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Opera Offers Free Licenses For Educational Use
Opera Watch writes "Opera Software today announced that it would offer free licenses to higher education institutions. This is a change from the previous cost of $1000 (US) for unlimited licenses. It remains to be seen, however, whether Opera will allow schools to give standard Opera licenses to students to use on personal computers/laptops within campus at no additional cost, that came with the $1000 license fee. This comes after a respected university advised its students not to use Internet Explorer, for its lack of security. Opera Software said they are doing so in an effort to meet the student and university need for security on the Internet."
GNU defines free software:
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0)
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2)
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this
The only sticky part is the licensing of free software - total freedom would allow me to fork the source for profit yet that would then restrict the freedom of others in using said free software thus making the software not free anymore. So to remain free I cant do certain things to software restricting my own freedom.
As for Opera thanks but no thanks I have the desire to keep using as much really free software as possible promoting further development.
Great, now I won't have to pay for FireFox. Oh wait, nevermind....
I think it's funny that the developers are now going to beat IE with the same tactic that MS used to get market share for IE... free browser.
;)
Of course this one it a bit more secure.
Here I come to save the da... *thud*
I gotta get me a shorter cape.
not a bad idea. A lot of people will learn the value of a safe browser AND will realise there are more (better?) alternatives than just firefox/mozilla
... since all the competitor's products are free anyway. Besides, even Microsoft is offering free licenses for students just to get them hooked at Microsoft products because they know those students wouldn't pay anyway...
And ofcourse, this is great publicity... :)
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
"If it's free, but not open source, you've got a reason to be suspicious"
I really thought Firefox was perfect after switching from IE sometime ago around the mid-Firebird stage. Loved it and with addons such as Gmail Inbox in the taskbar and Adblock it's obviously great, but it still has some major stability issues. Regardless of OS or computer I've used it on sometimes it'll just crash for no reason (kinda like gaim) and it's simply annoying when you have 10 tabs open and have to go to each again.
At very least it should remember the tabs you had opened (is there an extension for this?) while they get their shit together, I'm thinking of giving Opera another serious go, as long as it's more stable then it can easily win me over, I don't mind seeing the ad and if it's good I'll pay for it, I just want a browser I can *trust*.
firefox is good and great and being free etc. Opera is still _much_ faster at browsing, remembers tab positions (when closing tabs it goes back to the previously clicked tab) unlike firefox.
I browse with both opera and ff.
Opera does everything i want without me having to find extensions
Firefox doesnt
though im probably in the small minority that doesnt even notice the add in the top right at all unless i specificaly look at it
They must feel the pressure of Firefox...
They should have made the program free for everyone and look elsewhere for sources of income. Firefox is gaining market share at a steady pace and if Opera doesn't act now, they'll be out of the game.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Actully, what does Firefox do better than Opera? Yeah, ads or paying for software is not as nice as free, speech or beer, but what makes you think Firefox is better? As far as I can tell, all Firefox does is implement the good ideas that Opera develops. So why not reward the guys for their good work?
Why not all education? I looked on their site, but it appears that educational sites, while getting a discount, do not qualify for a free, no-adware version?
Guess it doesn't matter much.. the sites I admin are using Firefox and will continue to do so.
Its just an opinion, but why bother with opera when you have firefox? So you are suggesting that FireFox should have a monopoly instead of IE? Opera is a fine browser, and there are many other good browsers as well. Why does it matter what browser someone uses? (as long as it isn't IE)
Earn a free iRiver
In what way does firefox kick opera?
I've used both, have both installed (ff1, opera 5) and vastly prefer opera.
So sell me on firefox. What features does it have that I need? What do I need to change in order to make it faster than opera?
Serious question - I'd like to know what I can do to improve on Opera. Which, whilst a wonderful browser, does cost money and is beginning to show its age. (I don't have the upgrade to version 6 and I don't like the interface of 7)
Opera Software said they are doing so in an effort to meet the student and university need for security on the Internet.
Gerv
Now they have made some inroads in the embedded market, but it looks like the Mozilla team has their sites set on this as well. My prediction is the same will apply (why pay when you can get it for free), except the gap between Opera and Mozilla has closed significantly.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I just hope they don't end up with a similar fate....
I hate Opera for the zillion configuration menus. However, I use it for image-heavy (read: pr0n) pages that Firefox chokes on.
