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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."
Opera free? Without ads? But Microsoft says companies can't survive like that!
A search for "internet browser" brings opera back at #1.
So how much does KDE and the Mozilla foundation get for their implementation in Konqueror and Firefox respectively? Missed opportunity?
Doh!
Hopefully this well help more people switch from IE. Or at least introduce some of the computer using public to the fact that IE is just a web browser and they can pick from many...
That is, as long as FF still gets users ;-)
How exactly do they plan on making money now?
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Damn, I was going to register spreadopera.com and start competing with a certain other browser, but a whois shows that Opera already registered that domain!
With this kind deal between companies? Sure, it may bring Internet Explorer down, but what does this spell for other browsers who do not have 'deals' with Google?
Staying one step ahead!
Lack of competition when you have no competitors is not exactly my idea of monopolistic behavior.
Heck, I'm almost ready to make the case in favor of MSN - at least if Yahoo goes down Google won't have a search monopoly.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
*Sigh*
*bats eyelashes*
Is there anything they cannot do?
kinda sick, heh?
But, hey, I remember when Micro Soft (original name) used to treat its users with a modicum of respect.
I clasp my hands and hope Google stays, well, relatively Good.
Right now, a diversity of free browsers looks pretty good.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
People should pay to see the Opera! after all, when you download it you miss all the fantastic costumes and corpulant players!
when will the RIAA do something about this!?
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
...turns up a link to Firefox as #1.
But I'm sure you knew that.
Interestingly enough, Mozilla, Opera, Netscape, and Safari are all listed before IE.
Google pays MoFo for that placement.
They also seem to get to hire the best Mozilla developers, but I'm not sure if that's part of the deal.
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?
Why would anyone search for an 'internet browser' via their internet browser?
Oh, AOL users.
No, Google is paying Opera to be the default search engine in the toolbar search. It doesn't make any sense for Google to pay Opera to list Opera higher in Google's rankings...
So, remember, everytime you do a search in Firefox, some money goes from google to Mozilla, estimates ranging from 50 cents to 1 dollar per user per year.
This space for rent.
1,000,001 - thanks google!
"I think there's no reason for anyone to use anything but firefox"
Ever use Firefox on Mac OS X or FreeBSD? It sucks, badly.
People will always have a reason to use alternative browsers, whether it's usability, suitability for their platform, or (gasp) personal choice. If you're such a hack of a web developer that you can't make your sites work in different browsers, perhaps you should find another line of work.
there's more than one way to do me.
Opera hurts the web? Hahaahha, that is the more ridiculous and retarded statement I have read on Slashdot this week, and that means a lot.
There is no browser out there with full CSS 2.1 support. Not one. Certaintly not Trident (IE's engine). Not Gecko (Firefox's engine). Not KTML (Konqueror's engine). Not Webcore (Safari's fork of the KHTML engine). And not Presto (Opera's engine).
People talk about designing to the standards, but without a single web browser actually following said standards, web designers on the front lines have to work around different browser's quirks.
For example, a number of browsers support bits and pieces of CSS 3.0. Gecko and Webcore have support for opacity (translucent elements on a web page); Trident can do the same thing with the non-standard "Filter:" tag. However, Presto in Opera 8 has no support for this.
The workaround for Opera users is to use a translucent PNG instead. However, a translucent PNG used in mouseovers triggers a Firefox/Windows 1.0.x bug (probably fixed in Deer Park) where the mouseover image will not be loaded unless visible somewhere else on the page (I can mostly eliminate this bug by making the PNG in question visible on the page as a single 90% transparent pixel in the upper right hand corner. Which mostly, but not completely, works around the bug.)
Basically, with yet another CSS rendering browser out there gaining market share, while only implementing a subset of the CSS standard, web designers now have to work around the quirks of yet another browser. I like this kind of work, but a lot of designers hate this stuff and just throw their hands in the air and make their web page a 100% flash web page or what not.
now that opera changed the USER AGENT ID, what i'm really interested is in seeing how much will change in the stats for IE...
