choice.

Re:Which is better....

[PeterPumpkin]

Yep, the links are set up as a table with td onclick events. So many folks use javascript for things better done with CSS. And while alot of people disable javascript, almost no one messes too much with user stylesheets. And even if they do, or are even if they are browsing with lynx, it will still work. An example:

<html>

<head>

<style>
a.menu
{
display:block;
height:30px;
line-height:30px;
width:100px;
color:#111111;
background-color:#eeeeee;
border:1px solid #888888;
text-align:center;
text-decoration:none ;
/*hide Internet Explorer's diaper leaking (disclaimer:no returns, exchanges, or refunds)*/
overflow:hidden;
/*Mozilla-only eyecandy*/
-moz-border-radius:5px;
}

a:hover.menu
{
color:#222222;
background-color: #ffffff;
}
</style>

</head>
<body>

<a href="foo1.htm" class="menu">Home</a>
<a href="foo2.htm" class="menu">Stuff</a>

</body>

</html>

So if Minimo decides to drop something obscure like onclick events on td's, you ass is covered :D

Re:Which is better....

[Nurgled]

I found lots of extensions to make FireFox do things that Opera does, such as the unified Stop/Refresh button and the image toggle.

However, I find it hard to track down extensions sometimes. I want toolbar buttons to toggle on and off document styles (user stylesheet only) and a three-way button to choose between all inline images, no inline images and cached images only. The latter is useful when you're refreshing a page a lot since it prevents the browser from reloading (or attempting to reload) the images.

Before I upgraded to the latest FireFox I had an extension to allow toolbars at the bottom, but I can't seem to find that anymore. Once I figure it out I'm going to have to make a website about "Making FireFox look and operate exactly like Opera" :) For now, I'll continue with Opera 6, even if it does have a few security bugs. (Got them worked around)

Re:Which is better....

[drinkypoo]

Opera is not free in any sense of the word. There is an adware version, but who wants an extra banner ad on their screen? This alone is enough incentive to me to use Mozilla, which I am relatively certain will not employ some new more restrictive licensing scheme. Meanwhile, I already don't like Opera's license.

You may not have to install 10 extensions to get Opera to be what you want, but on the other hand, with Mozilla or Firefox, you can install those ten extensions to get it to be what you want. You're trading convenience with freedom. If that's okay with you, I don't have a problem with it, but it's a compelling argument in my world.

Re:Which is better....

[at_slashdot]

Yeah, but Opera has also an e-mail client. And to have all the Opera functionality you have to add a lot of extensions to Firefox. I like both. Firefox is free. Opera is GREAT.

Was on CNet yesterday

[anandpur]

Also repoted by CNet yesterday

Interesting

[Pranjal]

Why invest and not just take the source and fork Mozilla for use on their cellphones? I thought this was perfectly legit in the open-source world.

Unless of course the are donatin to the Mozilla foundation for helping develop such an excellent browswer package.

Re:Interesting

[Ianoo]

If you fork, you have to pay developers. If you invest and make the Mozilla Foundation (works for other OSS organisations too) see what you need and rally to your cause, you get them to develop for you .

Re:Interesting

[Timesprout]

Just what makes you think the source for a desktop browser with an appetite for memory is a suitable starting point for a cell phone browser ? What makes you think Nokia want to develop a browser ? They build phones, not software.

Mozilla does have an embedded project underway with minimo but it lags Opera by a long way. This is probably just a not so subtle hint from Nokia to Opera , not to rest on their laurels or take Nokia for granted.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

They build phones, not software.

They (Nokia) do build the Series 60 platform software, which they sell to other phone manufacturers too.

Dunno about the revenues and profits in that biz, but Nokia's software unit is pretty big. (I live near their HQ in Espoo, Finland.)

They also develop some games of their own for N-Gage. And, of course, every modern cellphone is practically a computer with a fairly general purpose processor running updateable software. (Yeah newsflash...)

I don't think it's at all out of the question or their capabilities that they developed a Nozilla out of Mozilla. (Which they are *not* doing here, of course. But I wouldn't be surprised.)

Re:Interesting

[nacturation]

If you fork, you have to pay developers.

Who the hell modded this up? The Mozilla source is GPL. The only time you might have to pay the developers is if you're wishing to distribute Mozilla as a closed source app, in which case you'd need to negotiate an alternate (non-GPL) license with each contributor to the codebase. Because it's GPL, Nokia can fork it all they want, call it Nokzilla or whatever, and code it up to their hearts content and they wouldn't have to pay anyone. The only caveat is that the GPL virus kicks in and they have to also release their source code to be GPL compliant.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt Nokia developers work for free...

Re:Interesting

[FooBarWidget]

I think he means that you will have to pay developers to do the porting for you.

Or do you really think Mozilla will compile & run on cell phone machines out-of-the-box?

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

uh... they would have to pay their own developers?!

Geez... some people and the English language...

Re:Interesting

[Bitsy Boffin]

What the poster meant is that if Nokia forked it they would have to pay thier developers, full developer rate + deal with the employees etc, to, err, develop it. And they would have to release all thier hard work afterwards.

This way they make a sizable, but less than actually employing developers would cost them in real terms, investment in Mozilla, which get the Mozilla developer's attention, who now get all motivated to work with Nokia to make the changes Nokia wants, without Nokia having to actually employ them.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm quite sure the guy was meaning that if they forked the code they would have to fund their own developers to make the changes they wanted.

What I don't see is how that's really any different from investing in Mozilla in the first place...

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell modded *this* up?

He didn't say you had to pay the original developers. He said that you had to pay developers. Unless you want to provide a "fork" that has exactly the same codebase as the parent project (stretching the definition of the term well beyond reason), you've got to get somebody to make all the modifications and tweaks to make the project more suitable for your own tasks. Now, you could try the free/volunteer route for your fork, but if you're Nokia, you can't expect anything unless you are at least paying someone to manage the volunteer contributions.

As the grandparent said, if a company like Nokia wants to fork, they have to pay developers.

Re:Interesting

[vondo]

They have three choices:
1) Hire new developers to learn the mozilla code and make the changes, then release them to the public (since it is GPL)
2) Hire existing mozilla developers to work for Nokia to make the changes
3) Contract with the existing developers to get what they want done.