Are this free licenses available for any higher institution in the world?
I'll take the beer, please. ... oh, wait. you mean they weren't offering? Damn.
Why on earth should they do that? Opera costs them money to make and distribute, and I'm sure the investors would like to see some sort of return. If they were going to get out of the browser business it seems more likely they would try to sell to Apple, MS or AOL.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
There is an extension for that.
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
Couldn't have said it better myself brother. I would have expected the Opera folks to use the muzzy description "open" for their offering instead of the more controvercial (on this forum anyway) term "free". In Opera all I see is the whip hand of proprietary software. No thanks.
an ill wind that blows no good
As a homeschooler, I hate Operas ads, for Opera is a good persistant modem-unfreezer, and I get to see the speed. But ah, well, I like FF a lot more. Billy
I tend to agree, I never liked the way it rendered pages. Many pages that even Konqueror get's right look horrible in Opera. Their javascript compatibilty needs work too. I used to test pages using several browsers available to me on Mac, Linux and Windows. I stopped testing against opera because it always seemed to be the odd one. So I decided if the page renders correctly in FireFox,Safari, Konqueror,Camino and IE it gets published.
It's be best for Opera to allow schools to distribute it to their students. It's very possible that Universities may start forbidding IE usage, and if Opera's available to the students too, they may just get lifelong users. After all you get used to a program after 4+ years of use.
A little bit desperate maybe but a good move overall. Opera is a good browser but I'm not likely to pay money for it on my desktop. On my handheld however, I would be lost without it. Opera really shines in the embedded market and I suspect they make most of their money from this, if they don't now I'm sure that is the direction they are going. I wish them luck.
I plan to stick with firefox on my desktop for now but I bet my next phone/palm has Opera on it.
I don't think, Therefore I'm not.
Now I'm not saying Firefox isn't a terrific browser (because it is), but when someone suggests a browser that isn't IE or Firefox, why is there an uproar? You may think Honda (Firefox) makes the best vehicle, but does that mean Toyota (Opera) vehicles shouldn't be on the road?
Keeping with that analogy, the oil burning, cloud spewing, Gremlin with brakes that don't work (IE), *should* be off the road.
Earn a free iRiver
I've been using Opera since version 3.21 on my 486 with 4MB RAM. It was the best browser then, and still is! (IMHO, of course) Having all the windows within one window was a good idea, sicne it made it easier to group similar activities. The switchbar (ie the "tabs") appeared in v5 (IIRC) as a standard feature, but was available earlier as a plugin, Or simply in the "window" menu.
--
no sig for you. come back one year.
You are also forgetting that Opera has been around for years in an IE-dominated environment, so I don't see how a switch to a Firefox-dominated environment would by itself do any harm to their business.
The Farewell Tour II
Yeah sure here is my social security number and my bank account number. Have fun.
This is a much smarter way to get personal information than spy-ware.
Jeoin
I agree, however I don't want anyone forcing me to use Opera on my own system. If I have to use Opera or IE because that's what someone has and they don't want me installing Firefox, that's what I'll use.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, though I'm not yet sure about the universe. - A Einstein
I have downloaded and tried opera off and on over the last 4 years. The version I tried about 6 weeks ago was noticeably slower than firefox and have never had any tab issues with FF. Usually I don't have more than 2 or 3 tabs going at once. Thats probably why I have never had problems with it.
Also Opera will do some strange things with stretching graphics and page layouts, over all it does a better job of displaying a site more closely to what IE does.
I like Fire Fox better based on it's speed and size. Also being open source I've noticed secruity updates get posted faster, however I think that Opera is defintely good. Either is a good alternative to IE. It's kinda of like arguing Linux and BSD (EXECPT opera isn't opensource, just free with adds)...
BTW after the first 60-80 seconds I just tune the adds out. If FF started sell a small add window to fund development it would'nt bother me.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
why thank you, thats the sorta thing i was looking for althou ctrl+tab doesnt scroll through the tabs in the order that you browsed/opened them.
it's not a troll entirely.