Opera is a nice browser, but I just can't understand their policy on the keyboard. If you use KDE it says you have to change some hotkeys of the enviroment, instead of changing them on the program.
And they really should change to Ctrl+T to open a new tab, IMHO.
--
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If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
So Google infiltrates yet ANOTHER aspect of the Internet. This strategy of embedding itself into the fabric of the Internet looked cute before the company went on to become the next stockmarket darling, now I can't help but see each new step in increasing its mind-share as Bill Gates in double.
This stockmarket-listed company's strategy is to 'organise the world's information'. The Internet is resembling one large Google Ad to rule them all!
Do we believe in the inherent goodness of this corporation's dollars as it buys, sponsors, advertises its way into open source?
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
I doubt that very much. Put a little thought into it. Each browser is a schism in the de facto standards. Until all browsers support the same standards equally, the more there are of them, the worse off we are. In other words, it is logically apparent that the public is better off when one browser can render all pages the way they were intended to be displayed. That will never happen, of course, but the closer we can get, the better. More browsers makes this goal harder to reach. Instead, why don't all the browser makers collaborate on a great browser? Because that's pinko commie talk, that's why.
That's why the story title and body is misleading too: The downloads of Opera are totally independant of this deal with Google. The profit of Opera ASA of course is not, but the downloads are!
The summary of this article is very unclear about the point. To be clear: people didn't download Opera because it uses Google. Rather, they were *able* to get Opera for free because Opera had an alternative revenue stream with Google.
Firefox hurts the web too then.
What with yahoo just down the street in sunnyvale, HP up north a touch in Palo Alto, and Apple a bit South West, in cupertino, A microsoft campus, and S3 in santa clara, the greater mountain view area hits slashdot quite often, I think.
That's why they call it sillicon valley.
Opera, my favorite browser, supported by Google, my favorite search...
It's paid placement, and I realize that, but I would probably end up at google anyways, even without the placement. For me, its a feature.
FanFictionRecs.net
IIRC they are giving away thouer browser to PC (both windows and linux) and MAC users but they are not giving it away for other platforms. Presumablly thier aim is to gain mindshare (among both users and web developers) with thier free PC browsers and then sell browsers for platforms like mobiles either to the mobile vendors or direct to end users.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
"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]
"free internet browser", gives you www.mozilla.org
"best internet browser" gives you www.opera.com
"bad internet browser" gives you an article on Internet Explorer
"worst internet browser" gives you home.netscape.com
Amazing. Simply amazing.
Do a google search for: internet Search and google will be number 7. A little odd... putting themselves so far down the list. http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&q=in ternet+search&btnG=Search/
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
The story text is sort of misleading, but the downloads of Opera aren't "totally independant" as you suggest. What the submitter means is that, because of the deal with Google bringing in money, Opera can now fund their business with no ads in the browser. The newly ad-free browser is being downloaded more now.
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.
Most people as far as I know just say you need a "browser", not an internet browser, free browser, web browser, or other two word compositions.
Searching for "browser" gives Mozilla & Firefox number 1 & 2 position.
True.
My POINT is that there should be One Browser to Rule Them All.
My OPINION is that it should be Firefox.
Both are open to debate, of course.
Is an open source monopoly really a monopoly?
If Firefox were the only browser, it would still continue to improve by virtue of the fact that it's open source, and there are talented programmers who care about its quality.
Also, you're wrong about standards compliant code. When you start doing tricky things, even if they're standards compliant, different browsers start having their own quirks. No two browsers will ever render every possible standards-compliant page the same way. That's why I wish everyone would use Firefox.
It doesn't spell anything for other browsers. They just have to have their own way to raise funds. They can do that however they want.
If FF and Opera can get Google to pay them for their users searching with Google, more power to 'em. Many would already be using Google in the first place, and the "Google box" is really convenient and easily switchable to some other search engine.
Of course, that last sentence reminds me a lot of "It's very convenient to bundle a web browser with an operating system and it's easy to choose a different one". Which is a true statement as well. With MSN and other competitors trying to take Google's place in search, Google is trying to keep their name first in the minds of the population running Opera and FF -- the population that often thinks of itself at the "net-elite" and is very likely to recommend things to "not-elite" friends. Which is exactly the advantage that Microsoft's IE has, that it's the first one there.
