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Opera Free as in Beer
nekura writes "Just last month, Opera was celebrating their 10 year anniversary by giving away free registration codes; now they've trumped that by offering Opera for free. Quoth their site, 'Opera has removed the banners, found within our browser, and the licensing fee. Opera's growth, due to tremendous worldwide customer support, has made todays milestone an achievable goal. Premium support is available.' Anyone who was on the verge of switching before now has virtually no reason not to."
torrents :P
save the servers
Free Opera is even better!
They had no hope of competing with Firefox and IE, despite the merits of their browser, so long as they charged for it while the other two were free.
Anyone who was on the verge of switching before now have virtually no reason not to.
Except those who want free as in speech.
already downloaded and using, This might replace firefox on my Windows box at work.
Yeah right, Like Im gonna write a sig.
Now if only the local troupe would also follow suit, oh wait, no Wagner. Nevermind.
Obviously Opera has realized that a browser with a cost can no longer survive in this post-2000 market. However, I wonder how long it will take until they open source it?
Robert Bindler
A Computer Science student's views on technology.
the advantages of using Opera over Firefox?
Technoli
I'm certainly glad that they are doing this even though I don't plan to use Opera in the near future. More alternatives will push web developers to use standards instead of just coding for IE.
Anyone who was on the verge of switching before now have virtually no reason not to.
Yeah, cause I was just biding my time with Firefox until Opera was free. Right.
Anyone who was on the verge of switching before now have virtually no reason not to
AdBlock Plus
BugMeNot
CustomizeGoogle
DictionarySearch
Farkit
Gmail Notifier
Nuke Anything
Plain Text Links
Switch Proxy Tool
Greasemonkey
I'm glad there's a version without the annoying advertising, but it wasn't that which was keeping me from using Opera.
I hope that Microsoft will decide also to give Internet Explorer for free. My desktop is full of banners and popup windows.
Good move, I love Opera. It beats the roll-your-own-browser Firefox by about 10 miles, for me at least. If only it could do flashblock.
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
I tried the freebee last month, and had several common sites I visit not open correctly (sites that worked fine in IE and Firefox). It was nice otherwise, but just not enough there to motivate me to switch from what I use now.
I guess now Firefox and IE are redundant.
Now, from this point forward Opera is going to be freely available for everyone on a desktop PC.
Opera will gain more ground and hopefully spread it's browser successfully across the handheld and phone market.
Future development will not skid to a stillstand however - but let us hope that future additions and changes to the webbrowser work out for the better. Like - for example a graphical front end to filter.ini!
In the past you had a right to say "I'm paying for this and I demand that feature X be fixed/implemented/improved.". Not anymore.
Leopard cub
Anyone who was on the verge of switching before now have virtually no reason not to.
And anyone who wasn't on the verge of switching has virtually no reason to do so. I mean, this is all well and good, but Firefox is working rather nicely, why should I switch to Opera? How is Opera going to make my browsing experience better in a way that cannot be replicated via Firefox extensions? And how will Opera provide to me the functionality that I have via Firefox extensions that isn't part of Opera?
I guess this explains why they felt so comfortable giving away registration codes for their 10th anniversary.
I'd imagine that was planned, partly to see how much demand there was for the browser if it were free.
Personally I use Firefox 99% of the time, but I have taken the time to test sites in Opera in the past.
Which means it is also cool, fuzzy and makes you dizzy! Purrfect ;)
f irefox-extensions
f irefox-extensions-ii
Some people might even get courageous after using it. And others might even get more chicks/hunks.
Don't forget to pay the newly released community portal a visit too: http://my.opera.com/
If you think you are going to miss some extensions when switching take a look at the informative postings here:
http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2005/01/opera-and-
or here
http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2005/09/opera-and-
For even more User JavaScripts look at http://userjs.org/
Nicolas Mendoza
Prepare for MSIE 7
Well this version may be "Free of charge" yes, but it is not "free" yet! Noone has the right to change it yet :)
sex is better than war!
In my experience, people get fed up with IE and just switch. There's nobody out there who's thinking, "gee, the fact that just about everything out there is better than IE is tempting...but, man I sure do like Microsoft!"
Sorry, but nobody was holding out for free Opera. If you couldn't take IE's shit for another day, you're already using Firefox, not waiting for an also-ran browser to stop charging.
Slashdot: 24 hours behind every other site or your money back!
So let me get this straight....a couple of weeks after offering Opera activation codes for 'FREEEEE!', the turn around and negate their 'exclusive, one day only' offer by offering their product to any old schmuck? I feel so....common. *sigh*
Sig? - yeah, whatever.
..how far is the ceo going to swim this time?
I downloaded opera when they had the day a couple weeks back where it was free and without ads. I thought it was definately a good browser, but if they are giving it away all the time now how are they going to stay in business? The summary says they will offer premium support, but honestly how much support do people really need for a browser? Unless they make other stuff I don't see them making enough money to stay in business this way. That being said it is awesome that it's free now and more people will use it.
I agree that this is a reason not to use it for people who want free (as in freedom) software.
However, I think those people are clearly in the minority.
Finally, I don't like you implying that people who disagree with you on free software don't value freedom, that's just stupid and insulting.
Oh, and site compatability.
Seriously, I love everything about opera except printing. I browse using opera, print using firefox, and access MSIE-only sites (just a few that really don't work; most just say they don't) with konqueror.
patchwork, patchwork, patchwork.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Opera is a really good web browser. It is fast, renders most pages really well, and has a good UI. However, the spot where FireFox beats it, is in the Extensions department. Extensions are what makes firefox the best browser out there. The Web Developer extension makes web development a breeze, and FlashBlock makes sure I don't have any animations hogging my CPU cycles unless I want to. Oh, and the Javascript Debugger is the best tool ever. It's not the best debugger, and ironically, is kind of buggy itself, but, it has saved me hours of infesting my code with alerts() in order to find out the problem.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
was the CSS feature in question a standard CSS feature, or something non-standard your company used from IE?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Sorry, I prefer free speech. Also, I prefer a browser that will allow me to write domain wide cookies (domain.com) without having to resolve domain.com to an IP.
www.privoxy.org .. great local proxy for ad-blocking and a few other things .
Requires a bit of RTFM but it will work with Linux , OS X and even windows and is highly customisable and the default configs are rather good (though you may want to alter the cookie settings).
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
I'd use Opera instead of FF (I guess) if it had better ads blocking options. Maybe now, that they removed their own banners, including some ad-blocking options would not look hypocritical anymore.
Shield on!
I have a feeling this is a little too late but maybe I'm wrong. Being an excellent cross platform browser I can only see this help the industry support standards.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
and unfortunately it is now the American Way. (tm)
...they give this version for free, but for next one you'll pay.
I can't believe that Opera is adopting market practices from drug sellers.
Well FireFox is a web browser as well so you can't rule out the posibility that Opera is trying to compete with it.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
i think it's easier to get a job at opera than to get a cvs account for firefox.
... the download doesn't work in Opera 6.
It may not be FREE software in the GNU sense, but it is good enough for me right now :).
For those who wonder how the company stays afloat after this, the majority of their revenue comes from versions of Opera for embedded devices and phones.
Well I've just downloaded Opera 8.3 and so far my impression is that it's a splendid thing as following 10 minutes of using it there's one thing I'd like to mention...
:)
Currently I'm posting from a works machine where you have to go through a proxy server to get to the internet. We also access a number of local intranet seites plus our own local "development" intranet (which consists of a single crappy old box)
Now out of IE, Firefox and Opera, Opera is the only browser which will allow me to browse the internet, the intranet and our local intranet.