.. i would have installed opera, now it's firefox.
in the university where i'm at.. i'm seeing more and more of the desktops have firefox on them, maybe even all.
previously if you wanted even half secure browsing on them you would use the ad-version of opera that seemed to be installed everywhere..
previously if i wanted a light browser that wouldn't get all the spyware in and that 'normal' people could use
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
So 'we' say Opera, FF etc are all secure and IE isn't. How true is this? I'm seriously asking, not trying to flame.
It seems to me that some are defining 'secure' as 'doesn't have the same security issues as IE'. IE is the biggest browser and obviously should be the target of a hackers energy, but is there anyway of putting a finger on the exploits that will come when Opera, FF etc are big enough to warrent hacker time?
Is there a way to evaluate this? It seems like simply something you have to wait and see. That the security is only available to the minority, by partial fact that it is the minority.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
Opera's game is PDAs, mobile phones and other small devices. A game where Firefox doesn't even have a real presence (Minimo's memory and storage footprint is huge compared to the embedded version of Opera).
Don't be sad though. You're not any more clueless about business than most slashdot users.
I'm surprised that they charged in the first place. Haven't they always offered free licenses to educational instititutes? I seem to remember that I got free licenses for website testing under the same programme.
I'd really like to see them get together with the Mozilla kids and either wholey integrate FF extensions into Opera or work out some system that would be cross-platform compatible. Firefox also has a much easier to use custom search engine setup than Opera.
The Farewell Tour II
If GM gave me the title to Corvette, it's free.
Just because I don't get the CAD files doesn't make it unfree.
I really don't care squat about what GNU says.
... but why anyone will choose Opera over Internet Explorer or Firefox?
If I don't want to use IE, I use Firefox, I don't see the point of a paid browser anymore.
ajf
I like Firefox, too. Firefox is an easier transition for IE users, since the interface is very similar, and on the whole it plays nicer with sites which are very IE-specific. Opera is very standards compliant, but doesn't try as hard to play nice with those who aren't.
Opera's multiple document interface is better, IMHO. It's also more featureful out of the box (I know firefox has a gazillion extensions available, many of them damn fine, but you have to go get them).
Opera has also (allegedly, I don't use it this way) taken substantial time to make it customizeable and manageable in an enterprise sense. I think it would be easier to roll out Opera to 150 machines than to roll out Firefox with the same capabilities (i.e. lots of extensions) to the same machines.
Firefox is truly FREE, Opera just doesn't have a cost for use, but for most users (the unwashed masses who care not at all about F/OSS) it doesn't matter.
Now, if Sunbird works out...
Another bunch of nuts are offering free licences to higher education institutions!
:P
Whoa!
Serously though, do browsers that one has to pay for have any real relevance in this day... or for that matter, do they have much of a future? I sincerely doubt it.
I used to be heavy Opera user. Now I'm exclusively FF user. Not 100% happy with both. You've heard about their selling points, here's what pisses _me_ off (BTW - I use either a dialup line or traffic limited b/b line. If you have a fat free pipe you may not care about this):
Opera:
1) No option to ban loading images from third party sites. (In FF it's "Load Images.. for originating sites only").
2) No option to "Block images from this site".
3) Some versions are more buggy than others. A bit of a checkered pattern.
4) I miss history for forms. I like when I can type a couple of letters on Google search and search again for that stuff in FF.
5) I dunno, v8 kinda fixes it but I can't help feeling that the rendered page feels somewhat watered down or something. Can't explain it better.
FF:
1) Image-less browsing is rudimentary and is a PITA. Please - can I have a button on taskbar to toggle - "show all images / show cached images / no images" like in Opera! Also - when I right click on an image to show it - feel free to show it inline. Also - don't ignore the (known) image size for image placeholders.
2) Since 1.0pr(?) this "You need a plugin" popup bar SO pisses me off! NO! I won't fucking install Flash!!! Shove your ads....
3) Back button is slow sometimes.
4) Tabbed browsing / MDI does not hold a candle to Opera. I tried TabBrowser Extensions but they help only so-so. And they are buggy.
5) It loses a cache all too often. With "modern" pages having hundreds of kb's of images it's an annoyance sometimes. Not to say that offline browsing suffers.
Both:
1) I _SO_ crave for an option to disable iframes "from other sites". Combined with image blocking it would've killed stupid ads dead.
2) Option to save a web page with images and CSS to a single MIME file is a killer feature (in MSIE, gah) when you need to have something after doing your web research. A matter of convenience of course but imagine that Linux kernel would've been distributed as a set of *.c.bz2 files.