3) is the perfectly logical choice. 1) involves a lot of start-up time. 1) and 2) involve a commitment by Nokia to keep those people on the payroll or severance if they don't work out. In 3) Nokia just drops the contract if it doesn't get the results it wants.

Re:Interesting

[crossconnects]

you missed the point.

you'd have to pay developers to work on your version after the fork in order to get the features and performance you want. It's not about paying the developers who already worked on it before.

Re:Interesting

[gnu-generation-one]

"Who the hell modded this up? The Mozilla source is GPL. The only time you might have to pay the developers is if you're wishing to distribute Mozilla as a closed source app, in which case you'd need to negotiate an alternate (non-GPL) license with each contributor to the codebase."

I think he meant: if you fork, you have to pay some developers. Maybe yours, if you're feeling up for a challenge. Maybe theirs, if you prefer to save some time. But if your project budget is zero, you won't get much of a fork, because you won't have paid anyone to modify it for your purposes.

With mozilla, you get the desktop edition as GPL. If you want the nokia-phone-version, then somebody has to write it, and for that, as the original poster pointed out, you need to pay some developers. Whether you choose someone in your team, or someone from the mozilla team, is up to you.

Re:Interesting

[oxymor00n]

Mozilla is not under the GPL. It's under the MPL. A BSDish licence, AFAIK.

Re:Interesting

[geeber]

True, either way you pay. But if you fork and pay your own developers then you have much tighter control over what is produced, whereas if you simply invest, then you can only hope that the Mozilla Foundation agrees with the direction you want to go.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, that makes one person on Slashdot that didn't understand....

Re:FUCK IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know the rest of the quote, do you? (This is an IRC conversation, and the rest is a reply to the first part) It reads: "Well, you can still get one from a strange country..."

Still, yours is pretty funny too.

Now, if I could just not try to FP stuff, or at least remember to check post anon...

Another article

[Anonymous Coward]

News.com has an article about it too.

Obligatory Sybian/Symbian confusion joke

[Gothmolly]

Whoa, I thought for a minute that Nokia was adding special features to their smartphones. Makes the 'vibrate' ring setting take on a whole new meaning!

Mozillazine &c

[sepluv]

This was also reported on Mozillazine (were they are putting up a fuss that the Mozilla Foundation did not report this funding on their site first).

Also on many other news sources.

There is also more info about the nice little Minimo project (to produce a Gecko-based browser with a tiny footprint).

Re:Mozillazine &c

[Ilgaz]

Well, I have a simple point for Mozilla fan(atics) out there.

I saw Opera 6.x running on Nokia 7650 which has real low ram and it was running damn fine. Point me a Mozilla that can do same job faster with excellent customer service, I make the guy delete it and use mozilla instead.

Until... Keep on your Mozilla masturbation.

Not saying anything more :)

Re:Mozillazine &c

[Anonymous Coward]

Were you stoned when you wrote this? Try to have a coherent thought please.

Yes, I'm afraid that Mozilla won't work on 5 year old hardware for cell phones. What a pity. I mean, if you are developing a new cell phone with brand new hardware I guess you are going to have to change your requirements from 5 years ago. What a suprise!

Really, mozilla is an excellent choice for new cell phones. Your argument is about as useful as complaining that Windows XP doesn't run on a 286.

Re:Mozillazine &c

[sepluv]

Firstly, I was not been fanatical about Mozilla--I was pointing to more details on the story. >>I saw Opera 6.x running on Nokia 7650 which has real low ram and it was running damn fine. Point me a Mozilla that can do same job faster with excellent customer service That question is obviously answered by the story. Nokia do not seem to agree as they are willing to put their money into developing Mozilla for their phones.

inaccuracies in blurb..

[gl4ss]

they DON'T ship opera with all their symbian phones.

however, it could have just been easier/cheaper for them to buy opera than to invest in minimo.. though this shouldn't be SHOCKING to Opera, if they thought they would just own the market forever they didn't think very clearly.

Opera is still the best browser for s60 though, it won't be easy getting to the same level quickly.

Re:inaccuracies in blurb..

[HeadDown]

Another interesting angle is that Minimo will offer a XUL engine on-board, which means you could develop applications using XUL instead of the Symbian SDK.

Re:inaccuracies in blurb..

[Anonymous Coward]

Another interesting angle is that Minimo will offer a XUL engine on-board, which means you could develop applications using XUL instead of the Symbian SDK.

The Symbian SDK is, of course, adequately documented. XUL on the other hand...

Re:inaccuracies in blurb..

[gl4ss]

for quick'n'dirty app development there's already few ways to develope applications for symbian(opl, j2me, whatever).. and soon will be more once they get some more libs to python.

I'm not sure if including a xul engine is that good(It's supposed to be small, very lightweight after all).

Re:inaccuracies in blurb..

[fymidos]

>however, it could have just been easier/cheaper for >them to buy opera than to invest in minimo..

No, of course not. Investing something like a $million is nothing, any contract with opera would cost more than a $million in lawyers fees alone..

Why should it be a shock?

[arvindn]

I don't think it would have been a shock or anything. Anyone who thinks they are immune to competition will quickly perish. Obviously opera is a great product for cell phones, but the mozilla guys have been doing consistent work reducing their memory footprint and increasing speed, and with some more focused work they could be as nearly as good as opera. A cash infusion could help them do just that. And Gecko's rendering is at least as good as Opera's.

Re:Why should it be a shock?

[Darth_Burrito]

In addition, it sounds like one of Opera's primary advantages over Mozilla in this market is compactness and efficiency. If the technology industry has taught us anything, it's that hardware is constantly improving. Sure Mozilla doesn't sound like they could compete now, but with hardware improvements and some encouragement in the direction of embedded devices, I can't imagine why they couldn't be a feasible browser in that market within a short period. And completely free competes very well with not so free.

Re:Why should it be a shock?

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy more hardware so you can run free software.

Re:Why should it be a shock?

[hkmwbz]

Except both Opera and Mozilla will need to support more things in the future, maybe things like SVG, which is potentially huge. So even if you have more powerful hardware, you will need small and tight programs, because they need to support a lot of things.

And claiming that Mozilla is "completely free" is not exactly the case. It will cost money to integrate Mozilla into an embedded device. Maybe it will be the least expensive in some cases, but maybe in other cases, they want a commercial product and a company which tailors their product specifically to fit your device.