All three browsers have identical proxy settings but both Firefox and IE won't browse to "http://ourserver" - despite there being an entry for "ourserver" in my hosts file and despite their proxy server settings specifying "ourserver" on the "no proxy for these addresses" list.
So top marks to Opera.
P.S. The only reason I didn't post this from Opera is because I've forgotten my password (which Firefox has kindly cached for me
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Many of the features found in the Web Developer Extension for Firefox can be found in this add-on for Opera...
http://nontroppo.org/wiki/WebDevToolbar
--
Australia's 100% free dating site
They're trying to get as much people to use Opera before the new browser, Flock, gets them.
A certain amount of Opera's UI functionality doesn't conform to OS X (or sensible) standards. A single-click in the address field, for instance, selects the entire string. No other text manipulation field or application acts like this. It's not as though saving me those extra two clicks to select the entire string trumps everyone having to learn a new modality (and having to devote extra thought to our UI's).
I hate Grammar Nazi's
I've been using Opera from time to time, and it really is a very good browser.
However - it badly needs an adblock extension as versatile and simple to use as the Firefox one.
Underholdning.info
I'm using opera mini since a few weeks and it absolutely rocks. It has literally changed my mobile life - any info I might think at is now in the palm of my hands, fast and cheap, and on any regular lightweight mobile phone. Too bad opera didn't make it a free offer, too, I had to let a norwegian friend get a copy for me. But for me, at least, Opera, funded 1994, finally seems to start becoming important. Good move.
I have tried the Linux and Solaris versions and they are simply not as compatible with the range of web sites and plug-ins I wish to use as Firefox is.
Also it is missing essentials like adblock and does not integrate as tidily into my GNOME desktop as Firefox.
The Solaris version is particularly dire with long standing problems with the Java plugin.
They were quite happy to sell a license for Opera on Solaris while one of its developers was making statements like this on their support newsgroup:
Help! I installed Opera, but can't find the free beer option...
If Microsoft was mass, stupidity would be gravity.
I used to use Opera on win98 back in the day. If I can get a linux AMD64 binary, I'll put it on my laptop. I'll test my web sites with it but I'm not going to let precompiled binaries taint my desktop systems.
It may not be free as in freedom but a general thumbs-up to Opera is definately in order here.
How usable is opera out of the box on linux?
When I installed firefox a few days ago on my new gentoo box, it took alot of fiddling to get it to support all the plugins/features that are fairly standard on a windows install, such as streaming quicktime, real and windows media, flash etc. I'd like to switch to opera because of mouse gestures, among other things, but can someone tell me how difficult it will be to get it into a usable state quickly?
By 2000 Opera was old. I was using it in 1998, and then it was the bee's knees. You could (and still can) surf the web normally without ever touching your mouse. Opera taught me how much time is actually wasted by using a mouse, and what a crutch it is.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
I'm very curious to know what the bug was. can you provide links to your bug report?
-- Does anybody know where the 'any' key is on the keyboard?
Doesn't Opera report it's user-agent as MSIE 6 by default?
If so, if enough people switch to Opera, wouldn't it be harmful to the marketshare of Firefox and other non-ie browsers, showing an artifical IE rebound?
"Joy is contagious," he said, peering into the microscope.
http://www.squarefree.com/pornzilla/
I think this is excellent news.
Opera is the best browser out there today. Use if for a week and you'll be hooked.
I used IE, then went to FF early on because of the performance and other good stuff. Problem is, it's bloatware and after a few releases, it was more problematice than IE. And as far as "extensions", those were hit and miss, often leading to erratic behavior.
So back to IE.
But then I tried Opera. (I had tried it a few years back but wasn't smitten). Wow. A lot faster, tighter, and better performing.
Moreover, it gets into "IE only" sites that Firefox can't.
Opera is a great browser - give it a shot and you will be surprised.
Probably what really happened is that they discovered their flaw in the way they made free registration codes available. Now there are billions of codes floating around the internet for free, so people will get them one way or another without paying a dime. They might as well just offer it for free to everyone.
This is the fundamental issue I have with the F/OSS mindeset--you have the source, so you can fix things yourself, and to hell with everyone else.
First of all, let me be the 5 millionth person to point out that not every user has the skills, tools, time, and inclination needed to fix things. (Yes, you were responding to a person who did provide a fix, but I'm talking about the more genral case.)
Second, the inherent selfishness and short sightedness of this F/OSS mindset is very damaging to the whole community's image, and ultimately, to the success of projects. What the hell ever happened to putting the user first, to valuing and maximizing the benefit the project provides to non-developers? Until the F/OSS community stops acting like a bunch of petulant kids and starts behaving like responsible adults, this will be a very serious problem, one that many people within the community don't even see.
Well, I haven't tryed opera in a long time, so now I installed it just for the sake of tasting (posting from Opera). The interface is very nice, and features wise it rocks, now...
Even in the worst case situation (bittorrent eating half of my bandwidth) Firefox seems to download pages faster. I think firefox gives that impression by showing the parts of the page it has already downloaded. For example when loading this thread, opera took about 20 seconds, while firefox started right away, and then completed the rest in a few seconds.
Anyone can tell me whether Opera has an option to enable the same behavior as Firefox?
Anyone who was on the verge of switching before now have virtually no reason not to.
I disagree, Opera is not Free Software - its source is closed. Why should I use closed source browser when I can use FireFox??!
Opera is Apple-style "it just works" solution.
You get all useful functionality out of the box, all tightly integrated and working smoothly. No problems with incompatibilities, upgrades, etc.
Opera is pretty fast.
No extension system doesn't mean no extensibility. You can add functionality using UserJS, Opera's scriptable buttons, favelets, panels, user css and ini tweaks.
Ever heard the phrase 'never look a gift horse in the mouth' ?
This is a great idea on their part. They will become a player in the Web browser market by doing this, since Opera is actually quite a bit better then anything else out there. This might cost the a bit in whatever they stood to make from selling licenses, but they will now have a strategic advantage (i.e. more to say about how the Web works) with their increasing marketshare.
You can either complain, or do nothing. You don't get both.
I just wanted to point out a couple things that bug me a little.
(1) The latest version 8.02 crashes... A LOT. I reverted back to 7.54 and have had no trouble.
(2) With regards to the use of either version, I didn't get certain popup ads with the "ad supported" version of Opera, but once I entered the reg code, I started getting some popups that I didn't normally get.
I wonder if Opera is going the way of Netscape. Everyone remembers that Netscape 4.77 was the last, best version.
How about the Symbian Series 60 version? I've been using it for a year with my smartphone, and it's really good. If you have a Series 60 smartphone and haven't tried Opera yet, do it now.
I have mixed feelings about this. Opera has so many features that (to me) it is worth paying for. I hope that they will be able to maintain it without the income it's sales generated.
On the other hand, hopefully many people will now check it out and see what a great browser it is.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
I downloaded and tested each version of opera until 4.0. I gave up when they reached 4 and still supported only Western European code page, iso-9959-1. IE and Netscape (back then) had no problems with code pages by version 3 of each, if nog earlier.
Initially opera was small and fast and nimble, and I loved it, but couldn't use it because of the above. Then they started adding crud like the email and newsreaders, Java, horrible (horrible!) new toolbars... while Opera still couldn't display properly htmlized East European languages. Then they added banners, and this was it for me.
I had great hopes for Opera, so I'm the more bitter about how they, IMO, misprioritized development. In comparison, the FireFox team did everything right. It took a few years waiting for Mozilla to come around, but now it's here and it's solid, while Opera isn't even small or fast any longer. Too bad.