Stereotypical-A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.
Prototypical-An original type, form, or instance serving as a basis or standard for later stages.
For personal preference I use Konqueror, but I have yet to see an opera-beating browser on windows, even with the ads.
I am trolling
I hate Opera for the zillion configuration menus.
Yes, Firefox is muuuuuch beter! (limit configuration that can be done in the browser to a few brain dead options and make the user edit a
No thank you.
One feature: Firefox tabs suck. Many sites use windows that are designed to be a differenet size than your mazimized browser, or sometimes you want to tile two or three pages to cross reference. Oh, and when popups get past firefox's blockers (Opera just has a 'no popups, period' setting) they don't just go to a tab, they start another instance of the application, cluttering the taskbar.
I'll think I'll take the google ads in the corner over having to deal with bad tabs and crappy gestures.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
As for Opera thanks but no thanks I have the desire to keep using as much really free software as possible promoting further development.
...but I use GNU/free software when it empowers me. Having GIMP empowers me to make a choice about buying Photoshop. But if you can't use software because it's not GNU/free, then you're not freed - you're enslaved to only use the software people are willing to give away for GNU/free.
I'm not going to force myself to use inferior software (not claiming that this is the case here) for no reason. To me, Opera delivers a better product. So other products are OSS. But if that can't deliver, does it matter? No. If you want to preach to anyone but the fanatics, you have to show that this leads to better qualities. Faster. More stable. More secure. More standards-compliant. Great extensions. More flexible.
If the can't argue price (or TCO), you can't argue features, if you can't argue quality, if all you have is that it is GNU/free, noone cares. RMS can preach all he wants. People don't use OSS software because it is OSS, they use it because it is better. Perhaps that's the OSS process, perhaps it's just a bunch of brillant people who could have done the same with a commercial product. But if you can't deliver, it's a dud either way.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
They said free, not GNU/Free. RMS doesn't get to arbitrarily change the definitions of words, and buying into that bullshit doesn't help anyone.
Firefox is 4.1MB, IIRC (NOT INCLUDING EXTENSIONS). Opera is 3.5-3.6 (depending on version) MB. Oh, and it's a suite, more like Seamonkey. No extensions needed, FWIW (now, I've pushed for an extension framework, but Opera doesn't NEED extensions to be powerful).
Well, I'll leave it to the Opera zealots to post lists of features, but i'll give only one reason.
It has the most responsive UI I have seen in a graphical program. It's the vi of browsers; tremendously powerful, yet small and nimble. And its a class apart on under-specced machines - Firefox doesnt even compare.
I have used the latest versions of firefox, Maxthon etc.. I'm not switching from Opera.
I have opera and gaim open constantly. They have both been running for over 4 months straight now, without a single crash ever. And I use them every single day, for a significant amount of the day. Maybe the fact that I am running a reliable OS has something to do with it though.
True, opera isn't as fast a ff, its much faster. But they are pretty much on par standards wise, with both having small issues here and there, being fixed/introduced all the time in minor version updates.
Is too. For example, Opera 7+ supports CSS3 Media Queries. Firefox doesn't. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.^-^
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Mod Parent Up and Win an "Open" IPod !!!!!!!!!1111
Every single developer here uses opera for development, then tests in IE and NS and works around any of the bugs in those browsers, then publishes. We don't even bother to test mozilla because it changes so often, and so many people are on so many different versions, you can have a site behave 5 different ways on 5 different mozilla versions. It sounds like you are writing code that takes advantage of an incorrect assumption in other browsers, and then complaining because opera did it right.
amen to that. Firefox without shitload of extensions (btw that gets broken now and then after Firefox gets updated) doesnt even stand close to Opera. with extensions its closer but not even :-P
:-)
Opera is very powerful browser for power users. iLoveIt
It's another sign of Opera's desktop browser shifting from being a flagship product to being a testbed for the mobile version. All the features that make the mobile version a great embedded browser were first trialled in the desktop version, from small screen rendering mode to smooth image zooming.
As another example, the Opera 8.0 Beta includes voice command and will read out sections of text for you - another technology that will be of much more use on a handheld device than in a desktop browser.