Money talks, and if Opera can deliver a smaller, more efficient application at comparable prices to Nokia implementing an open-source application themselves, then Opera might just be the browser of choice.

Re:Why should it be a shock?

[Ilgaz]

So, Mozilla core shall continue to be coded badly by amateurs and it will be fine if it will flood memory etc. Or hog the cpu.

Sorry, I don't buy this. When 3G becomes standard I will buy a compatible phone (for me, siemens) and will buy Opera if its not free.

nokia probably is

[lpret]

I wouldn't doubt it. One of the biggest problems I see with open source is that if you have a legit product, you can be taken advantage of very easily. Nokia may be investing in Mozilla because they can give donations and then get the product with no strings attached. Giving donations and entering into contracts are two very different things and it's a lot easier to have your way with an organization that you donate to than dealing with contracts.

So in the short run, it's great for open source, however it creates a precedence of being able to simply give some money and taking the product.

Re:nokia probably is

[mrchaotica]

That's no worse than not giving money and taking the product, which they could also do. As long as Mozilla is getting a fair deal in return for adding the features Nokia wants, I don't see a problem with it.

Re:nokia probably is

[jazzer]

I wouldn't doubt it. One of the biggest problems I see with open source is that if you have a legit product, you can be taken advantage of very easily.

? If you are developing for anybody/everybody to use freely than how can someone using it for free be taking advantage of the orgranization? Considering if they didn't want anybody and everybody to be able to use it they would've licensed it differently.

Nokia may be investing in Mozilla because they can give donations and then get the product with no strings attached. Giving donations and entering into contracts are two very different things and it's a lot easier to have your way with an organization that you donate to than dealing with contracts.

Investing? A donation is not an investment. The only investment out of this, is that it will help the Mozilla Foundation stay alive, which is an investment if you plan on using their product. But this is not an investment in a traditional sense. It gives Nokia no leverage on the foundation or on the product it produces. They would need to create a binding contract to be able to legally force the Mozilla Foundation to have their way.

Nokia has confirmed the deal

[amacedo]

Well, sort of. Check out this article at News.com

It comes as no suprise since Nokia's strategy has clearly been one of standardization.

And what better way to standardized than to support an open source project?

Re:Nokia has confirmed the deal

[squiggleslash]

Anyone who's ever bought accessories for a Nokia phone might disagree with you there ;)

(I love the latest "innovation", a 2.5" "headset jack" that happens to be completely different and incompatable with the existing standardized 2.5" headset jack. WTF?)

Nokia's day has gone...

[lewko]

I loved my first Nokia when a phone was a phone. Now that my phone needs to be a PDA/browser etc. (AKA Smartphone) I'm not interested in any of their current products.

It seems I'm not alone.

Re:Nokia's day has gone...

[Ilgaz]

Nokia sees where future is and concentrated to that point. YOU aren't interested in their current products as I , as a Siemens C55 user which has java (with 320kb of ram!), gprs and midi etc not interested in new Siemens models too. In fact, I plan to use it until 3G stuff becomes standard.

What I try to mean is, 99% of population is not like us nor reads slashdot etc. For some, taking stupid lo res pictures and sending to their friends for a real stupid expensive rate (mms) is fun for them.

I really wonder if Nokia didn't go for Symbian and selected Win CE etc crap, what kind of a nightmare we mobile users would live.

So thank you Nokia :) and all Symbian supporters/coders

Re:Nokia's day has gone...

[interiot]

You're saying you DON'T want all these things to be always available to you, no matter where you go?

• Google
• Worldwide Phone Directory
• Worldwide Maps
• millions of online Recipes, while you shop at the grocery
• etc...

No? You think that whole thing in the late 80's, the "oh my god, computers are ACTUALLY USEFUL for a lot of things, but ONLY IF YOU CONNECT THEM TO A NETWORK" thing that spread like wildfire among teenagers and grandparents alike, all that was overblown?

Re:Nokia's day has gone...

[amacedo]

Then you won't be interested in any mobile phone in the future, since that's were the whole industry is clearly headed.
Saying you don't need a phone to be a PDA/Browser etc. is like saying that you don't need a computer to be more than just an electronic type writer.

Just my 2 cents.

Re:Nokia's day has gone...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. I still prefer using my phone, well, as a phone. I also dont like paying companies for the development costs of their new flashy products, not when they're totally insane prices. I prefer a plain, old model, cheap as well.

Re:Nokia's day has gone...

[frostman]

I absolutely love my Nokia 3310, but it's "just" a phone of course.

Most of my friends doing the Smart Phone thing have indeed opted for other brands lately (except for one guy who swears by Nokia and doesn't mind a little sidetalkin').

But now I'm working for a startup that wants its website to eventually be Smart Phone compatible, and so I've started looking into what I should have them get me.

And the new Nokias look very promising.

So - our Finnish friends have definitely heard the criticism, and I'm very curious how the new lineup is going to change things.

Competition is Good.

Re:Nokia's day has gone...

[squiggleslash]

I gave up on Nokia's phones when they built in that connectivity thing that allows you to talk to someone else with them. I mean, what's the point? Why would you want to be able to talk to anyone? What a pointless gimmick!

No, a phone should be a lump of plastic that fits in your pocket. Nothing more, nothing less.

Re:Nokia's day has gone...

[Anonymous Coward]

What I try to mean is, 99% of population is not like us

Mean or mean not; there is no try.

Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[Lispy]

Hmmm...I really wonder how Microsoft will respond to the recent movement in the browser market. Of course they are still market leaders on the desktop but have you ever used their stripped down version of IE on a PocketPC? It's just a joke!

I wonder where Microsoft will turn in the near future since all work on IE seems to be on hold up until Longhorn and their smartphones never really took off. If I were in their shoes I would start acting. I always considered Microsoft as a serious competitor but lately they haven't made any real progress and seem to fall behind in a lot of markets. Not that they will be gone anytime soon but I wonder if they really are asleep or if they are up to something big nobody has thought of yet. This silence is suspicious...

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm...I really wonder how Microsoft will respond to the recent movement in the browser market.

Microsoft: chhrrr...zzz...chhhhhrrr...zzz...chhhhh-huh(???) oh!... chhhrrr...zzzzzz...