Interestingly enough, at least on FF1.0.6/GNULinux, you can't add new searches to the "googlebox". There's an "Add buttons" item, but it only adds a particular kind of bookmark that lets you type, say, "wp foobar" into the address bar and give you a wikipedia search for foobar. And they don't exactly document that fact well at all. So it does look like the "googlebox" is an exclusive space for Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Dictionary.com, eBay and Creative Commons (one of these things is not like the others?). I mean, of course, FF is open source and I could go through the code and change it. It's probably really easy. But what's interesting is the total lack of acknowledgement of the pay-for-space aspect of FF/Moz. I'd have thought I would have heard of it by now.
Whatever. It's non-intrusive and useful. If it gets intrusive I'll use something else. (Actually Opera getting rid of its adbar caused me to download it and I use it from time to time... so that bit of non-intrusiveness does count.)
I'm now firmly committed to using Mozilla for web browsing. But for folks who have older computers with say, 64 or 128 MB of RAM, Moz is just too much of a memory hog. For me, Opera is a nice medium between the overly vulnerable IE (especially pre XP SP2 - ie. almost everyone who has less 256mb of RAM) and Mozilla.
Now, without the ads, their 800x600 15 inch monitors are much more useful too. =)
Isn't competition nice when it works?
Opera may be all about Opera web standards. But Firefox is all about Firefox web standards and IE is all about IE web standards. Which is closest to W3C's standards? More importantly, which is best? Speaking from personal experience, I've written pages which were valid, standards compliant according to the W3C docs, and displayed correctly in Firefox ("correctly" is an important word - it implies that the way the page displayed in Firefox is the way it should display according to the W3C). The pages were "off" a bit in Safari, Opera, and IE - all in different ways.
But it's not that often the towns are mentioned by name.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
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....
I must say, while a single browser would be nice, it would be like the 90s again when MS won the browser war.
Since IE was the only real browser used by the masses, MS just decided to sit on it. Now that Opera and Mozilla are getting their shit together, MS is being forced to actually put some work into the browser if they want to continue to control things.
So having a single, universal browser wouldn't be great if the developers suddenly decided what features people do and do not need, and whether support for something is really all that nescesary (check spelling.)**
What I would like to see, is a universal-ish rendering engine, that people then build browsers upon.
** - This is talking closed source. Open source basically debunks the point I'm trying to make.
1&1 - Cheap domain and web hosting.
Opera is older, and better, than Firefox, so by your "logic" it is Firefox that is dividing the population even further. I assume that you wish we were all using Mosaic?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
You forget that Firefox is open source. That's why it's the perfect candidate to hold a monopoly - it can continue to progress because nobody profits from leaving it in disrepair. With a commercial browser, the company has to pay people to fix it, so they would prefer not to.
I see. So, monopolies are bad and competition is good, but there's only allowed to be ONE competition with the leader at a given time? Your argument can just as easily be applied to eliminate Firefox. Why should you have to support TWO browsers when 90% of the population uses only one (IE)? Firefox is damaging the internet by forcing people to support more than one browser!
Please. This is why we have standards: so the can have both competition and compatibilty. It's not perfect, but no competition is even worse.
After the 'going free' announcement, I decided to give Opera another shot (I had previously used it when it had that aweful MDI interface) Anyway, I love it! All around it seems really slick - very quick response, very nice look, and it had a really tight feel (not sure what that is - it just seems very responsive). Overall the most 'professional' feeling browser out imho. I'm just hoping they come out with a badly needed googlebar (I like to do google news and groups searches - not just the web). Once they include that, I'll probably make it my primary browser.
Bob
You must have some strange browsing habits, or are exagerrating severely. 50% of sites have Opera issues? Please. I haven't had to open another browser for compatibility reasons in a week.
Can you point me to some of these pages? I've compared firefox and opera myself, and i found that opera does a better work usually. Anyway, my point of view may be biased since i am a long time user of opera.