Has everybody on Slashdot lost all perspective on how much of the software out there gets made? Some guy in a basement somewhere, usually Norway or Denmark, starts coding up something. Other people respond to the idea, and encourage them. They polish it and release it as shareware, which people decry as buggy junk. They then get more people, polish it up as much as they can, and the public starts to respond. They get more funding, hire more people, and repeat until you have a nice little independent company owned by a coder with an idea and lots of work ethic.
The people work on the software full-time because they don't have to have a primary job. Working on the software is their job. And isn't that what most people want to do?
I see a ton posts here about "F*ck them, they should have made it Open Source and looked for other ways to make money." What would be the point of that? That's saying they should have given up on the browser and done something else. They're doing something nobody thought possible: Surviving selling an independent browser in a hotly contested market. They're an independent company taking on a behemoth on their terms and shaking things up in the process. Give up on the fanboyisms and get a little perspective on what they've done.
I hate to break your illusions, but a lot of the development effort (and all of the full-time coders) for the Mozilla / Firefox rendering effort has been funded by large non-free software corporations. GASP Oh the horrors!
I'm not saying that free software is good or bad or dead. But I am saying that the software ecosystem is a lot more complicated than the pundits here are making it out to be. Stop taking such a simplistic view of things, it makes it harder for me to convince people that the OSS movement isn't a bunch of raving loonies. I had to live with an Access database for several months last time that happened.
The ______ Agenda
I dont get what people mean when a browser is FASTER. Ive been a Opera user for 2 years now and unless my conception of time is off its surely not slow. Ive used just about most browsers out their being at different friends houses and the one thing Ive noticed with them all is a page loads up at just about the same speed regardless. Either its your connection, computer or the webpage most of the time, not the webbrowser. Now saying you wont pay for a browser is ones choice but I look at it like most good software I use. Ive paid for mIRC, All Seeing Eye, Opera and a few others, its just like when people donate to free software projects. If you like the app whats the gripe for supporting the people? Just in this case its a company but still the same principle. I just dont get the main complaints everyone always talks about when they mention webbrowsers, because out of all my years surfing the web a browser is a browser.
I use Opera as my main browser, but resort to Firefox a couple of times a
day when Opera can't handle something (it's either java or java-script...haven't
figured out which, but Opera can't handle it as well as Firefox).
The reason I use Opera is because I prefer the way Opera handles tabs and
mouse gestures (especially in combination). I've futzed around with Firefox
several times, but never got it to feel as comfortable as Opera does by
default.
In summary, I'm content to use a less technically capable browser because
the UI provides a better experience to me.
*sigh* back to work...
Because, frankly, Opera is better. If both Firefox and Opera were open source (or both closed source) then we wouldn't even be having this debate. 95 percent of Firefox's appeal over Opera is open source.
Well, gee, call me a fascist for using the better closed source product over the open source one.
Oh, and you don't have to look at the unobtrusive Google ads that Opera runs if you don't want to: all you have to do is shell out $20 to buy the thing. Yes, $20, which is less than the price of an average meal out.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
If not...I won't try.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
I don't currently have mod points so let me just say +1.
I don't get the whole FLOSS thing, to me the only benefit I see from it is that it is free. If a commercial company or hell, anyone gave me something for free that is similar in capibilities, I see it the same.
I even know some C++, but I certainly couldn't get into the code to do anything. Both are black boxes to me.
I agree with the idea that you are needlessly limiting yourself (severley as I see it) if you will only use FLOSS.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
Firefox is taking IE share. Opera is doing very nicely amongst those of us who don't mind paying for top quality products - Opera just works, and works well, Firefox works after various extensions are added. All the cool features in the 'fox were copied from Opera including tabbed browsing and mouse gestures.
They also are doing very well in the PDA/mobile phone browser market. They really don't need to look for new sources of income.
Opera is also easier to deploy in a corporate enviroment. What is easy on one machine, isn't quite so much fun when publishing to 1000...
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
BULLSHIT!
I love open source, use it, enjoy it, support it (take time out of busy day to report firefox bugs, and donated money) and I cheer RMS on and on....
But your little quote is bullshit. I think what they are doing is great. Free = don't pay $ so yes, it IS free.
If Mercedes gave you a car for free, but said "don't open the engine hood at all, otherwise drive the car as much as you want" would you turn the car down and say the car isn't free?