(4. Profit!)

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[bhtooefr]

if they are up to something big

DRM?

IE seems to be on hold up until Longhorn

Wait until XP SP2, and you'll get a new IE. Pop-up blocking and download managing are the only new features, AFAICT, though.

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[ScrewMaster]

This silence is suspicious...

Calm before the storm, perhaps?

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[jtwJGuevara]

Wait until XP SP2, and you'll get a new IE. Pop-up blocking and download managing are the only new features, AFAICT, though.

That will be enough the please the masses. The only thing Aunt Tilley complains about really is "I can't stand those stupid popups!". IE users will revere Microsoft for installing popup blocking into the browser so they don't have to bother with inconsistent third party apps to do so without ever realizing there is was an alternative to begin with.

It's the truth, plain and simple.

And I apologize in advance for my Aunt Tilley reference :)

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait until XP SP2, and you'll get a new IE.

What, you mean there's a free upgrade on offer for Win2k users?

No? Then I guess I won't be getting a new IE after all...

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[Stevyn]

Let's say the storm is open source. Microsoft is that asshole who sits on his front porch claiming that this hurricane won't do any damage.

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[Ilgaz]

Wake up call? No :) Its like a Norwegian troll (real one) jumping on Bill Gates head for years and he is not waking up.

Speaking about Opera. The standard in Mobile :)

I feel sorry for the money he sunk in Mobile, no kidding. Oh if he was successful? I have a good example.

When Microsoft mobile was going fine and Symbian and Opera was taking first steps, we tried to login to Hotmail via Nokia phone (Sony uses MS Wap, Nokia uses OpenWave WAP)

'Sorry, you need to use Microsoft mobile browser (or similar) to login to hotmail". I AM NOT JOKING AT ALL!

It would be fine if I could take a photo of screen and keep it.

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[Anonymous Coward]

And considering that 99% of the supposed "popup blockers" out there are actually spyware that delivers ads, people feel that popup blocking doesn't actually work.

Once IE actaully has the ability to block popups from happening, people will feel it's God's gift to them. Now if they can stop the drive-by ActiveX install...

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[The Lynxpro]

"Hmmm...I really wonder how Microsoft will respond to the recent movement in the browser market. Of course they are still market leaders on the desktop but have you ever used their stripped down version of IE on a PocketPC? It's just a joke!"

I would seriously laugh if FireFox was ported to the PocketPC and SmartPhone platforms - and I'll laugh even harder if it already exists.

What I'm really surprised over is that there hasn't been any news about hacking FireFox onto a modded Xbox. Now that would be uber cool.

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"...have you ever used their stripped down version of IE on a PocketPC? It's just a joke!"

Have you ever used the full version of IE on a Windows box? It's just a joke, too!

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[FFFish]

I really wonder how Microsoft will respond to the recent movement in the browser market.

Microsoft failed to gain control of the Internet, so they've walked away from it.

They're far more focused on DRM now, and it looks like there's a chance they're actually going to take over that market. Gah.

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[mallardtheduck]

Well seeing as you can already run a full Linux distro on the XBox, i assume FF will run...

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[Pikhq]

Xbox Linux

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[bhtooefr]

Ahh... and THAT is how they get you to get XP...

Re:Hello? Microsoft, wake up call!!

[The Lynxpro]

"Well seeing as you can already run a full Linux distro on the XBox, i assume FF will run..."

I wasn't going that route. I meant as a native Xbox application. The Xbox's operating system is a modified version of Windows2000, afterall. FireFox would just need to get around the encryption problem. That's the angle I was going for...

Re:A: The one that runs, of course.

[bhtooefr]

Umm... if Opera can scale down their browser further than Mozilla can on the desktop, it probably means they can do the same on handhelds.

Re:Why not in firefox?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because firefox doesn't support small-screen rendering.

And Nokia products have....

Small screens!

Torn

[levell]

I've always liked Nokia phones but I wasn't going to get another one because of their stance (and their campaigning) on software patents but if they are investing in Mozilla - I'm really torn.

Re:Torn

[Halo1]

Also, Opera is a very active supporter of the fight against software patents in Europe and Mozilla isn't (probably not because they are in favour of software patents, but more likely since it's a US foundation instead of a European company like Opera that stands to lose a lot of money from the legalisation of software patents in Europe).

Re:Torn

[Anonymous Coward]

As an aside, if Mozilla decide to go with .NET/Mono CLR for the Mozilla 2.0 platform then I'd probably switch to Opera to avoid potential patent issues with the libraries.

Re:Torn

[Anonymous Coward]

Which patent issues!?! Have you looked at the .NET libraries and CLR? If not, follow the link below:

http://www.gnu.org/software/dotgnu/

Do you realy think GNU would publish libraries that have patent issues?

Again THERE ARE NO PATENT ISSUES IN THE FSF LIBRARIES. Furthermore VM's like the .NET allow you to write a browser that could fit in to 1M. The stripped down VM does not need any JIT.

For example there's a browser written in scheme that requires only a few 100KB!

Re:Torn

[gnu-generation-one]

"I've always liked Nokia phones but I wasn't going to get another one because of their stance (and their campaigning) on software patents but if they are investing in Mozilla - I'm really torn."

Don't be torn -- anyone who is campaigning for software patents so that they can patent the idea of displaying an image on a computer doesn't get any free sympathy just because they use open-source software.

Not the first time

[DrXym]

Nokia had a TV console some while ago based on Mozilla. There are probably engineers in their group who are familiar with it and know what it is capable of.

Re:Not the first time

[tka]

Which one and was it considered as good product by consumers?

Re:Not the first time

[DrXym]

It was a set top box called the Media Station or something like that. I don't know what I did, but I assume it sat in the front room and had Linux, Mozilla and other stuff running on it. I assume the product was canned even before it was launched, but it was an interesting concept nonetheless.

I suppose that whoever is pushing Mozilla in Nokia in the moment was at least aware of the earlier effort and possibly involved in it.

All in the Details.

[mikedaisey]

Without knowing the size of the investment and circumstances, this could be a non-story. I believe that the Mozilla Foundation is a 501(c)3 now, and as such corporations can donate to them for tax relief--that may be all that's happening here, with a sprinkling of business sense that it's important to keep browser alternatives alive.