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
Yet, I'm bored of always reading the same thing in the FF vs Opera "war": FF is better than Opera because of the extensions. I do not agree:
- Useful Firefox extensions are already included in Opera (a lot of FF extensions are created by Opera users frustrated because they lack Opera features)
- The other ones are in my opinion useless gadgets
- There are so many extensions to search that it generally takes quite a while to find what you want
- There are so many extensions that do the same things, some having this feature that another one lacks and vice-versa, and installing both has undesirable effects
- When a new release of FF comes out, your beloved extensions, and sometimes even skins, are broken
- If an extension is not correctly designed, it can make the whole browser unstable
Now I really agree that Opera lacks an intuitive ad-blocking mechanism (you can avoid ads but it's more complicated than just a right-click). But that's the only thing that it really lacks for me.And then he said: "I'll tell you the meaning of life. It is" and then realized 120 chars are definitely not enough...
The AdBlocker.css file works like a charm. Check out the "Opera config files". When coupled with the autoproxy option in eDexter, and a nice hosts file, you get an excellent AdBlock replacement.
I see the Series 60 Symbian version is still payware.
8859, not 99, of course.
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
Now where's the damn PocketPC version already?
It does not mean YOU can alter MY copy of MY sourcecode. Or even to force me to distribute YOUR alteration.
Sure in the case were you are unable to distribute your alteration to those who need it it sucks donkey balls. Just as IE's total domination of the browser market sucks donkey balls because it still means I can't use many many many features that work beautifull in every real browser out there.
So firefox in this case showed both how opensource works, namely that he was able to modify his own copy of it to do what he wanted AND showed why doing doing web development is such a pain in the ass. Because ultimately you can't develop for the browser on your machine, you have to write for the browser installed on your clients machine. Even if that is netscape 4.
Next time I get a snide remark about a C programmer building 100% clientside software for Windows 2000 only I am gonna go postal. PHP/ASP/Perl may be joke languages but crosscoding between browsers is the ultimate challenge. Doom3 engine, PAH! Try just getting a bunch of left floated images to center. Now that takes brains.
What do you mean I sound bitter?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It (used to) runs a f*cking gigantic half page ad banner... Just for that, I am never gonna use Opera, not even now.
or if you can hire one.
I imagine a contract to add a small, specific feature like this one would run less than a site license for support from, say, Opera.
the greatest of all the plugins. It remembers all the tabs / windows (and their full histories ) you have open when you quit/crash and brings them all back. You can also save them as named sessions. You also have a "snapback" which resurrects a closed tab with its full history.
> Anyone who was on the verge of switching before now have virtually no reason not to.
Except for the horrible interface. I don't know how it looks on Windows, but the Linux version sure is painful to look at. Their pseudo-motif skin is slightly more bearable, but still pretty harsh.
Posted from the wireless couch.
Yes, as an other "obvious GNU fanatic" I did.
Seems Opera is scared of who won.. Would that be Mozilla Firefox?
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A majority of giftware on the market today is malware, the creators "paid" through marketing or market analysis.
Opera should look into a similar strategy as Real Networks, adapting their business strategy with the changing paradigm of software production. If not, evolution will ensure their short lifespan. It really is that simple.
have they fixed the brain-damaged cookie management? Whatever the cost, Opera will remain unusable until it offers a simple Yes/No+remember this decision option for cookies.
So when Opera goes out of business next month, will they be opening the source? That's what I'm really holding out for...
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Before it was the cost. Now the question is, are they going to provide their current browser more or less as is, and then charge for the "killer" features down the road when I could very well have continued using Firefox comfortably with very little switch over? I usually pass over a fair number of "free" offers due to future strings attached. What is Opera's money making angle off of this now?
>>Anyone who was on the verge of switching before now have virtually no reason not to.
I don't use IE, but I'm perfectly happy with Firefox on Windows and Safari on my good machine.
I tried Opera a few weeks ago when they offered free serial numbers, and here're some immediate opinions:
(1) Compatability was really close to IE, meaning it actually worked for some of the web applications we have at work that are supposedly IE only.
(2) Layout of everything was exceptionally annoying. Not really an Opera fault, just my accustimization, I supposed.
(3) What the hell's the deal with the stupid context menu that keeps popping up when I double-click something? Maybe there's a preference for it, but a quick look didn't find anything.
Maybe I should force myself to use it for a bit longer and see if it's "all that."
--Jim (me)
You can drag the address into the Bookmarks panel. You can also drag it into the Start bar (or any other bar), which I find to be useful.
"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!"
Am I the only person around here who uses Konqueror as their primary browser?
.....} It's not quite ACID2 compliant, but I don't know of a browser that is {unless Opera is}. It supports all manner of extensiony things -- try audiocd:/ with a music CD in the drive sometime!
It has tabbed browsing {what doesn't nowadays?}, tight integration with a mail client, and it can do file management. It can do user agent spoofing {googlebot gets into places many browsers can't
And, of course, it's GPL.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Incorrect address on the free download link. Here's the correct address for anyone who wants to download:
e n850.exe
http://neacm.fe.up.pt/pub/opera/win/850/en/ow32en
I'm sure they'll fix it shortly
I don't think that people who don't place any value on free-as-in-freedom are stupid. They are just short-sighted. They are so concerned with having the absolute best software right now that they don't consider the long-range viability of the development model. They also think of themselves as such an insignificant portion of society that their own contributions wouldn't matter.
But you just admitted that you are in the majority, so most other people are thinking this way, too. As long as this is the case, open-source development will continue at a fraction of the pace that it could otherwise. the point is that "you" (including all those who are like-minded") are not insignificant -- you are the majority.
That said, I myself am short-sighted when it comes to software that is almost uncontested in the open-source world. Stuff like Quicken, Corel Draw, etc. But between Opera and Firefox, I don't see any hugely compelling reason to switch to Opera, compelling enough that I wish to give up on the open-source developers making Firefox.
Until a few minutes ago, I was a Firefox adept. Mainly because of the "ad feature" in Opera. Now I'm not so sure anymore. Firefox will get a lot of competition by this move of Opera. And that might actually be good. It might help forcing Firefox to get on the same level as Opera. Competition speeds up innovation, is it not?
Tristan
"Anyone who was on the verge of switching before now have virtually no reason not to."
I would love to use Opera here at work, but it still can not handle the authenticated poxy server we have.
The latest version of firefox just needs "Automatic Detect" enabled.
Opera tastes like horse piss as in beer
Since the sources aren't free, I am not switching as of now :P
I strongly agree. Opera is just the best internet experience :)
It is good that they give away away for free now.
But still, it's only free as in beer, I rather use free as in speech software.
Free software is so much better than freeware.
Also, I wont get Opera, because I have Mozilla Firefox, it's a great webbrowser that adheres to the webstandards and suits me because it is free as in speech, and an all around great browser.
Well, they certainly have no reason not to try Opera. Switch? I do appreciate the open development model of competing browsers like Firefox. As someone who cares about open standards and think the web will get better the more we embrace them, I like the fact that Opera is not Microsoft. Nothing against Redmond, but it matters a lot to me that browser's design is done independently of any server's design.
I'm using the Debian 3.1 version on Ubuntu right now and have to admit it's a pretty snappy browser. It renders Slashdot nicely. I may keep playing with it, but I'm not sure I'll switch from Firefox with Deer Park coming out soon. These browsers are pretty much on par, so I think I'll take the open source one.
I feel kind of bad for Opera. That the browser is now free is an indication that the company realizes it can no longer sell its flagship product. You know, for money. That's got to hurt.
Well I just tried out Opera for the first time and while this may seem to be a troll it's a valid complaint, When launched I can not read any text as all the letters seem to be just the outlines.
