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Opera Facing Losses While Firefox Usage Grows
An anonymous reader submits "Opera, the sometimes forgotten #3 web browser, reported a third quarter loss that tripled that of last year's third quarter despite a seven-fold increase in revenue. Opera is blaming a weaker dollar for the losses, and say they're spending money on marketing and new ventures like teaming with IBM to use their ViaVoice technology. Opera's future seems uncertain as Firefox's growing popularity may hurt Opera by stealing potential customers. With Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari all free, is there room for a non-free browser in the market?"
I have been a computer technician for years, and I have never ever seen a computer with the opera browser myself. Most people still use internet explorer, the more security aware windows user will tend to use firefox, but opera is nearly unknown.
I don't think anybody has any reason to pay for some unknown web browser, unless it has some amazing features.
With Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari all free, is there room for a non-free browser in the market
Rivers, lakes and rain are all free. Bottled water is a $5 billion industry.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Well, if you were Google, wouldn't you also help out everything that might decrease IE's userbase? I mean, MSN is the default search engine for IE, but Google is the default search engine for Firefox. For all those people out there that think that the URL bar is a search bar, then helping them migrate to Firefox wll surely help them protect their corner of the market.
Open Source Sushi
Don't forget that Opera have been living in this niche for the last ten years. Opera has been a paid alternative to free browsers ever since the mid 90s, and now they're stronger than they've ever been.
Like releasing an IE-only version of their toolbar, and having their desktop search tool refuse to search any browser cache that isn't IE.. is that how they're decreasing IE's userbase?
Uniformed: "It didn't support CSS properly"
CSS support is excellent. Here's there spec sheet:
http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/
Feel free to compare that with Firefox and report back to us.
6 one way: "plugins were a hassle"
What plugins are you referring to exactly? You want a hassle? Trying to get a uniform experience out of Firefox. Firefox has let 'extensions' go too far, letting several things that should be in the core application,and UI tested, be thrown to the dogs. You can let extensions change the behavior if you want, but don't make the user jump through hoops on every freaking install.
Let's take the issue of 'tabbed browsing'. Opera brought it to the browser, and it's evolved naturally. It looked like Firefox was going to follow suit, but somehow completely lost sight of what makes it work. I install Firefox at work. Tabs (MDI) is logical. But there is no built-in contsruct to save the tabs as groups (or god-forbid in the unlikely event Firefox crashes the state of the tabs be automatically saved -- standard behavior in Opera). That's an important thing when you allow a user to interact with dozens of information sources under one instance of an application. So now I need an extension. I go trudging off and nothing exists for Firefox 1.0 that seems to fit this bill. Advantage, Opera. But I can live with that... but what about re-arranging tabs? Same problem. I need an extension. Can't find one. P.S: Mozdev? How about a 'Search' button?
NOTE: *I* know these extensions exist, but are they actually compatible from 0.9? And what about those people who don't know they exist? And what about those extensions that actually overlap (and hence, contradict) features?
And finally, let's say I somehow get Firefox behaving logically with respect to tabs and I'm happy. Until I sit down at my co-workers machine and he's got completely different extensions doing similar, but ultimately confusing things.
Sometimes, it's worth a few dollars to have someone else just get it right. Yeah, that's an opinion. Everyone's got one.
- New versions are no-cost downloads for supported versions of Windows.
- IE is also a no-cost download for MacOS
- All browsers are affected by various security issues. Need I remind you that the current version of Mozilla is 1.7. 3 ? This is solely due to security issues.
- The money-delta between using Mozilla on Windows and IE on Windows is $0.00. It's free enough for the purposes of this discussion.
Stop karma whoring.I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
and you are forgetting one thing. I dare anyone to show me an embedded version of any of those browsers.
I can get Opera in 120K for embedded uses. there is no embedded IE that is worth a damn, and the Gecko engine is not designed for embedded uses.
Opera is cleaning up in the embedded market, I see it in many tiny net enabled places almost every day.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And they say: The primary focus of Minimo to date has been system with ~32-64 MB of RAM, running Linux and using the GTK toolkit.
Not to belittle their efforts, but 32-64MB of RAM is more than your average palm top device, and GTK is a memory hog. Something that fits in 2-4MB RAM is more like what a portable device needs.
Still, it's a good start.
Oh, I suppose when we pay for Windows, we are only paying for the kernel....the Windows Control Panel, the file manager, Outlook Express, the Start Menu, the Explorer Shell and the Add/Remove Programs list are all free right?
I suppose when you buy a car, you are only paying for the engine too right? The pedals, steering wheel, transmission and all the other stuff that makes it work (face it, MS has enbedded IE so far into the OS it "makes Windows work") are all free, right?
Also, read the IE liscense agreement, it is most definately not free, you just assume it is, because you are a pirate (not that I haven't done it too, but at least I admit it). Does this sound stupid to you?
"I got a free car! All I had to do was steal it. But it was still completely free!"
Because that is essentially what you are doing.
Please grow a brain before placing your opinions which I will group in the same category as my trash and try not to clutter the internet even more.