Happy times ahead?

[kiowa]

I'm a bit thrilled over the fact that Nokia has invested in Mozilla. If this means that other companies out there also sees this as smart solution, to start backing up OSS-projects of potential, this could lead to an uprising in both OSS software as more software developers goes open source.

They had to sometime see the cost-benefit of having both volunteers and paid staff to handle their code-growth.

There's life beyond smartphones

[vesuri]

Even though Nokia is widely known as a mobile phone manufacturer they do have other products as well. Their plans to incorporate Mozilla into their DVB products (the Mediamaster product line) as the web browser component have been public for a couple of years now.

Re:FUCK IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

No no, you've got it all wrong. It's "Girls are like Internet domain names, the ones I like go for $9.95."

GoDaddy.com has them cheaper. I guess PimpDaddy.com was already taken.

7.60 will definitely happen

[Anonymous Coward]

7.51 won't be the last version of Opera by any means - there's a major piece of functionality that it lacks and according to Opera's support team this will arrive in 7.60. I'm referring, of course, to GMail:

Thanks for your concern and your support. We have been working with Google on this and it looks like we have a fix that will be released in Opera v 7.60. Please look for this and thanks again for your support.

heise.de confirmed this yesterday

[mksolutions]

as you can see heise.de which is very reliable posted this story yesterday.

Nokia wants to use Minimo in their smartphones.

Re:heise.de confirmed this yesterday

[hkmwbz]

Nokia wants to keep different options open. They have Opera, which they will continue to work with, they have their own browser, and they have Minimo. It's a business move. They aren't putting all their cards on one horse.

It's not like Minimo will be the only browser used. After all, Opera is considerably smaller and faster.

Re:FUCK IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a bath and wear some deodorant, you filthy European hippie!

You must be new here

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would this be a crises?

You must be new here.

Opera is not shipped with all Nokia smartphones

[Piic]

...unless that's new. Opera didn't come with my 3650 phone.

You have to buy Opera for a Symbian OS phone like mine (Series 60) but it is very nice. It's one of the best browsers available that I have seen.

I would have been MUCH happier if there was something loaded in the thing when I got it... which may be the thoughts Nokia is having. If they included a sweet little browser based on Firefox, it would really round out the apps in the phones of this class... actually, I think it was a mistake not to include a decent browser in the thing in the first place.

Re:Opera is not shipped with all Nokia smartphones

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you manage to buy a product which is already free? (Opera do a free version for Sony Ericsson Symbian phones too).

Nokia's strategy

[The Lynxpro]

Nokia is simply keeping its options open for its phones. They didn't want to back just one browser (Opera) only to possibly see it be run out of business and then Nokia would've been left with no viable option. Strengthening Mozilla helps them not only on the phone platform but it also aggrivates Microsoft in its home industry. Smart move, Nokia. Now work on getting the radiation levels lowered on your products...

Re:Nokia's strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but if Nokia was 100% sure it would always stay with Opera, it might still be worthwhile to donate a little cash to Mozilla. Why? The more Mozilla succeeds, the more the less we are in a world where IE totally dominates. If important sites become IE-only, then they won't work well on Opera and therefore won't work well on Nokia phones, right?

They have woken up and ..

[Anonymous Coward]

reinstated the Internet Explorer team:
Look! Posted anonymous cause I don't need the Karma.

Re:They have woken up and ..

[Lispy]

Hehe. Yesterday when I clicked on the link and read "Return of the xxx" in my tabwindow I didn't further follow it since I was pretty sure it would be some sort of XXX site. It didn't help that you posted it anonymously. Now I just read it on the frontpage. Darn! They really know when something gets smelly.

WTF?

[Ira Sponsible]

I was just on the Google News tech page and clicked on this story and it brought me back to /. where I saw it in mentioned in the first place? I smell a recursive duplicate article coming soon....

Ira Sponsible reports.. Google news has an article reporting that Nokia has invested in Mozilla...

It's the mem footprint, not download/binary size

[ultrabot]

Firefox is 4.7 MB (actually with the latest nightlies, there was yet another size decease to 4.4 MB) and Opera is 3.4 MB.

Inspired by this article, I just downloaded Opera for my #2 computer (Debian Sid, w/ 96MB of RAM, somewhat taxed already by other services). The overall experience is quite a bit snappier than with Firefox 0.8. Firefox seems to choke on memory quite a bit more than Opera, even when I have image display enabled on Opera, and disabled on firefox. The playing fields is level in the sense that I'm running Ion3 display manager (which rocks BTW, all resource-starved should check it out ASAP!).

The memory footprints as reported by 'top' don't appear all that different - both have 20MB resident (firefox a bit more), Opera has 22MB shared and Firefox has 29MB (well, that's 8MB difference).

OTOH, on my main machine with abundant ram and other resource, I would never use a non-OSS browser. There it's Firefox all the way.

bash.org quotes

[mnemonic_]

Is anyone else sick of these bash.org quotes?

Re:Why not in firefox?

[PeterPumpkin]

Try this on for size ;)

Load the extension, turn it on, make the FF window small so it fits the window. Looks like with a few chrome tweaks its ready to rock.

Companies like Nokia spread investments

[gupg]

Companies like Nokia, Intel etc have a fairly independent investment (or venture capital) fund that makes investments in a very broad portfolio of companies. They spread their bets so that whichever horse wins, they win. Its called the spray and pray strategy. As a result, they will frequently make competing investments.

The interesting thing is that just because they invest in a company does not mean that the business units interact with those startups.

Re:Companies like Nokia spread investments

[ultrabot]

Companies like Nokia, Intel etc have a fairly independent investment (or venture capital) fund that makes investments in a very broad portfolio of companies.

Mozilla can't be an "investment" in the sense you are talking about, because they are not-for-profit.

Essentially they are giving money to get some development work done. That's an ethical investment if there ever was one!

Re:Companies like Nokia spread investments

[gupg]

oh - it very much is an investment. Nokia is in the business of selling phones - any software that helps them send more cell phones is useful to them - so any money they put into such software -- even if it is open source -- is an investment as far as they see it.

Re:FUCK IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a bath and wear some deodorant
You shouldn't give such advice without first trying it yourself.