This is a fresh install and I have made no changes.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
In fact Opera stock jumped after "Free as in beer" anouncement: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=1y&s=OPERA.OL&l=on &z=m&q=l&c=osebx.ol&c=%5EGSPC&c=%5EIXIC&c=%5EDJI
I gotta say I downloaded the freebee last month and Opera has replaced Firefox both on my laptop at work and my desktop at home.
It's much faster, just as stable, and has Email & IRC right there. I have no problem using it full screen with a panel on the left of my bookmarks & email.
I was actually going to buy it I was so impressed.
Just wanted to let everyone know it is totally worth the 3.5Meg download.
-- taking over the world, we are.
...my ass. They're making it free because they were dying - almost nobody was paying for their POS browser. Now, you'll have to pay to get support instead - which means it will be in their best interests to make it buggy and unreliable, to increase their revenues.
I'll be glad when Opera dies, and I don't have to bear its quirks in mind when designing sites.
Looks like they still want $29 for Opera for my series 60 Nokia cellphone.
firefox is an insecure crashhappy piece of shit. The only merit is that its open source so that we can actually ridicule the amateurish code thats full of holes.
Seriously.
Going back (Z) and forward (X) on Opera are faster than any browser I've ever used.
'Back' actually works differently to most browsers, displaying the page exactly how it was when you left it. This works extremely well for forms, where some retarded web-developer has an 'onload' handler that clears all form fields. In Opera, the 'onload' only fires when the page loads, not when you navigate back/forward using the browser buttons, meaning you very rarely find your data blatted by idiotic browser behaviour.
Just wanted to make something clear here: opera and beer do not mix well together.
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Good news... you can still buy Opera, if you trade on the OSE.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears that they are currently only offering the Windows version as a free download (despite that fact that their screen shots depict the Mac OS X build).
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
Mozilla does this as well. You can turn it off by setting browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll to false in about:config.
Anyone know where we can go to donate to Opera?
I've been using an illegal copy for a while and been meaning to buy it, guess that chance slipped away but maybe they'll let me send em $20?
Did you patch and compile your Firefox? Or did you just download binary like 80 millions other users?
Yesterday the slashdot effect hit Uncyclopedia. Today it's Opera!
I have a suggestion: why don't you announce that Microsoft has posted ISO images of Windwoes Vista Enterprise Edition final release + IE7 available for free download on their website? Let 'em have it!
Oh and... I'm not a native speaker of English. Could someone explain what "free as in free beer" means? Does it mean "free, but with some strings attached", as opposed to "free as in free speech", i.e. "no strings attached"?
But I've always been happy to admit: Opera's the better browser. And now that it's completely gratis, it's going to be hard to justify my Firefox habit.
Opera for all its features etc. still doesn't have a Rich Text Edit widget. So sites like Blogger will not support rich text editing under Opera like they do under Firefox or Internet Explorer.
This (apart from some annoying UI quirks, like not being able to focus the tab to the right after closing the current one) is the biggest deficiency in Opera.
Hey,
They are making money from google searches through the google search bar. They were not making any money charging for the software, and were probably starting to receive substantial income from their Google ad agreement. Therefore they decided to give it away for free in hopes to increase their user base and google commissions...
I hope it works for them.. I really like their browser.
Regards,
Wyatt
With Opera you can zoom in or out on the complete rendered page, and not just on the texts or the images. So you can zoom in without nuking the quite so often lame page designs. Awesome function I'm definitely mssing in firefox. Bug/feature request has been filed in 1999 already (bugzilla number 4281 - copy and paste the url. Slashdot referers are blocked by bugzilla.) Vote for this bug, it might help :-\.
They're giving it away for free now? Damnit! And here I was gonna start selling those registration codes they were temporarily giving away.
Support the FairTax
Was CmdrTaco afraid that we all might mistake Opera for being "free as in speech?" I think these references about things being "free as in speech" and "free as in beer" are simply people trying to sound cool, hip, or intelligent. Context clues usually provide the proper meaning. In the rare cases that they don't, these sorts of references might have merit.
CmdrTaco is stupid as in retarded. Don't I sound witty, now, like all of the other Slashdot sheep?
I did support on a customer site for a database vendor and had a lot of interaction with their local support organization.
The worst about those 10% are that they are usually dweebs, that bought 60$ worth of ODBC drivers and believe they have a life long right to pester you. This is despite the fact that they never coughed up for a support contract.
On the other hand. Companies with partially huge and critical installations, who pay for alliance support contracts hundreds of thousands of $ are usually pretty much realists. They expect good support and they expect that you look at their issues in depth . But they usually don't expect a turnaround with the correct solution within a couple hours.
Of course, if production is down then all bets are off (alas the vendor will usually do whatever it takes to get the site back up).
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Now there's a Browser that actually lets me notice my 1,2 Ghz / 512 MB. Everything else, including the native Safari I just was using a minute ago, is nothing but the ultimate slowpocke compared to this one.
I'd had allready forgotten how fast it was.
True Fullscreen, true and non-bullshit zooming, super-crisp rendering quality (including the textbox I'm just writing in) and some other niceys make this a very fine piece of software indeed. Guess these Opera folks just got themselves a new user.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I had to unhide the -1s to decipher this thread, too. That's why I always quote the parent in my posts. Except this time.
Please see the following:
http://www.redhat.com/
http://www.ibm.com/
http://www.novell.com/
http://www.sourcelabs.com/
http://www.spikesource.com/
Also an interesting read:
http://www.connect-utah.com/article.asp?r=1050&ii
"FundingUtah.com built its beta Web site for $2,000 with custom programming on top of open source code that would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to write from scratch. Another company I work with just installed SugarCRM, an open source CRM solution, to manage all its customer contacts for both sales and support. It's a great system that is virtually free."
Open source is creating opportunities for developers, administrators, technicians, etc. Obviously the licensing is changing business relationships and how we get things done but you are only fooling yourself when you suggest that you cannot making a living unless you keep the source code to yourself and sell licensing that restricts the use and distribution of your software.
burnin
I wanted Opera's speed and stability and (to a lesser degree) some of its features -- but the fact that I would have to go to the hassle of getting a license and remembering the number and installing it on various machines kept me using FF (and IE for a few odd tasks that require speed, don't ask).
I am now using Opera.
Good.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Wasn't that the first browser period?
The point of the grandparent post was that MS started giving away their browser before Netscape did in order to crush them.
the real question is, will it affect MSIE? or are we going to see percentage shuffling among the minority browsers while MSIE stays at 80% or however much it is this week?
The fact remains that with Mozilla you have the whole XUL world and you are free to build whatever webapp you want with XUL. Now, Opera may have some of the popular FF extensions built-in, but it doesn't support XUL. So at the end of the day, it is still Mozilla foundation that matters. Good job Opera, but I still stay with my 10-years-old landlod.
I think it's about time they made a gtk version, how can someone enjoy using opera when it looks like this? http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/9744/2005092016 03161280x1024scrot7m.png
Many e-commerce Web sites are not for the public, but rather for the limited clients of a particular company. In that instance you typically have more freedom to specify the browser than you would on a pure public play like Amazon.
It's not unusual for companies to require certain compatibilities to do business with one another, the browser is minor compared to some of these. Nevertheless you want to make it as easy to comply as possible.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
well i can think of one off the top of my head that's a bit of a pain, and that's themes. ff/moz require a restart on changing themes, opera doesn't.
I've used it with those banners as an alternative to all browsers in Linux. It used to be much faster on my low end machine. I thought I'll give another try. It's all cool, small download size, very light, very fast. However it crashed atleast in two different ways. It gave the Invalid Memory Access error. Any one else faced the problem?
;)
--Anon
P.S: This post however is made from Links
I have been a loyal user of the Mozilla Foundations efforts since early versions of the Mozilla client and straight through to the most recent version of Firefox. I have used their browser because I felt it was faster/safer/cleaner than IE and it has served me well in keeping spyware and adware free.