Free software does NOT have to come with enough rights that you can do what you want with the code. Is that ideal? Yes. Is that a better thing? Yes. But don't bash companies for giving things away for free like this, that's crazy.
You probrably also think IBM allowing open source programmers use 500+ patents is a bad thing, since it's less than %1 of their patent portfolio. WTF?!?! It's a start, and a great one, and when MS wants to patent FAT to lock everyone out, the IBM move is nothing short of fantastic.
Don't take pictures of RMS playing his flute in front of a butterfly picture too literal. The world does not work that way. There are levels of free, levels of good or bad, not everything is black and white. I see the move Opera is making as nothing short of fantastic.
Thanks for explaining what "free" (GNU/free) software is to us slashdotters. We would not have known had you not given such an insightful definition. Certainly we have not seen the same content over 1000 times on this site. Congratulations on your newfound karma, your preformatted first post with a little addendum tacked on to not be seen obviously offtopic sure has earned it.
-1 redunent
-1 offtopic
-1 karmawhore
-1 redunent
= +4 informative
Sometimes I wonder why I bother
Keep the number of tabs down, and you should be fine.
Yep, I never run more than 3 tabs open, and when I want more, I'll use multiple instances of Firefox instead. It never has crashed for me that way, and I've had a half-dozen or more instances going with two or three tabs open each, without nary a crash yet.
To those people who ask why to use this browser instead of Firefox:
A friend of mine, a hardcore linux fanatic, recently switched to Mac OS X for his office work. He realized, that he has too much work to do to fiddle with cryptic config files and bad usability. And on a Mac he gets his stuff done, that's what counts.
The same thing with Opera: It works out of the box, without the need to install extensions (unfortunately even without the possibility to do so). Opera to Firefox is quite like vi to kwrite.
And, as a side note, Opera Inc. seems to be a really nice company, giving away stuff for free, doing great support and making innovative software.
Nearly every cool feature Opera invented was later incorporated into other browsers. Unlike Apple Opera never sued anyone over implementing tabbed browsing or mouse gestures.
I'm definitely no closed source supporter but it would be sad for me, if a great browser and many creative developers (with families to feed) got crushed by this Firefox avalanche.
I'd really like Opera to be Open Source (because there are some behaviours I would really like to change) but sometimes you have to pay for a great product (as for a great newspaper, a great book, a great LP, a great painting).
They make more money from mobile devices, true, but I'd hardly say that the desktop revenues only accounted for "a tiny fraction". From their latest financial statement:
Income from Internet devices was MNOK 15.1 in 3Q04, up from MNOK 9.4 in 2Q03. Income from desktop products was MNOK 9.4, up from MNOK 8.7 last year.
So, the desktop browser still accounts for ~40% of their income (that's the total income from the desktop browser, ad revenue plus licence fees). The whole report can be found here.
Honestly asking. Is there anything they offer which is noticeably superior to Firefox?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
As for Opera thanks but no thanks I have the desire to keep using as much really free software as possible promoting further development.
OK. Go for it This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic, however. Troll elsewhere.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
It's not the number of bugs, it's the fact that a buffer overflow in IE gives a root exploit. Yay!
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I used to use Opera (I even paid for it) but have went to Firefox. The reason that I dropped Opera and went to Firefox was because Opera's JAVA implementation (with Sun Java) did not work properly with the web site that I administer for work. I really miss being able to automatically open the tabs that I had open when it was last shutdown (or crashed) and I cannot find a Firefox plugin that mimics this behavior.
Count me in on this one. Works perfectly for vast majority of things. What ad? :)
Opera is going not going to charge higher education institutions for their browsers. However, this does not mean that it will give them its source code. Its free as in free lunch not freedom of speech.
Actually, desktop revenues are about 1/3 of Opera's income. Also, people do buy software.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
Yes, $20, which is less than the price of an average meal out.
;-)).
Not if you're a college student (I get discounts
Anyway, as iterated before, "it doesn't matter what browser you use as long as it isn't IE." I use Firefox. That's my choice. If we all work together and use different browsers, we will stop the monopoly on the browser market and(heard this somewhere before...) there will not be a browser that the majority of people use...so the likelihood of one browser being hijacked will be less.
I stand corrected. But I think you're still full of shit on that peopling buying software thing. That's just crazy talk!