I agree that the keyboard UI could use some improvements (e.g. being able to capture keystrokes instead of making you spell them out, alerting you on conflicts without having to manually search from them yourself), but I don't think it's nearly as cryptic as you're making out
No, I disagree, the comment about Mozilla being anti-competitive by not paying Google to be able to include the Search Bar in Mozilla was equally retarded.
You're right!!!! I'll go and load Firefox onto my PDA right this minute! Everyone who has a handheld device and accesses the net should do the same thing right this minute!!!!!!!!
Oh...wait a minute...
You also forgot that nobody really profits from keeping an open source app up to date either. All in all, you made a good point.
MOD PARENT UP!
But because it's open source doesn't mean the leaders of the project won't suddenly decide that such and such a feature isn't nescesary (still haven't learned it), and you end up with the same problem, an OSS project with a napolean complex (I'm kidding...) And then a group of intrepid developers suddenly decide to fork the project, with such and such a feature. Bam. Back to the problem of having too many browsers. Although, FF does seem to alleviate this possibility through extensions.
It's basically an endless cycle, and I'm just bitching about it. Maybe I should go start my own browser...
1&1 - Cheap domain and web hosting.
Google in the searchbox is, because it is the only search engine I use, almost as good news as it becoming free and bannerless. Now, if Opera can only change the keyboard shortcuts to the standards then I may even consider using it. That is the only reason I find it garbage. For instance, press ctrl-u in Mozilla, Konqueror, Galeon, Firefox, Epiphany or any other Linux browser except for Opera and you are viewing the source code. Press ctrl-t in any of them and you get a new tab. Press ctrl-l and you are in the URL bar. None of those work in Opera, and the same applies to just about everything else - not a single shortcut works as expected. Which is kind of annoying since I do web development and have a lot of browsers open in a tabbed window in fluxbox to make sure the pages look just about the same - but I will not have Opera as part of those tabs until they comply with normal shortcuts.. if I need to view the source I want to be able to do it whatever browser I happen to have open, so something that doesn't support even my basic needs don't get to be among my always-open browsers.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
If the guy is a clueless moron, why do I want to read his other posts?
Insightful comment. But the "correct" you think the page should be displayed depends on which browser you test the page you are developing, because, while you are writing it, you will try to fix any bug you find in your page.
Opera has bugs, Safari has bugs, Mozilla/Firefox has bugs. Which one has less bugs? Hard to know. [people say that Firefox has less bugs than Opera, which has less bugs than Safari]
Comment removed based on user account deletion
OMFG. So many things wrong with your post, I'm not even sure whether you're being serious.
You do realize that you're apparently arguing in favor of Firefox , and then claiming that a single browser should have a monopoly. Wait a second... I seem to remember a particular browser already having a near monopoly. Forget Firefox! Maybe we should all go use that other one. Then, since it'd have no competition, it could be the de facto standard!
Next on the list: Opera is at least, probably more, standards compliant than Firefox. Oops.
Third, just to be picky, Firefox isn't avaliable for all platforms. How many cell phones run Firefox? How many run Opera?
Fourth, your idiotic attitude is what puts a lot of people off of Firefox. I stopped using Firefox as my primary browser not only because it's inferior to Opera, but also because 99% of the people who recommend it are mindless zealots. Listening to them, you would think Firefox is the best thing since sliced bread (which they'd probably claim Firefox had first). Is Firefox nice? Yeah, it's not too bad. Is using it the orgasmic experience the zealots make it out as? No, not really.
Maybe not
Oh puleeze. At least get the history right if you're going to start pissing and moaning about there being too many browsers.
Opera was around long before Firefox, or Mozilla. If you can't work that basic fact into your "no more browsers" philosophy, then it's clear that your agenda isn't to further standards: it's to promote the browser that you happen to like.
Someone does profit from keeping open source up to date: the users. In every case, the developers of open source software ARE the users; therefore the developers profit (in a non-monetary sense) from making the software better.