I had tried Opera years ago and it just didn't click with me. The ads were intrusive in some of the earlier versions and I ended up going right back to Mozilla. However, when Opera was doing their birthday bash code giveaway thing recently I tried it again. I have been impressed enough where I have switched to it as my primary browser. It is everything I want in a browser - small, fast, feature-filled and slick out of the box. This is particularly obvious on an older P3M laptop that I use where Opera is much faster than Firefox. I think that the feature that really drove me over the edge though is the password saving/form filling wand. It saves passwords that Firefox won't and it makes it one click to log into any web page or online banking site I use. I have yet to find a site it won't remember/prefill.
All in all I would suggest that anyone who doesn't understand what people see in Opera give it a try for a day or so and make an informed choice. What do you have to loose?
If there is anyone from Opera reading this I want to thank you for your wonderful browser. The newly free version is a great gift to the world and I, for one, am appreciative.
Responsive web team there but they don't have AMD64 binaries afterall :-/
Although Opera's userbase will certainly increase following this announcement, it will not be accurately represented in most companies' server logs:
Opera, by default, still identifies itself as IE.
// J
You must still be going to Denny's. Try writing some code for a living instead of giving it away. Maybe then you could afford proper dining.
Or Camino, or Mozilla. All of the Gecko-based browsers support this without a "restart" on all platforms. Just edit the bookmark, and be done with it. You can do this with any number of search engines or other GET-capable web applications (I use the keyword gs for my google searches).
I'd mod you as redundant (since someone posted clearer instructions elsewhere), but I'd be risking having people believe that Gecko-based products are as shoddy as Microsoft's operating systems!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
is that they don't use standard keyboard shortcuts, i.e. F6 for jump to URL bar(FF, IE, Safari, Netscape, Mozilla), Ctrl-T (or Apple-T) for new tab (FF, Safari, Netscape, Mozilla). I have a friend who uses Opera and every time I go to show him a page I have to have him click things for me because STANDARD keyboard shortcuts DON'T WORK!!!!111one
</rant>
But I have to say, the built-in mouse gestures is a cool feature.
There's an old saying that says pretty much whatever you want it to.
From http://opera.com/img/screenshots/opera8-tabbed-bro wsing.jpg : "When travelling through the diversity of Norway, you might loose track of time. Loosing track of time, might make you feel good."
Arrg. Why do people have such problems with lose (as in not be able to find), and loose (not tight). You can't loose time, unless it's wrapped tightly around something.
Get your own free personal location tracker
But it's uglier than Opera, I admit, with fewer themes.
Of course you'll probably actually get modded down, but you're right on man.
IT SUCKS. Just like linsux whorevalds sucked my dick last night. All you faggot zealot monkeys eat a dick and you know it.
The incentive to put users first comes when I have to earn a buck. If I can't present *my* client with a better solution than the other guy then I lose the sale.
THAT is where the user enters the picture. Open source software gives developers a box of quality tools that developers can then offer to their customers.
If you are using redhat and redhat's support team then you are using redhat's version of firefox - NOT the version of firefox you download from firefox.com. if you are using ubuntu and ubuntu's updates, then you are using ubuntu's version of firefox - NOT the version of firefox you download from firefox.com.
And if you are writing a website that requires special features unique to any specific browser then you should count your lucky stars to have found a boss stupid enough to give you work.
I was a longtime FireFox user but when it started eating memory and freezing for several long seconds every couple of minutes I switched to Opera just a few weeks ago.
= 102270
The one feature from FireFox that I miss the most is the Adblock extension. There are solutions for this in Opera, but none of them seemed as intuitive and easy to use as Adblock.
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id
So I still keep Firefox around and for occasions when I need to go to ad-heavy sites.
nyenyec
It's been awhile since I've tried Opera but I'm very impressed with it. I love the small tabs that minimise screen real estate, the seamlessly integrated pop3 email, the personal toolbar, incredible speed, etc. I would make a permanent switch to Opera if they had features equivalent to these firefox extensions:
Hit-a-hint Noscript Bugmenot Downthemall
I spend a lot of time catering my software to its users, and the vast majority of them are nice to me in return. However unfortunately there are plenty of arseholes (like you?) who seem to think my time is solely for their benefit, that they owe me nothing, and that they can expect everything from me.
Yes you can expect quality user-orientated software from projects that advertise these features. But you can't expect this from all software and you can't go round acting like it's somehow owed to you.
Yes its true not all open source developers are reasonable, and they spout bullshit like "fix it yourself. But actually most of the time the people that say this sort of nonsense is zealot-users. Most developers have the sense to know that most users cannot fix it themselves. Hell I wouldn't even attempt to fix a firefox flaw, I have no intention of learning my way into such a huge codebase.
So yes if Opera fix rendering issues more readily than Firefox I agree that Opera are doing a better job! And yes it probably is a systematic problem with Open Source, but that's because nobody ever pays any of us any money for what we do. So we have to do it in our freetime, and we have less incentive to fix bugs. Generally I fix bugs in my projects because I am determined to release a perfect bit of software, but certainly I often don't want to bugfix - it's boring - and I'm far less inclined to fix a bug that is submitted by an arrogant user, usually the quote is "Fix it or I'll use something else!". I'm only human, and this kind of comment will obviously be upsetting!
I admit that I am assuming your opinion from your affirmation of the grandparent, and thus I apologise if actually you have a better understanding of open source development and developers.
did not specify anything. We don't know why his patches didn't make it. That was my point, not some "purity" of mozilla. (I tend to use konqi).
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
It is ignorant at best to imply that it is not possible to make money with an open source product.
I admit that if I was to sell a software product, I'd be more confident of success if I closed the source. However I wouldn't be so bold as to claim it is impossible to be financially successful with an open source product. It'd just take more guts than most of us have.
I'll also admit that not all products can be open sourced and bring in the money, for instance games (although not MMORPGs) probably could never be open source and continue to bring in money.
And finally I will admit that hardly any open source products make money. But for example, Qt from Trolltech was originally closed source, but over the years they have gradually open sourced the product. Yet they are still a healthy and buoyant company. Qt is their flagship product.
Giving away something for free which was previously charged for is typically what happens when the product is obsolete and uncompetitive.
I'm uninstalling my TCP/IP stack then, apparently it's obsolete.
(OK, seriously though: It's called "software commoditization". If you look at a price/demand elasticity curve, there are two main possible reasons why the price of a particular commodity may approach zero: (1) the demand side is approaching zero, or (2) the supply side is approaching infinity. You suggest (1) (as in, demand for a poor or redundant product drops to zero), but have missed (2): Since there is no natural scarcity in software, the supply side of any particular piece of software has no practical upper limit; supply also rises as more such products are created, and this eventually pushes prices close to zero. In other words, you reach a point where the supply will always match the demand, no matter what. This is not a reflection of lack of demand at all - on the contrary, the demand remains high, and in fact, the main factor driving software commodization IS HIGH DEMAND itself, meaning, the exact opposite of what you said is true: the things that people demand most tend to reach a point where they're given away for free (e.g. 'prestige projects', and so on - which is why it doesn't happen as much in vertical software markets). Everyone needs a Web browser, for example, and this high demand has resulted in numerous competing products, which is resulting in margins being slashed ever closer to zero. Web browsers are hardly obsolete, on the contrary, demand has never ever been higher.)
I know people who're big fans of Opera who'll be thrilled to hear this. Me, I'm posting this comment in Firefox and will likely post the next 100 comments (at least) in Firefox, or possibly Safari or Konqueror.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Opera gets two slashdottings, one when they say it will be free for a limited time only and one when they make it free as in beer.