This makes sense

[jsebrech]

This does make sense to me:

- no licensing costs (fixed costs like this investment you can make up for in volume, but per product licensing costs are a constant drag on profit)
- no need to wait for a port from the browser maker, you can do it yourself, or have the user community do it for you (very few phones have opera ports currently)
- tied into that, user community assistance in general browser development
- the pda opera is not a full browser, minimo is (by full I mean complete css, dom and js support)
- open source (though from a corporate pov this is a tiny benefit)
- better/easier customization than a proprietary product could hope to deliver
- minimo picks up improvements to the mozilla trunk automatically, opera's ports need actual porting effort for updated features (afaik)
- and in the future: possibility of running xul apps remotely on the phone, making developing/offering/selling new features for old phones a doable proposition

Ofcourse, maybe nokia just wants competition in the pda browser market, and opera's steadily climbing marketshare worries them.

Re:This makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

- the pda opera is not a full browser, minimo is (by full I mean complete css, dom and js support)
ehh.. You're wrong! Opera's mobile browser is a full-featured browser with CSS, DOM and JS. No other mobile browser has the same level of standard support. I test mobile browsers as a part of my job, and Opera is far better than Minimo.

MS does not need browser at all !

[killmister]

MS policy is a fat desktop. Web software can be run anywere and on Linux which is what MS is totally not interested in. Therefore we don't see much changes in MS Exploder. The time will tell us if Bill&Ballmer have chosen the right strategy... Sadly there guys have enough cash to play with it for a long time.

Opera is doomed in the long run

[Sunnan]

Everyone benefits from a free embeddable browser being available. It only makes sense for hardware makers to invest in this. Mozilla is currently somewhat far from that goal, footprint wise (I guess that's where the name Mozilla came from!) but sooner or later, some free browser (maybe Mozilla-based, maybe KHTML-based, maybe something else) will be there to topple Opera's throne.

(Afraid this'll get modded "Duh, redundant" but didn't see something like it posted, so I hope it'll be fine.)

Re:Opera is doomed in the long run

[hkmwbz]

You aren't getting modded up, thankfully, because you are jumping to conclusions and forgetting that Opera is under active development. Even if something is free as in beer to begin with, it takes time and money to do something sensible with it. Mozilla will never be as small and fast as Opera, obviusly. Opera was written from the ground up with size and speed in mind. Mozilla is a development platform.

So Opera will continue to be smaller and more efficient, even in the future, and on embedded devices, this does matter, a lot. And it might even be cheaper to buy a product from Opera than implementing it yourself with something like Mozilla.

The point here is that this is nothing but competition. It is expected, and it's not a disaster for Opera. There are still plenty of reasons to choose Opera. Remember, it's building itself a strong brand name. And people do pay for strong brands.

Re:Opera is doomed in the long run

[t_allardyce]

I still use Opera over Firefox because because im used to it but i can see Firefox definately taking over soon. Mostly because its free and open and just as good as Opera. Opera might be smaller but the general trend in computing is bloat-ware, just looking at my windows (argh) pocketpc, its a couple years old now but it comes packed full of useless rom-wasting things - like an AOL install tool that you would only use once if that. As the power and memory of these devices goes up and it is going up very quickly, size and efficiency goes out the door and costs take over! I would rather have small tightly written programs but in the end thats how it goes: 20-30 years ago things like java and GUI's would be laughed at for being stupidly wasteful - even Opera would be considered a bloated snail, but now PC hardware has reached the spot were no-one cares if your flashy menus eat up resources "its just 1%" - just like no-one cares if their cars eat a gallon to go 15 miles - its just abit of cheap liquid!

Re:Opera is doomed in the long run

[hkmwbz]

Firefox is a different philosophy: Let the user figure everything out and wade through hundreds of extensions. Opera is convenience - everything right there when you install it.

Firefox won't "take over", because that would mean killing Opera, and that won't happen, as long as people like me prefer things to work out of the box instead of having to mess around with buggy extensions to get things done.

Re:Opera is doomed in the long run

[Sunnan]

I'm not saying that whatever free browser replaces Opera will necessarily be based on Moz. Just that one will eventually emerge because everyone would win out that way.

Re:Opera is doomed in the long run

[hkmwbz]

"I'm not saying that whatever free browser replaces Opera will necessarily be based on Moz. Just that one will eventually emerge because everyone would win out that way."

One will eventually emerge? And how does this mean that Opera is "doomed"? In case you didn't notice, closed-source software is alive and well, and won't go away any time soon. Maybe if all closed-source companies die, Opera will die or go open-source too, but we are talking about a company which has been around for nearly ten years. Opera is not going to lose to some lame hobbyist open-source browser.

Re:Opera is doomed in the long run

[Sunnan]

We're also talking about a market niche (web browsers) that's in very high demand; this is an area where a commodity solution makes even more sense than usual.

Hardware makers investing in free browser technology definitely makes sense at this time point. Maybe it'll take another ten years for Opera to go away (or shift its business model) but I can't currently see a sustainable developement in it's longterm future.

I'm not suggesting that Opera voluntarily roll over and die - far be it from me that I'd give "market advice" to a non-free software company - what I'm saying is that a free browser makes sense, and is beneficial, to a lot of individuals and groups.

Re:It's the mem footprint, not download/binary siz

[geeber]

Interesting comparison, but to really level the playing field, seems you should do the same thing with Firefox 0.9. It definitely seems much lighter and snappier than version 0.8 in my experience so far.

Errors in your logic - please get informed.

[hkmwbz]

I'm sorry, but your arguments are flawed, and so is your logic.

Do you really think Firefox is popular because it's bundled with an OS hardly any end-users use?

Also, Opera is not available for only one Nokia phone. It's available for Symbian Series 60 phones, and there are more than one Nokia phone based on that, as well as phones by other manufacturers.

Your list of "bundles and browsers" is basically seriously flawed, and your entire post falls apart. Firefox does not rely on eComStation to survive, and Opera does not rely only on Nokia.

So 7.51 being one of the last Opera versions unless it gets on eComStation(!) is pure nonsense and wishful thinking on your part. Why would Opera go away when its user base is growing and they are making more and more money?

Your post sounds a lot like a karma whorish post with some vague points that make sense unless you know a lot about this, in which case, it just sounds like nonsense.

Unfortunately, you managed to fool a few moderators...

Re:Errors in your logic - please get informed.