The Farewell Tour II
Tabbed browsing just feels better to me in Opera
"Continue from last time" rocks
Customizing just feels better to me in Opera
Mouse gestures in Opera are better
Now FF may have these in some form or another, but I like Opera's implementation better. If I close my last tab in Opera (usually via mouse gesture), the browser doesn't close. Last time I checked FF, it did. I can double-click in a blank (no tabs) browser and open a new one. Just little things that I have grown to get used to.
However, printing in Opera sucks. I can print, but things get just cut off. This happens in Windows and Linux. If I need to print something, I open it in FF. Opera crashes or hogs resources on occasion (Linux more often) and I have to kill it. I am not sure why, but it is annoying.
I'll keep trying FF new releases, but so far Opera is my main browser.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
While I'm not sure it's a good idea to fuel a browser war ( I rarely see someone coming out victorious anyway ;-) ), I *do* believe Opera should have a lot of respect for innovating tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, and several more features that have later been adopted in other browses. It's technologically an extremely nice browser with DOM caching for almost instant back/forward navigation that still is in the state of an unfixed Bugzilla bug for Firefox' part. The memory management is also nice and to the level that although it's like a extension-packed Firefox, it usually consumes less resources than Firefox in its stock configuration.
;-)
:-)
On the other hand, Firefox has a previously unseen extension system to bring it up to Opera's feature set in many cases, and in some cases surpass it. It's also open source, which appeals to those preferring that model. And even if you don't care, the lack of cost is of course appealing.
I for one really enjoy both browsers and is always on the lookout for the latest beta versions of Opera. There's a lot of happening in that camp, much like Firefox have an interesting future in Firefox 1.1 and onwards.
I prefer to look at it as a fight against IE, not a free-for-all.
Opera has a very loyal fan base that isn't going away soon, so I'm hoping to see coming years of browser development. It would be sad to lose the creative minds on Opera Software and their interesting browser, and I'm pretty sure some members of the Mozilla Foundation agree. Respect to everyone trying to give the software behemoth a fight.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
"They should have made the program free for everyone and look elsewhere for sources of income. Firefox is gaining market share at a steady pace and if Opera doesn't act now, they'll be out of the game."
Echoes of Netscape. It was originally sold for money BUT free for educational use. Then under pressure from the 'free' IE it was free of charge for everyone. Then Netscape died and the corpse was bought by AOL.
Yes, it was ressurected in a sense years later, so maybe by 2008 or 2009 there will be an open source child o'opera browser, but will Opera the company still be around?
- Donate money - which I've done
- Donate time, as in debugging and testing and submitting bug reports - which I've done
- Donate code - which I haven't done publicly because I am too afraid my code would inspire ridicule
- Evangelize - which I've done
- Thank the contributors - which I've done
Preaching or evangelizing about an open source project does indeed support it. Word of mouth is what has taken many itty bitty projects and gained them the momentum to make them hugely successful projects.This reminds me of an interesting article I just read from the Operawatch blog about Opera needing to improve its brand image in light of Firefox's growing popularity. I think the author would agree that making inroads in the academic sector is a smart thing to do.
http://www.cjas.org/~leng/opera.htm
You might want to have a look at http://my.opera.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?forumi d=28. I only recently discovered it myself after having used Opera for years. You can change a lot more in Opera than you might think.
Linux is not Windows
Firefox is gaining market share at a steady pace
So is Opera - faster than ever before. And do try to remember that they were gaining market share when there was no Firefox, and MS was trying to put them out of business with mangled code.
Opera is doing just fine. There's no reason it has to be free, unless you're just mouthing some socialist RMS jingoism.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Now, the good Firefox fan would of course be quick to mention Minimo on mobiles, but the problem is that Minimo requires a lot more memory than Opera, and Opera is well ahead of it already.
Clever signature text goes here.
Then what really needs to be modded down is the English language for placing such disparate concepts under the same word--free. If we were writing in any other language, it's quite likely we'd use different words for these concepts (French's "libre" versus "gratuit", for example). Brad Kuhn introduces this concept early in his talks by saying "The English language has a bug" and he's right.
Slightly offtopic: one entertaining side effect of English's overloading is found in Eben Moglen's speeches where he uses "free" to mean either freedom or zero price (but he never mixes the two up) and he leaves it up to you to recognize the difference.