Good marketing practice, why say things once when you can get exposure twice.
They can now make it open source under a restrictive (Sun like) license. Then they can make it GPL, then BSD, then public domain, they get advertising at every step...
Support is where the value add is, if I build firefox, who is going to download it off me?
Be Free: Free Software Tuition
Opera seems very nice, but it seems to be missing one key feature. Is there a way to view RSS feeds (similar to Firefox's Live Bookmarks) in Opera? I know there is RSS support in Opera Mail, but I was hoping for some in the browser itself.
There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.
would be a great deal otherwise
Opera is by far the best browser out there. I really wish they didnt do this. If more and more people start to use opera the hackers and script kiddes will start to try and make exploits for it. :(
Jeez, sorry man. But you can change it:
preferences -> Advanced -> shortcuts,
provides you with 2 'themes':
opera standard/ for unix
which you can change.
It's not a problem. They're only standard to people who use them.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
You know, you can't use the cool plugins that Google makes with Opera(and whatever else they're brewing up). Google is what kept me using a PC instead of a Mac. They make the best stuff... mac is beginning to resemble Microsoft in their deceptive ways of sale. Also, why can't opera's search bar be stretchable like Googles toolbar? And I want my google toolbar spellcheck and word highlighters back - those were the best features ever thought up and there's no chance Google will make them work in Opera.
What if we don't have a programmer on staff? What if we are a company of designers, with one semi-competent sysadmin?
/. that everyone is and should be a skilled programmer. Most people are not skilled programmers, most people don't know anything about programming at all.
I'm not sure where this idea comes from on
It's basic specialization of labour. We have programmers to write code, artists to do graphics, farmers to grow food, politicians to drive our country in to the ground, etc. Everyone should not be good at everything, and indeed in modern society everyone cannot be good at everything.
The same is true of companies. If you are a company that does commercial art, it usually does not make sense to employ a programmer, and the designers themselves will not be programmers. What's more, for something like modifying Firefox you need a pretty good programmer. An admin that occasionally hacks scripts together won't cut it, you need someone who's good at this, and does it for a living. Someone who can read through a highly complex project written by other people, find the relivant section, and alter it to do what is needed without breaking the program. Not trivial.
Just because people have the source code, doesn't mean they have the ability, or the time, to alter it themselves, and that's not their responsibility. It's fine if you want to take the attitude that says "You don't like it, fix it yourself," but then don't bitch when peopel go with a different product that's more accomidating to their needs, even if it's commercial.
Yeah there's a clear difference in responsivness. Firefox lags on a fresh install when opening a new tab and displaying the bookmark list. Opera on the same system does both operations near instantly.
It might seem weird to you
but not many in the world bother much if the browser they're using is a closed source one or an open sourced one.
If it just works without screwing up their systems, lots of people, am sure would be more than happy.
May be some (so called)techies would bother, but their percentage anyway would be less than 1%.
(No. The reason 'techies spread the word' doesn't work here. If something's good and free, it's *good*, whether or not it's open source, which quite a lot of people do realise)
The list of items you've provided is pretty big; however a lot of these are built-in to Opera. In addition, you get some very interesting capabilities like the ones I outline below, including a tight js debugger, and voiceXML support in websites.
First off, I worked for the group that partnered with Opera to create this, but the Voice plugin for Opera is also free!
Check http://www.opera.com/voice for information about the XHTML + Voice standard that is implemented here. X+V is an open standard - go read the spec for information, and Opera's voice development page for code introductions.
For those that downloaded the new 8.x build, go to the Advanced tab in your Preferences and tick the enable box for the "Voice" option. This will download a 10 megabyte add-on that allows voice interactions with Opera. In addition, you can control websites that support X+V! See some basic examples.
More information from a technical perspective can be found at IBM's Multimodal Software Group.
Also, see the WebDevToolbar for an INCREDIBLY handy toolbar for web developers debugging complicated interactive web apps. You get trace features for your javascript, the ability to inspect the DOM for a given page and many other introspection features. The handiest feature is a javascript shell for tight debugging of applications inside the browser.
~ Mike
Michael C. Hollinger
...another stupid program that thinks "command-minus" is OK as-is but insists you need to press "shift" for "command-plus" to work. (since "plus" is actually "shift + equals") Of course, "command shift minus" works the same as "command minus" and "command equals" does nothing. I can see I'm gonna have a lot of fun with this app.
And why does "zoom +100%" = double but "zoom -100%" = about one-fifth? Either zoom to zero (since that's what "minus 100%" really means") or zoom to 50% which is what any rational person would expect.
And I swear I'm gonna kill the next browser developer who thinks "don't show the status bar" (you know, the handy little thing that shows you WHAT THE FUCK YOU'RE ABOUT TO CLICK ON) is an OK default setting. (Safari makes the same mistake.) HOW THE HELL are we ever going to teach users "be careful what you click on!" if we don't give them a way (ON BY DEFAULT, natch!) to see WHAT THE FUCK THEY'RE CLICKING ON?!?!? (Yes, I'm yelling.)
Speaking of which, why is the status bar under "view -> toolbars"? It has no tools on it!
And why do I need to see the effing ENCODING, and MIME type, when I mouseover a tab? And no "home" button, unless the location bar is active? Oh yeah, that's good--if I'm on a page, it takes two clicks to go home, instead of just one. Good move--I'm really short on space here on my 1280x1024 display. That 16x16-pixel icon would've crowded out EVERYTHING. Looks like it's time for a nice ranty blog entry. So far, this browser sucks balls.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Okay, I just downloaded Opera for OS X and...
There's a frickin' big banner ad gobbling up screen space. It's just a link to "Buy Opera NOW", but it's still a banner.
Is this version only free for Windows users? If this is the case, anyone know if they're planning on upgrading the OS X version to a bannerless model soon?
P.S. I registered for an Opera serial number back at their party, but I can't find it anymore. Can someone remind me if it's something you copy/paste or if it's in an email they send? What's the general format of the serial number? (so that I can do a spotlight search...)
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
Its responsiveness. Its the most responsive browser i have ever used on any platform.
Its interface. It has the best looking interface of any browser ive ever used. I hate the IE like interfaces of IE and firefox.
It is fast. its fast.
Its sessions. It 'remembers' every page you had open in your last session.
No extentions. It does all this out the box.
Various things i cant remember because im using firefox on somebody elses computer.
This is great news for me because i never trusted firefox's security, for some reason, now i can recommend opera as a viable ie alternative.
I do like Opera, but it's missing the two main features I love about Firefox. Google Toolbar and Adblock. I usually don't use Adblock all that much cause I'm one of those people that actually click on ads on web pages I use...you know, to give them a little income and as a way of a "thank you". But some places the ads are just way out of control so Adblock comes in handy.
But there's no way I could function without the Google Toolbar now. I use it all the time, not to mention the built in spell checker. If Opera had this one little feature alone I'd think about switching.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
My wife wont use Opera because it crashes so often and wont read many of here IE-only pages. So, she uses IE and then her computer gets so hosed IE gives her syntax errors.
I love the way Opera remembers what you had open after a crash, and tabbed browsing and mouse gestures rule.
Firefox has copied all of that, except for recovery after crashes, which it really out to copy given how often it crashes. Adblock is the best feature, ever, and it also can read most pages.
So, which do I use?
All 3...
I've used Opera for years and have always paid for it.
I've used Opera for years and have always cracked it.
Just kidding. I love Opera though. Very sad that they're doing this. Maybe in the future they can switch back? I think they should have made one version free. Maybe they can revert back at version 9?
If that was the case, you WOULD hear about it in the news, especially /.