[bhtooefr]

OK, have those mod points removed. I've got near 50 anyway.

I'm just thinking that mobile is where Opera's got their biggest market, and it just got ripped away from them.

I'm not saying that eCS and Zeta are the ONLY things that'll make it survive, but that many more users will help. Also, I know it's AVAILABLE for almost every Symbian phone, but it's not bundled with many (I found out it is more than one, though).

BTW, don't take this as an anti-Opera flame or a pro-OS/2 flame - I'm running 7.51, and my main box runs Mandrake 10.

Re:Errors in your logic - please get informed.

[hkmwbz]

How did Opera's market get ripped away from them?

In case you didn't notice, Minimo is far from ready for production use, and Opera's far below the projected minimum requirements for Minimo (which Minimo might be able to do some time in the future).

And Nokia is not Opera's biggest market. It is not the only mobile vendor out there!

It happens to be quite big in Europe, but its market share is falling rapidly, and Asia is a huge market as well, where Nokia is not currently very strong in. And of course, there's the US. And Opera/Nokia has stated that, Opera will continue to work closely with Nokia, and Nokia's donations to Mozilla has been known for a long time anyway.

Why the press is blowing this up now is beyond me. It is not exactly news.

And of course: This doesn't mean that Nokia will ditch other projects at all! They are working on their own browser in addition to working closely with Opera, and contributing with funding to Minimo. They are covering all their bases. If you think they are going to go only for Minimo, then you are rather naive. Why would they even bother to work on their own internal browser then? (A browser which, by the way, is already included on their current line of phones.)

And again, Minimo is far from ready for production use. Opera is, and its usage is increasing rapidly.

You are also forgetting that Opera is already becoming a household name on mobiles, which means that it is turning into a well known and popular brand. Nokia recently ran ads bragging about how they had Opera on their phones!

And with a household name comes more publicity. Opera has money to spend on advertising and aggressive marketing. Mozilla is an organization, and does not have that kind of monetary power.

Opera currently provides a superior alternative from a technological stand point, and with this they can build a strong brand name, and thereby build trust and consumer demand.

But seriously, your comment about Opera's biggest market (Nokia is not their biggest market) just getting "ripped away from them" just shows that you don't know what you are talking about.

Oh yeah, and Opera on the desktop is actually more widely used than Firefox in Europe - at least in Eastern European countries such as Poland and Russia. Huge, untapped markets. Firefox might be more widely used in the US, but then again, Mozilla is primarily a US organization.

And finally, ditch the silly eCS line of arguments. What matters here is not that you are bundled with some obscure operating system, but that there is demand for an alternative, and there is. Linux users usually get lots of different browsers with their distribution, yet many of them download Opera!

Please dude, at least get informed before you make silly comments like the above, OK? :)

Re:Errors in your logic - please get informed.

[bhtooefr]

You are also forgetting that Opera is already becoming a household name on mobiles, which means that it is turning into a well known and popular brand. Nokia recently ran ads bragging about how they had Opera on their phones!

Where is this, though? I haven't seen any of this in the US, but over here you buy a phone from the provider, and it is locked onto that provider forever. Also, they don't WANT you using their wireless web services - Sprint, for example, charges more for Vision service on a Pocket PC phone, which comes with a more full-featured browser (I know it's crap, but it's got more features than a WAP browser). Also, how did they get to be a household name in the US? If it's because of being bundled with phones, then not being bundled with phones made by the company that controls Symbian, their only phone platform (Linux phones aren't exactly common), can screw them over.

Oh yeah, and Opera on the desktop is actually more widely used than Firefox in Europe - at least in Eastern European countries such as Poland and Russia. Huge, untapped markets.

Where are you getting these statistics?

What matters here is not that you are bundled with some obscure operating system, but that there is demand for an alternative, and there is. Linux users usually get lots of different browsers with their distribution, yet many of them download Opera!

Myself included. However, why is there ~90% usage of IE 6, according to the May 2004 Zeitgeist? It's not like IE is a good browser, after all. There's only room for 10% more, and the Zeitgeist shows Moz at about 3%, and "Other", of which Opera is only a part of, at about 4%.

Re:Errors in your logic - please get informed.

[hkmwbz]

"Where is this, though?"

Recently, a new phone featuring an Opera button was made available in Japan. Hundreds of people waited in line for hours to get their hands on one.

"Where are you getting these statistics?"

From various statistics sites. Example from Poland.

"However, why is there ~90% usage of IE 6"

Because IE is bundled with Windows. Other bundles are unlikely to matter, because only Windows relies on user ignorance to keep its market share. Someone who chooses an alternative OS is likely to already know about various alternative browsers as well, considering how extremely important a browser is when you want to get on the Internet.

Also note that Google is a US site. As I said, Opera seems to have a higher market share outside the US.

Nokia funding opensource because they are decent?

[hkmwbz]

It comes as no suprise since Nokia's strategy has clearly been one of standardization.

And what better way to standardized than to support an open source project?"

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Nokia's partnership with Opera continues, and they are working on their own browser in addition to this. This is not about standardization or kindness of heart. It's about covering all bases, to have something to fall back on.

zoom

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera offers zooming of web pages including pictures, very good for large screens. I use Opera exclusively at 150% zoom on my SGI 1600SW monitor.

Code bloat arguments for idiots by idiots

[Ars-Fartsica]

Why stop at Opera? Run lynx! Dillo! Hell, I scoff at any browser over 1MB!

Mozilla is not bloated code - everything in there does something. Bloat refers to useless code.

Re:Code bloat arguments for idiots by idiots

[scrytch]

> Why stop at Opera? Run lynx! Dillo! Hell, I scoff at any browser over 1MB!

Dillo was heinously crashy for me. links (not lynx) is now a graphical browser, and it's actually very damn pretty -- only *nix browser where the fonts don't look like ass out of the box. Out of the box is important, since most people won't or can't change it.

Doesn't do cookies tho, so it was unusable for the web app I was trying to use it for. Or slashdot logins for that matter.

Re:Code bloat arguments for idiots by idiots

[ZzzzSleep]

Quoth scrytch

Dillo was heinously crashy for me

When was the last time you used dillo though? I've been running v0.8.0 for the last couple of months and haven't had any problems. Of course my box has a whopping 64mb of RAM, so things aren't always speedy...

