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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
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.
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
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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.
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.
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?
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!
Free beer with every copy of Opera is best.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
..how far is the ceo going to swim this time?
If you have bought a license during the last 30 days I think you are entitled to a refund.
:-)
You still get premium support if you have registered. Some people value that much more than removal of 40 pixels of ads
Nicolas Mendoza
Prepare for MSIE 7
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
Yup... Opera has stated in the IRC, Blog, and forums that if you purchased Opera in the last 30 days you can get a full refund. I've purchased Opera no less than 5 times over the years (home, work, family, new version, etc.) and still I don't have an issue with Opera now releasing the product as free. I'll continue to support the product and the company. I like doing that for quality software.
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
You make a very good point at the end....
Nothing brings out the real jerks like taking a few dollars from them. Some people really do believe that when they are purchasing software that they are not just buying what you currently offer, but that they have a right to every possible upgrade for the next 10 years. And if you don't deliver, then they will go on and on about the $35 they spent 'for this piece of crap.'
That is where the software subscription comes in. A lot of people (especially here on Slashdot) don't like the idea of the subscription model. But, they need to realize that customers come in all different shapes and sizes. And a subscription license (yearly fee, free upgrades) takes away a lot of your potential customer service problems.
Because it is always a small percentage of your customers (the problems) that take up the greatest amount of your time. I think the rule of thumb always ends up "10% of your customers will take up 90% of your time." So if you can somehow get those people off your back, you just saved a lot of problems...
And telling them, "It will be in the next release, and you'll get that for FREE. (as part of your yearly subscription...)" Would solve a lot of your problems. But if they had to pay for the next release...they'd have a fit.
No reason to lie.
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 !
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'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.
Definitely.
That's the same reason I actually ordered my copy of Slackware 10.1 from the Slackware Store, even though it was available free for the taking.
The way I see it, I got more than a year's worth of use out of Slackware 9.1, and I didn't pay anything for that (being the first version of Slackware I tried). I figure I got way more than $39.95's worth of use, so I showed my support by actually purchasing the next release I wanted to have.
I don't have an aversion to paying for quality software.
And the circle of life continues to spin, occasionally wobbling on its axis thanks to the weighty presence of dumb.
Help! I installed Opera, but can't find the free beer option...
If Microsoft was mass, stupidity would be gravity.
Opera is licensed to be used in many embedded devices. If you buy a cellphone with a browser preinstalled, don't be surprised if it's Opera you find (they have licensing agreements with Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola among others). And, I'm quite certain, Opera didn't give them those licenses for free. :)
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
As much as I love Firefox, using it as my main browser and all, that has to be corrected.
Opera is still lighter than Firefox, and still faster, by a far margin.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
So in light of your question, I must ask. Why would I use a browser that requires that I hunt down 30+ plugins just to get the functionality that comes standard in Opera?
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.
Unless you are taking an ideological stance in which you do not use any closed/proprietary software(including windows, office, etc.), in which case it's justified, or if you are a Firefox developper and need the source, I don't see that as a strong argument. The fact that it's open source doesn't mean much beside for development and ideological reasons. In the end it's a product.
Now, you may not like Opera for other reasons, or you are happy with firefox and don't see why you'd switch, that's fine. But not trying it because it's not open source is pretty stupid IMHO.
Now, since they are mostly similar, I don't see a lot of people switching from one to another, but that's something else and has nothing to do in the fact that it's open source or not. Those using FF don't see why they should switch, and Oepra users don't see why they should switch. Some will switch because of a couple of features or other reasons, but they both do a pretty good job.
Maybe I'm an open source traitor, but I do like open source and see the advantage of it, but if a closed source software does a better job, or is really cool and innovate, and the price is right, I'll gladly pay to encourage the company. 20-40 bucks for a software I use everyday? That's fair. Now it's free, which is even better. I use tons of open source software whenever I can, but I still use some closed software too. I donate or contribute to open source projects whenever I can, just as I pay for a closed software if I like it.
Good news... you can still buy Opera, if you trade on the OSE.
Did you patch and compile your Firefox? Or did you just download binary like 80 millions other users?
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.
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.
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.
The fact that you don't value your freedom, or find yourself in such a position that you don't need to, doesn't mean others shouldn't.
13-4=54/6
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 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.
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.)
just a few small corrections here.
;)
your first point is right on the money, ~5 MB (opera) to ~15 MB (firefox)
point 2. Does not compute.
Even after 3 days of reading slashdot the most I've ever gotten firefox* up to is about 90MB with 2 windows and 24 tabs open. Also, on a 'fresh' load of the identical 'saved in tabs' bookmarks firefox uses 12MB less RAM than opera. albeit opera is better at prolonged usage in terms of ram, since it rarely if ever goes past 50MB, while firefox can easily go to 60-90 MB
point 3 Dubious claims... considering the entire interface of firefox is rendered by the gecko engine using java etc... perhaps on a slow computer, with low ram you could mamage to get 15x faster perfomance out of opera than out of gecko/firefox... but on the typical PC being sold in stores today the margin is going to be quite slim, between the two engines.
Since opera started getting better about standards compliance, yes they're now about comperable. for a good while firefox was in the lead, but this is the kind of thing that can change as often as someone ratifies a new 'standard' at the w3c
*= i run firefox pretty well from a 'stock' configuration, no plugins, no extentions, just a browser. claiming that firefox 'easily consumes 200MB' is quite misleading, as only a firefox bloated down with dozens of 'feature extending' extenions will consume that much ram. hardly fair to blame the browser for the extentions bloated RAM use.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
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
Bare firefox doesn't cut it, it's stripped to the bone compared to Opera's feature. My fox, the one I want to use and that makes me keep in instead of switching to opera, has something like 40 extensions. These hog a lot of memory, yet are what makes Firefox superior in my opinion. Bare firefox blows, it's still slower than opera and doesn't have a tenth of Opera's features.
XUL is based on Javascript, not firefox, and I don't give a damn about what you think, the reality is that Opera is faster in 95% of the DOM operations, and has much better optimized loops than firefox (proof of that one being that reverse-counting in a for loop yields 50% improvement in looping speed for firefox, and just about nothing for Opera). Try these getElementsByClass emulations if you don't believe me.
Yes I can, of course I can, extensions and extensibility are what allow firefox to be above Opera for most users, without extensions Firefox is little more than a standard-compliant IE, the only thing is has being the JS console (which Opera has) and the DOM inspector (which opera, to my knowledge, doesn't have)...
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler