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Opera Reaches 1 Million Downloads Thanks To Google
auckland writes "More than one million people have downloaded the Opera browser in the days since Opera announced it was dropping the ad banner and going completely free. All made possible because Opera signed a search referral deal with Google." From the article: "'The current most important deal now is with Google,' the spokesperson said to Mr. Malik. That deal, and similar ones with Amazon and eBay, give those companies prime placement in the Opera search box. Mozilla has a similar arrangement with Google, with its search box and its default right-click menu search option on highlighted text sending queries straight to Mountain View."
I'm not sure but was the headline to suggest that "No, Firefox doesn't suck, and it's still THE ONLY decent alternative to IE, because Opera CHEATS! -- They exchange traffic with Google!!!"
If so, then let me quote from the article:
"Mozilla has a similar arrangement with Google, with its search box and its default right-click menu search option on highlighted text sending queries straight to Mountain View. "
"Two things inspire me to awe -- the starry heavens above and the moral universe within." - Albert Einstein
And now, we are going to start seeing exploits getting released for Opera. As well as articles about how IE is more secure than Opera. Just give it a little time, trust me.
Since when did operating systems become a religion?
When Microsoft do this though, they are cross-subsidising, as it doesn't cost them anything to include MSN search with IE.
Google are paying Opera for this, so it becomes a business transaction. Also, Opera is a low market share browser, so it can't be considered anti-competitive. People can choose not to use/install it.
If your code is truly "standards compliant", then the only browser you have cause to be concerned with is Internet Explorer.
As for your suggestion that a browser monopoly would in any way be a good thing for anyone...well, you're just wrong.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
"Thanks to Google"
It goes side by side with the story about MS's worst nightmare being the web as the next platform. In order for this to happen, the web needs to become truely standard across all browsers and platforms. This will not happen with IE the way it is. Google being a major player in that nightmare, needs to make sure MS's handle on proprietary web technologies ends soon. This can be achieved by helping Opera and Firefox which is exactly what they are doing.
[alk]
I think people would be more familiar with the "web browser" term than the less accurate "internet browser" term.
Actually, most people refer to IE as "the Internet".
I bought Opera a few years back, and it's till my main browser because
- no virus / exploits, prolly not because it's better code, but because it's so little used that hackers don't bother
- native tabbed browsing (years ago, Ffox didn't have THAT, and Opera's is still good now)
- native mouse gestures, I can lay back and browse without the keyboard, and without endlessly monving the pointer back to the tool bar (I actually switch those off, and use it full-screen most of the time: F11)
- it just works, very few sites have problems with it
- it's easy to switch plugins on/off (flash...)
-> I still haven't found a compelling reason to switch to FFox (which I also installed). But then again I doubt there IS a reason to switch from Ffox to Opera nowadays, except maybe security IF all those alerts about FFox result in a major problem sometime.
The mail client sucks, they should just give up on it. It doesn't support ActiveX, which is a blessing and a curse. And of course, it's closed source. But at least it's NOT M$.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
That's funny, because last time I checked, Opera is standards compliant. I never had a problem opening web pages that used proper CSS and XHTML with Opera. As long as you stick to standard HTML or XHTML/CSS, you shouldn't have problems opening your web pages in Firefox and Opera. (IE still doesn't support all of the web standards, unfortunately).
Hate to break it to you, but not everybody thinks Firefox is the best thing since sliced bread. I switched to Opera from Firefox a few days ago because it is much faster and much more responsive on my machine (an old 266MHz Pentium II with 64MB RAM). Free Opera was a godsend to me; I couldn't deal with Firefox using my hard drive swap space any more. And then Konqueror and Safari are also nice, standards-compliant browsers. Opera, Konqueror, and Safari users don't need to drop whatever they are doing and switch to Firefox. Heck, I wouldn't even force an IE user to switch to an alternative browser. Hey, whatever floats your boat....