I would love to give Opera a serious thought if I could use it for email. But I cannot do that without GPG support which AFAICS Opera does not give me...
The Adblock plugin for Firefox is all the reason I need to not switch to Opera.
In all seriousness, out of boredom, I played with Opera Voice control for about 20 minutes the other day, just to see how it worked. It didn't seem to very well. (but, I haven't tested the mic setup with any other voice control or dictation programs or anything, either) And, lacking any pages that seem to explain or give demonstrations of the X+V, it seemed particularly useless to someone who's not physically handicapped, although it would be pretty neat to use it during presentations, with a wireless mic. (And I'd love the ability to change the "keyword" that triggers Opera to listen for it's commands)
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I'm going a bit crazy... Learning 6 pages of keyboard shortcuts in one day hasn't helped, either...
--LWM
--LWM
stop using "FREE AS IN BEER", its insulting to programmers and alcoholics alike
seriously, its getting old and alot of us don't appreciate it
FireFox goes with any of modern Linux/BSD distroes. And Opera doesn't!
igor
Unfortunately, we don't have a capitalist economy, and so the price you pay is never equal to the "true" price (if you will). If everyone dumped FireFox for Opera b/c Opera is a "better" product, and FireFox died a miserable death, what do you think would happen? A certain monopolist would buy out Opera, shut down the browser (or more likely integrate it), and then we're back to having no choice in browsers.
Just because it's "cheaper" to buy stuff from WalMart doesn't mean it costs you less. Just because it's a "better" browser in some way doesn't mean it's better for you to use it.
I'm not saying you shouldn't use Opera - I've downloaded it myself, but don't be dogmatic about defending it like this. It's not such a simple choice!
--LWM
Positive things about Opera:
- Fast - I forgot how fast it feels. Not just page loads, but the whole UI responsiveness feels really, really snappy. (One exception -- the keyboard configuration scrolling is really slow for no apparent reason)
- Free - Finally, again!
- Overall beautiful experience. I'm not sure how to justify saying something so vague, but that's exactly how it feels. It's a very nice experience.
- Logical (to me) default keyboard shortcuts, no shortage of them, and they're easily configured if you've got your own ideas. I'm a sucker for keyboard shortcuts.
Concerns about Opera:- How much will I miss Firefox extensions? Does Opera have an equivalent? Opera _does_ include an equivalent for one of my favorite Firefox extensions - mouse gestures (which I originally fell in love with back during my first go around with Opera, come to think of it..)
- Do they have a substitute for FF's developer tools? They've got something not _terribly_ unlike them in the quickly settable style sheet menu, but it's not really as full-featured as FF's web developer extension.
Why I left Opera before:- Banner ads, of course. These are gone, now.
- Seemed.. flaky. As I recall, it crashed too often. So far (heavy usage just one day) it hasn't crashed once.
- Firefox felt smaller, faster, more configurable. Oddly enough, and maybe it's just the novelty, Opera 8 now seems to have all those same advantages over Firefox.
These are just some preliminary thoughts. I'll keep playing with it to give myself time to both find other cool stuff about Opera and start missing features of Firefox. Will I switch to Opera permanently? Dunno, maybe. Right now, it looks pretty likely. I don't understand the fact that this is certain to offend some people, however. I am for open source, and I very much want it to live and thrive in all areas of information usage. But I am not, however, against for-profit businesses. I deplore the abuse of corporate power (rampant today), but I cannot say it is wrong for someone to offer to provide something in return for something else (the core principle of business, as I see it).I looked, and Opera 8.50 is for Windows 95 -XP only. In fact, when I tried to download a linux version of Opera, I was offered the Windows version. They still have linux versions in the archives, but Opera 8.02 for Linux cannot be found today. Glad I got it yesterday.
Rapidweather's Linux Screenshots.
So Opera is free now. Wow, who cares? Opera lost me as a customer and user long ago. The only reason I tried Opera was because IE in the lab computers that I managed was quiting unexpectedly (crappy Gateways and Windows 98 do not mix). So I installed Opera and used that instead, I didn't like it for several reasons. First, the UI was very different from IE. That is a bad thing because I taught computer classes for dummies and if the UI is radically different from IE, people get confused. The whole point of the classes was to teach people how to use the computers they have at home. So if they use Opera in class, they wouldn't be able to figure out how to use IE at home. (Seriously, I was surprised at how stupid some of the people were when it came to computers.) Second, use of tabs was manitory in Opera. Not good. Firefox offers way more flexibility; I always have several windows open in Firefox, each with several tabs: one for Slashdot, one for hardware, etc. In Opera this wasn't as intuitive (atleast not for me). Lastly, it was not free and the banners were annoying. I was on a very tight budget and did not have $30 to spend for each computer. I mean, I barely got approval to buy anti-virus software - and even that took a year to get.
"But it's free now", some may say. So what? It doesn't change the other two gripes that I had against it. The biggest problem I had with Opera was that it tried to reinvent the browser UI. Big no no. I was used to IE and could never really get comfortable with Opera. Firefox on the other hand is an enhancement of IE's UI; so when I tried Firefox, I never looked back. I have the same gripe against IE 7, it butchers the UI that I'm used to; so I'm sticking with Firefox.
This works find under Tiger OS/X on my G4. On the dual G5 it throws a bus error when I attempt to launch it. Are others seeing this problem?
As a same day several flaws were reported, classified as Moderate Risk: http://www.frsirt.com/english/advisories/2005/1789
'These could be exploited by attackers to bypass certain security restrictions or conduct spoofing and cross site scripting attacks.'
'An unspecified drag-and-drop error allowing unintentional file uploads.' How many security issues like this we'll see in the future. Bad boys are interested about Opera too.
My D-Link dsl router uses a javascript gui, and to date, IE has been the only browser that could drive it.
I just downloaded Opera 8.5 and it successfully runs the router gui now.
If a few more websites with similar problems also run, I might finally trash IE, like Firefox got trashed recently. (Love tabbed browsing, hate buggy half-baked software)
-- You can't give it, you can't even buy it, and you just don't get it!
Prior to this announcement, Opera made the commercial version of their browser available for free, with exactly the same features as the pay version, with the one limitation being an advertisement banner across the top. The banner was not especially obtrusive, especially since it could be set to text-only Google advertisements.
If anyone was "holding out" on using Opera before, because they didn't want to pay for it, they're simply stupid. If you wanted to use Opera, you should already be using it.
On a related note, you would think Opera made more money from the Google Ads running along the top of the 90% of their non-paying customers than from the registration fees of the paying 10%.
But far be it from me to tell Opera how to run its business. I don't see anyone else making a profit directly off of their browser technology...
oooooooooooooh, too bad at home i have nothing but dial-up access with my ibook, and i'm on broadband here at work with a windows machine, and THE OPERA WEBSITE WON'T LET ME DOWNLOAD THE MAC/OSX INSTALLER FROM A WINDOWS MACHINE TO STICK ON A FLASHDRIVE AND HAPPILY BRING HOME.
goddam smart-ass browser-checker cgi script download-redirecting assholes.
oh, wait. it worked.
Every conversation about Opera a firefox user points out an extension that does this or that. I will stick to having these functions out of the box with Opera, and have them run faster.
I must say that Opera is damn good. I'd never really used it much before today. They provide .deb's for Debian testing (etch) too! It's very fast handling many tabs, and renders pages really nicely (sort of IE-like, if that means anything).
I recently switched away from Firefox (slow, ugly non-standard user interface, unstable) over to Konqueror (much faster, no crashes whatsoever, fits my desktop) but Opera looks like it might just replace Konqueror.