Digital Citizen
"It remains to be seen, however, whether Opera will allow schools to give standard Opera licenses to students to use on personal computers/laptops within campus at no additional cost, that came with the $1000 license fee. "
If they are giving the institution a license for all of thier computers, then students using computers owned by the university can use Opera. If you're asking whether or not Opera is going to give students the right to use Opera at home, that's a different issue.
Brooklyn.
Try Opera 8.
Clever signature text goes here.
Clever signature text goes here.
But not the User-Agent-String :(
Would be nice to surf as Googlebot.
Actually Firefox has a pretty decent about:config page that lets you modify configuration. It could use a description field too though.
Granted Opera is about 1 meg larger download my bad.
3.6 vs 4.7.
Based on my personal experience, timing on my home machine. Firefox was noticably faster at displaying a page.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
meant 1 meg smaller
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
for one, opera doesn't block it's own adverts.
their mobile browser for s60 is pretty good though.
you can't deny that firefox has been invading the opera's region, when some would have earlier dl'd opera they dl firefox instead.
plus: opera has crash protection/recovery for a reason, it crashes fucking often.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I was using Opera for free for 6 months, then I realised that it has the adbar and I bought it :)
happy Opera user
What cost do you put on having to use an inferior browser for a year?
See, personally, I have zero use for OSS, but I use Free software extensively and contribute to it whenever I can. An OSS or proprietary alternative to Free software would have to be much better before I'd be willing to give up my freedoms by using it. This might sound strange to you, but I guarantee you that the number of people like me is growing constantly.
Don't believe me? OK, try this. Do you really think that Linux 1.0 was better than the DEC, HP, or Sun Unixes available at that time? No - it was pretty lame by comparison in pretty much an metric you'd like to use. Developers flocked to it in droves anyway, though, because it was Free and they could shape it as they saw fit. By the same token, many of us have been using Mozilla for years, even though a gratis version of Opera was available.
Frankly, I have the discretionary income to shell out some $$$ for a good browser. I don't, not because I can't, but because "cheap" or "gratis" has little value to me in this context.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
for one, opera doesn't block it's own adverts. Of course it does, you just have to pay for it. Which I feel is worth it, but I'll respect those that don't. their mobile browser for s60 is pretty good though. Yeah, my understanding is that is the market where most of their money comes from now. you can't deny that firefox has been invading the opera's region, when some would have earlier dl'd opera they dl firefox instead. One, I don't think Opera's usage stats really have gone down much, they just haven't skyrocketed like Firefox because of the large amounts of press. I could be wrong, I'm too lazy to look it up, and most sites are biased one way or another anyway. Besides, just because most people use one thing, doesn't make it better. Otherwise M$ makes the best shit in the world. Finally, I love the fact that I can quit opera and open it back up with all of my sites open and ready to go again. The applications of this are great, you can save sessions for all different types of browsing. I have them saved for hardware pricing, news, sports and such. You can have everything you're interested in open up with one click.
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/12/1 420246
No, I'm in that minority too.
In my experience, it's mainly the extremist open-source loonies who froth at the mouth at the mere suggestion of an advertisment who actually notice that thing after about five seconds of using the browser. All the people I've introduced to Opera tune it out quite readily and quickly.
Slashfix is the answer to your woes.
Visceral Psyche Films
I love opera: Opera pioneered a lot in this industry. Mouse Gestures. Freestanding searches as folders in e-mail. MDI browsing. Zooming. CSS switching. Using the address bar as a rudimentary command line. Browser identification string monkeying. The Links Pannel. Undoing closing windows. Remembering open windows between sessions or crashes. Storing text editing fields in history. Saving sessions. Automatic reloads. Pop-up blocking. Cookie management. Mouseless arrow-key navigation. Open-in-the-background.
But they didn't do tabbed browsing first. Sorry. If I'm not mistaken that honor goes to iCab. Mozilla (this predated firefox) followed suit and had it for about six months months before Opera de-emphasized the window menu and added a tab bar.
The ______ Agenda
EXACTLY!
The only problem (although it is my PC's fault) is that it takes 30-40 seconds to load on my 1.8Ghz P4 512MB ram windows 2000!!!
Gotta start cleaning up... However, it worked incredibly on linux.
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.