Re:Code bloat arguments and one idiot oposing

[rasz]

As a matter of a fact i run Dillo AND Opera, I even run Links on the console (cheap routers maintance) and on the X.
How does THAT look for you ? This IS a small footprint browser, no bloat, no dependency lists longer than my penis.

Hell, I used to run ARACHNE on my DOS thin client back in the days. Now it looks like an abandoned project :(.

btw links-hacked

[rasz]

some feauteres :

• Tabbed browsing - you may use tabs either in graphical or even in text mode.
• Lua scripting - ported from Links-Lua, not from current ELinks code, but the differences are not so sensitive, I hope.
• HTTP Auth - stable, ported from Elinks
• HTTP Proxy Auth - ported from Elinks, need to be checked.
• Blocking of selected images - my own code ;-). You may block images containing given substring (of course, it is better to use regexps, but this way is more portable). Just press '-' to edit the list of blocked patterns.
• Cookies saving - ported from ELinks, now our HTTP-header date parsing is correct, I hope.
• New options system - inspired by ELinks one, but much more uglier currently ;-)) Only a few options are implemented through it. Press 'Ctrl+o' to call options manager.
• Possibility to open new windows instead of new links instances in graphics mode - new socket is created with name 'glinks' in links dir, instead of 'links' for text instances, so they can work independently. After that command 'links -g' works like 'mozilla -remote', simply opening new instances from currently running one. But it has some limitations - these new windows will open on the same display as original one...
• Url copying - some code from Ludvik Tezar' patch, but the backend is organized more cleanly - there are two additional fields in struct graphics_driver - put_to_clipboard and get_from_clipboard. Only X11 backend is functional now, as I don't use others ;-)
• Full-text selection - Now we have nearly complete full-text selection - you may select any part of rendered text (except form controls) and copy it to clipboard. Clipboard charset is configurable through new options system (Ctrl+'o').
• Simple printing - It is VERY simple - we make PDF file (throung pdflib) with text only (just a rectangles instead of images), and with PDF internal fonts only (don't even try to print non-latin-1 texts!!!) - but we have more-or-less correct layout and page breakings. Press 'P', and it will ask you for filename to print to.
• Forward history - really, single history list, you can move backward and forward through it
• Extended and configurable 'toolbar' - there are currently Back, History, Forward, Reload, Bookmarks, Home and Stop buttons. 'Configurability' means that you can change each button look (they use pixmaps from special internal system-medium-serif-vari font you can find in graphics/font dir) and even turn it on or off.
• Configurable 'mini-status' - some useful info in lower right corner of your window to show how many connections now in 'running' or 'connecting' state are, and also SSL, Content-Encoding and Images flags.
• Some small but useful improvements - support for "small" and "big" tags, keybinding ("i") to turn on/off images, possibility to show HTTP header ("|", as in Elinks), support for compressed content (Content-Encoding and gzipped local files), configurable support for Accept-Charset and Accept-Language.
• Modularized font subsystem - currently builtin fonts and Unicode TrueType (through freetype backend) may be used. Font manager is available (Ctrl+'i') for adding/deleting external (only freetype yet) fonts. External fonts have the same way into the code - so they are antialiased as good as builtin ;-)
• Dialogs shadows and borders - Just shadows ;-))

From links-hacked site.
Can you spell BLOAT ? I know you want to, c'mon, dont be shy, Lets say it togethet, Mozilla is a BLOATHOG !

Re:FUCK IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't be a problem, the .us domain doesn't seem to be to too popular, so it should be cheap... I'm mean she'll be cheap...

Re:FUCK IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

A number of years ago, a friend of mine went to England. While looking at one of those travel guides, there was a cooment about Americans being compulsive about cleanliness, they bathe or shower daily. Is this a common attitude there? I know if I don't shower daily, I feel disgusting.

Isn't this old?

[Anonymous Coward]

I seem to remember Nokia funding some work to make Mozilla ATVEF compliant a few years back when they were first contemplating the set top box market. I'm not sure what came of it (nothing I presume) but I remember them throwing like $100k at it or something like that.

A thought

[Anonymous Coward]

If they reduce the footprint of Mozilla/FireFox/whatever wnough to run on an average smart phone, this means that we will also have a current open-source browser that runs on a 486 and supports modern standards like DOM (JavaScript, etc.), CSS, XML, and what not.

Currently, the only browser for an old 486 that supports modern sites (Read: Lets you read Yahoo or Hotmail email) is Netscape Navigator 4, and more and more webmasters are no longer coding for this dinosaur.

A shock to Opera?!

[zanderredux]

Why should be it a shock to Opera? Why do people assume that Nokia should invest in Opera just because they're from the same country?

Worldwide economics are way past that reasoning. Editors should take a course in contemporary economics...

Re:A shock to Opera?!

[Xuri]

Ehm. They're not from the same country. Nokia is from Finland, Opera is from Norway. Now, while both Norway and Finland are part of "Scandinavia", to suggest it's the same country is stretching it a bit far.

Re:A shock to Opera?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Opera was stationed in Norway. Nokia is certainly Finish, and despite both being Scandanavian their not the same nation.

Re:FUCK IT!

[Alexis de Torquemada]

Sorry, I just have to think of this joke right now.

Re:It's the mem footprint, not download/binary siz

[Anonymous Coward]

RAM memory is there for using! I would be pretty upset if Opera didnt use the resources on my computer.

Did you play around with the memory cache setting in the preference if Opera? By default it is set to Automatic. My guess it that means that it uses whatever the resources it can take from the system, to optimize performance. The big question is - how low can it go. Does anyone know how much memory is available on for example a Nokia 3650. I imagine it is not much...

Upgrading IE isn't all too hard.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just add some ms branding to firefox 0.9, and hey presto!

getting moz on phones

[Anonymous Coward]

this is exciting news. Yes, I am truly grateful for Opera's standards compliance, it's support for many operating systems and languages. But we're talking about the future of the web here and there's a big risk that Microsoft will take it over completely unless it faces a united front. Getting mozilla on millions of smartphones will persuade websites to design for mozilla. Ironically for Nokia this also means a greater chance for mozilla to be on palmos and ppc smartphones because it's opensource. but it's in the best interest of nokia to have one platform vs MS