Read my reply to the other guy who called me a firefox zealot. Also, read my replies regarding an OPEN SOURCE monopoly vs. a closed-source/commercial one. A monopoly is usually bad because it has the potential to crush progress or drive prices up. Neither of these will happen with open source. And if you think it's fair to call me an idiot for stating my opinion, than I'm free to call you a dimwitted knee-jerker who regurgitates other people's opinions and entirely missed the point of what I was saying. I really wish the slashdot crowd could have real discussion and debate. The majority of replies I've seen follow the same formula as yours: State your opinion, declare it as fact, and sling derrogatory names at me. Eliminate the second two and add on some real support for your claim.
I know how long Opera has been around. I don't care.
Opera is a commercial product. Yes, I would prefer an open alternative. Viewing web pages correctly should be a free (as in beer) right. Just because Opera has some profit-making scheme up their sleeves that's causing them to give away their product doesn't mean they won't be charging for it tomorrow, or next week, or next year, or whenever their market share goes up and they feel like they can make some real money.
Found an easier way to love ads - http://operaadfilter.com/
Wow, I thought everyone on Slashdot hated monopolies and loved anything free (wheither as in beer or as in speech).
Opera is better than IE, you're right about that. In many ways it's better than Firefox (and Firefox copied many of it's features from Opera).
Now, before you fan boys start slobbering all over your keyboards, try Opera out. Check out how quickly you can go between pages in your history. Using Opera right now, I can use a tightly integrated mouse gesture (which I didn't have to find, download, restart my browser, test and if I didn't like it do it over again) to go bach to the last page and then back forward and what I am typing will still be here. Try that in Firefox.
When a new version comes out, everything still works- I don't have to go re-install a ton of extensions to get it how I like it. The new trashcan is awesome- if I close a tab, I can re-open it at any time (as long as I didn't quit the application) and not only will it reopen instantly, but it retains it's history.
That being said, there are lots of cool things about Firefox that Opera doesn't allow. Many of the extensions are very specific to things people do online, and it would not make sense to integrate that into a browser like Opera since most people wouldn't use them. There are times in the day I will use both- Opera for general browsing and FF for specific things I do.
It's amazingly asinine of you to say that you'd have to worry about your standards compliant code not working on various browsers. Have you seen the acid2 page in Opera vs. Firefox vs. IE recently? IE blows ass on it, but Opera and Firefox are pretty damn close, with Opera just barely better (thought neither is perfect). If you write standards compliant code and a browser can't support it, then who is at fault?
You said it yourself- market forces will correct it. People are, for the most part pretty ignorant about what a browser is, but it is steadily improving, and a company like Opera ASA making a move like this will actually help educate people. Opera ASA is still a for profit company who is making a profit in spite of giving away it's browser. It's a somewhat risky but clever move on their part. As more people try Opera and the word about the company and the quality of the software it makes gets out, more people will want to try their comercial software. Opera ASA decided to release their browser for free to build mindshare, and it seems like it's working. Now, imagine if they decided to do some real marketing - on TV to get Joe Sixpack. He would learn in 30 seconds that IE is NOT "the internet" and that he can try another browser. The Mozilla Foundation could do this as well, but I don't know if they have the cash laying around that Opera does.
BTW, for a laugh, on Win XP right click IE on the start tab and delete it. It will warn you with "Are you sure you want to delete the internet from your start menu?" Dear lord, who would ever want to delete the internet from their computer after spending so much time downloading it?!
I feel smart as a bag of hammers. I saw Google and thought "Hey, this is on Slashdot so that really says thanks to Slashdot."
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
..start??
-First to have true tab support, reaaally fast tabs not chunky pieces of flab. Hit Ctrl+N one minute, you end up with a bazillion tabs. Yeah you can fill all those up and use them. Try clicking (shift+clicking) to open new links everywhere.. And then use the smart Ctrl+Tab to browse the last viewed pages, or all of them easily. You can easily figure out which page is what (from the titles) in a list of 500. How more pages would you want to fit in a browser?? Aside for that, really cool cascading or even tiling (right click on the tab for more options)
-Actually, if you're new and learning right click everywhere and pay close attention to the options revealed. The true power of the Opera is under the hood. And that is the OPTIONS everywhere. The older Opera versions had the options more out front, but that seemed to scare a lot of "lazy/zombie" users away, thus the new slick interface with more options as you go was created.