Of course, when KDE 3.5 comes out Konqi will get adblock-style filtering and other enhancements, but Opera's user interface is much more polished. I love how a little toolbar pops up under the location box when you open a new tab, letting you quickly do a search, point through your bookmarks, go to your homepage etc. Great stuff!
Well done Opera. And, more importantly for me, goodbye to the very poor quality Mozilla products. Sorry, but being open source and being popular was not enough to save you, Firefox.
... I couldn't be more thrilled that Opera is now free.
Without a doubt, I felt I got my monies worth.
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
Now I have to switch browsers again. When firefox hit 1.0 I jumped that ship, as I knew security vulns would be found, to Opera, now I gotta move to something else before people start putting Opera under that fine tooth comb known as popularity.
This is a screenshot from FF, everything is normal. Notice the "Rich Formatting" link is present
This is a screenshot from Opera, where is the rich formatting? :-(
I've always liked Opera, and they definitely deserve credit form creating ideas like tabbed browsing or a mail client with labels instead of folders. Problem is, I feel like there is always a site you want to visit that won't work on Opera, but I don't know to what extent it's their fault.
http://operalover.tntluoma.com/8/ is the new version. Not sure why anyone would be interested in Opera7 Lover anymore... in fact I should probably setup a redirect.
When you click on a link that opens in a new window, Firefox opens in a new window as required but Opera opens in a new tab. I like this little feature of Opera.
OS Zealots fear Opera because their 'baby' Firefox is threatened. And yes, it is because Firefox is to Opera what IE is to Firefox: bloated and insecure. Now nerds: start bashing me!
Opera doesn't have the find as you type feature which is the only reason I switched from IE to mozilla in mozilla's early days; and later firefox. I was surprised to see no-one pointing this feature out in comparisons to firefox. Opera does seem a bit more polished than firefox though. I really like not having to use the mouse at all when browsing.
Use g as the keyword not google. That way when you type "g slashdot" you will search google for slashdot.
Typing "google slashdot" is too much work for this lazy bum.
Really? Printing? The post on the Opera Community site that you point to refers to "Version 7.52 Final", and was made over a year ago.
Right now, Opera for Linux is on version 8.50. Unless you intentionally plan to run a version of the browser that's been superceded more than once, how is this an issue?
What's your next trick? Complaining about Windows not being a true 32-bit OS and using Windows 95 as your evidence?
Seriously, unless the current version of Opera for Linux has the same issues, your post is just a pathetic troll, and you know it.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
you have the source, so you can fix things yourself, and to hell with everyone else... Until the F/OSS community stops acting like a bunch of petulant kids and starts behaving like responsible adults, this will be a very serious problem, one that many people within the community don't even see.
This seems to be related to the server vs desktop model.
If you were running your own FTP server, and you wanted to alter the functionality, you can alter the code to your server and run it. Everyone who connects to your server gets the increased functionality, which could be tens of thousands of users. Upgrades are relatively rare, and are usually predicated on major shifts either in either technology or just plain old fashioned hardware replacements. This makes sense.
On the desktop, if you want to change the functionality of an FTP client, you would need to change your code. And the code on the server to recognize your code. As updates are weekley, since desktop software is released loooooong before it is stable, you will have to repatch and recompile things for yourself frequently. All of your users still get the functionality, but that now means just you. This is too impractical to do, in other words.
Different mindset. It doesn't quite translate from server to desktop in a day-to-day sense, I'm afraid.
The ______ Agenda
I am looking for some kind of adblock-ish support for squid proxy that can be used to scrub HTML on the fly and get rid of those annoying popups, etc. Three primary reasons for this:
If anyone knows of such software or can suggest better solutions/ideas, please either post them here or mail me.
They make their money selling embedded browsers for the mobile phone market. Web browsers on computer have become such a small part of their business the last few years. That's why they're reducing the price to "free", they're making money hand over fist and none of it is coming from PC sales.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I might get modded troll for this but..
After all the rhetoric from the FOSS zealots about how proprietary software is "evil", I am not only exicted about trying out a newly free (as in I dont have to pay shiat for it) program, I actually feel kind of rebellious for downloading a closed-source browser (that isn't IE because that is on everyone's windows box). Opera also has 0 outstanding secutiry flaws.
In fact, the download just finished. And it was only 3.7MB to firefox's 4.7MB.
I encountered minor dependency problems installing the new Opera on the Ubuntu Breezy preview release, but you can't really blame Opera for that. And the menu font was very tiny, but that's customizable. Still looking for a theme I like. It includes a nice theme browser where I can preview hundreds of themes that don't look right.
It's unlikely that I'll give up Firefox in the foreseeable future, but I'll be using Opera a lot more now. I noticed that it still masquerades as IE6, messing up browser/OS stats, so I can only guess if its market share will be big enough to justify thoroughly testing all my websites in it.
You can always make a $29 donation.
I just downloaded ver 8.5.0, and despite an hour of searching, I could not find how to remove that stupid "sub-search" area off the address bar.
All I want it the main (file/edit/view...), NAV (Back, Forward, Home, Start...), and Plug-In's bar on ONE line.
The URL bar on another immediately below.
The tab bar immediately below that.
Opera WOULD NOT allow me to do this.
*Period*
And you know what REALLY sucks?
I'm using Maxthon, which uses the IE engine, and it DOES allow me to use such dockable, customizations, to my heart's content.
[Menu] View/Toolbars/Customize
Drag/drop elements to where I want them.
Click Apply.
[Menu] View/Toolbars & make sure the LOCK option is set.
*Done*.
Simple, intuitive, sane.
Opera did NOT allow me to do that, the "appearance" options were NOT intuitive, weren't very friendly, and sure as HELL weren't "sane" by any stretch of the imagination.
My copy of Maxthon is 13 days old.
My copy of Opera is a DAY old.
Why is it a "third party, no-name" browser CAN do what the *supposedly* "professional" browser can NOT?
(Shaking head) Nope. Sorry. Until I can get Opera to do what Maxthon can do, withOUT having to spend an hour reading help files, searching FAQ's, and browsing Forums to no avail, then Opera can KMA.
And this coming from someone who WANTS to use something more secure! If *I* can't make it work, my PARENTS sure as hell won't, and I'LL be the one they come calling to "to FIX the damned thing!"
Sad when the "fix" is to install an IE based third-party browser, a couple of extensions (AdBlock, KillAll, and StreamingMediaSaver), and then give a lecture on what types of things to NEVER click on...
Like a link to download Opera... =(
Hey, I *knew* Opera is pretty cool ;-)
If you are a company that doesn't have the skill to add a feature to the software, then how about paying the developers to fix it? Open source coders can't run around fixing every bug for everyone for free. Open source does not remove the need to pay programmers. But you pay them for adding the features you need or fixing bugs you need fixed, instead of paying for a blackbox piece of closed source.
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CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
so how long before we get a skype toolbar for opera?
i'm looking for opera-using beta testers over the weekend for a free-as-in-beer skype voicemail product - access is via a browser from any device with a streaming audio player after you download the software on an always-connected WinXP box
email v4sbeta@orb.com if you're up for helping out
You'd be surprised what's not on the map in this country. - Mulder
That's my point. It's relatively close to free speech, but there are restrictions.
Clever signature text goes here.
When you click the middle mouse button Opera moves the cursor! Bloody annoying.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
This is step 1.
;)
Step 2 is rebranding it as the "Google Browser"!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
you know, I see no reason for this to be marked "troll." Fairly logical, rational arguement imo.
Then again, I get mod-slammed in weird ways all the time. I've seen posts go from 5 to -1 to 5 to -1 again...meh.
/. moderation can get really dumb. I got slammed every post for a while; it was silly. -1? troll, and overrated? How so? Post seems relatively reasonable to me, and completely non-troll.
the commie bastards.