-Just think about this, compare the flab of FF or anything else to the slickness and tightness of Opera. So tiny, yet so many features well integrated. Thats one thing that adds to security, WITHOUT limiting any plugin possibilities. The set features are good, they have a reason of existance. If you need anything extra, all you have to do is know java, and you can stick it right in the interface WHEREVER you want it. For example, I have a bunch of applets here and there, one as a dictionary to pick up German words and give me English/Greek equivs. You could make anything, its up to you.
-If you're more of a seeker, once examining of all the interfaced options, go ahead and dig in the O dir, view all the ini files and see what you can do there. Opera's options are everywhere, left and right. But the idiot, even if he stared, would see nothing but pixels.
-I read a lot of silly comments like, oh, why can't opera have X behavior, X keys, X mouse gestures X whatever... Geez folks, are you that dumb? I was expecting to find nerds on here, not a bunch of hillbillies :P
All the above and a lot more can
be changed and defined in the said
options/prefences, just look around!
Getting to know Opera will only benefit you,
your surfing speed, and yields from the web.
-E-mail, and irc client also included. The e-mail client is more than I could ask for as far as e-mail goes. I read something about Active-X, and was like WTF??? E-mail was supposed to be, and SHOULD be text, and just text, no stupid html, with active x and active S and whatever else could bloat it more and make it a whole lot buggier. Opera's mail client is really powerful, smart and above all tiny and integrated. All in one sort of thing. The irc client is basic, but what else do you expect from a browser? Opera is basically your working swiss army knife, but don't expect a generous spoon for irc, why bload the code? Its pretty good for when you only have 5 mins, and want to use e-mail, irc and browse on someone else's comp.
-As mentioned somewhere above, opera can still run on my old crappy 333 laptop, FAST and efficiently. I barely notice the difference between my AMD 64 3400 and that piece of shit. (Except for screen size, and well, you can't overtab it.)
-But thats not all, I have been following and watching the behavior of those behind opera. And their stance on things. For example, the whole of Opera as a team are strong believers that all the options/prefences should be in the hands of the users. After reading the really dumb comments above, I must say, that if you don't like that overmentioned placed google search box. GO AHEAD AND REMOVE IT. I don't see why you would, since it IS USEFUL, but if you really want to... You have to dissasemble Opera, then find string x.... NO All you have to effing do is right click on the said box, and do.. remove from toolbar. TADA. Now you can go ahead and replace that with Yahoo, Xoo, Kaboo, kazavooo Whatever the heck you use. (I personally use fravia's set)
Sometimes slashdot is funny, but sometimes it is truly
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our new Google overlords and welcome their money ... unh support.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Despite your very hostile (dare I say troll-ish) attitude to the people who have responded to you, I feel compelled to take your bait and try and explain why I feel that having a browser monopoly (even an open source one) is a problem.
See, you seem to think that if there was one supreme browser that was open sourced, everything would be groovy. I have news for you... there's this little thing called the 90% problem. More specifically, the problem with a lot of open source software is that it gets mostly finished (to the point where it is usable for the average geek - not for 'Joe Sixpack') and then the developers go on to other, more interesting projects. See, they're not being compensated for their time, so they want to work on what is 'fun' or 'exciting' instead of fixing the last couple of problems with a piece of software. Now, a non-open source company, like Opera, has a financial incentive to write that last 10%, however, a group of open source developers, like those working on Firefox, who are not getting paid to write user-friendly code, have virtually no incentive to go the 'last mile'. Plus, paid developers have to listen to their users, or they risk alienating their customers. Open Source developers are free to be horribly rude to their users and can ignore usability problems (becasue they feel that the way *they* use the software is the only correct way*) becuase they have no financial incentive to listen to their users.
Now, you're probably going to post a rude reply about how I must simply be a Microsoft apologist because I don't worship FireFox. To try and prevent that (not that it'll do any good), I would like to state that I believe that having multiple open source and closed source browsers all competing in the marketplace is the best way to spur innovation. Also, all things being equal, I will always pick open source software over *equal* closed source wares.
Finally, as someone who has been doing web development since Mosaic reigned supreme, it is my opinion that the current browser that is the closest to w3c compliance is Opera. Granted, it might not display everything quite the way you expect it to display (or quite the way it displays in FireFox), but before you start pointing and screaming about how Opera sucks, and FireFox is more compliant... go back and re-read the actual standards (you *have* read them thoroughly, haven't you?). Most of the time, I think you will find that Opera is actually conforming to the published standards, and that what you thought it *should* look like is actually due to a mis-reading of the standards (or possibly due to a false expectation, based upon FireFox's mis-rendering).
Bah... I'm really not anti-FireFox, despite the tone fo this post. I just get annoyed when people assume that FireFox (or even open source in general) is always the best. That mentality is almost as bad the people who think IE is the internet!
All of that said, I'm *still* waiting for any browser other than IE5+ or NS4 to support embedded fonts! =)
* I realize the tone of this is a tad bitter - I had a horrible experience when I submitted a FireFox bug a few months ago. Basically, FireFox was not following a w3c xhtml specification and when I submitted the bug, I got rudly told that the developers felt that the w3c's spec was not the right way to implement something, so FireFox would not be following that particular spec... Oh, and by the way: How dare I question the wisdom of the mighty and always-correct FireFox developers. Needless to say, I now consider FireFox my browser of last resort!
Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish and Not Quite As Tall As I'd Like To Be.
I think you're a being a little unfair - I've been hostile in return to those who gave hostile, uninformed responses to me. You raise a good point about open source software - it's never really complete. But I feel that the browser market is different - since standards keep evolving fairly rapidly, there is NEVER a chance for the software to be "complete". It will always be changing. The project may lose developers and gain developers, but I think as long as people like the browser there will always be people dedicated to working on it. When it comes down to it, 'Joe Sixpack' is not going to pay for a browser. If people don't pay for it, Opera has no business model. Furthermore, if people get the idea in their heads that if they want a new browser besides IE then they have to buy it, they will give up entirely. I admittedly haven't done a comprehensive comparison of standards compliance between Opera and Firefox. But I stand by my opinion that Firefox is better for the internet than Opera, and Opera may even be a detriment. I am truly apologetic that some people don't share my opinion, and even think I'm an idiot or a moron for having that opinion. But I never did anything to those people other than state what I think. Apparently I'm not allowed even to do that.
Almost as well as FeedDemon or NetNewsWire, depending on your platform. A few things skimped or just wrong, but mainly right and very much better than Firefox's headlines-only "Smart Bookmarks". In other words, Opera includes an email-style Description panel, and implements external urls (i.e., pictures, mainly podcasts I didn't check). That's nice. Otherwise, it's so darned foreign (like driving on the left side of the road), that I haven't taken the time to learn it yet. I've also got cookie-foot, which makes it hard to slog out of the Camino swamps to drier pastures. But I do like Opera. Just slowly.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
I know Slashdot MS is teh evil and Mozilla will sit next to God Himself in heaven, but this is soooooo wrong. The whole point of Hypertext Markup on the internet is to be platform agnostic. CSS was designed so that it could be used by Free browsers and propretary browsers (and non-CSS browsers and text-browsers and screen readers and web bots like Google and just about anything else that can parse 's).
I understand (and sympathize) with your frusuration about web applications, because many javascript implementations are garbage and support for DOM is still in it's infancy, but the web is first and formost a platform for disseminating information, not building applications.
I would just like to post one final comment here. You're all right. I was wrong. Opera is the bee's knees. Firefox is shit. I'm a horrible web developer who can't write standards-compliant code to save my life, because obviously if I could then it would look perfect in Opera (since Opera is perfect) and I would have no need to be wary. No more need for argument. The dissenting opinion has left the building. To further demonstrate I will henceforth speak entirely in sheep noises.
Baaaa!
I forgot to mention: I'm also a retarded, idiotic moron. I'm clearly no older than twelve and have the mental capacity of a chimp.
Err, I mean, Baaaa!
1) SPEED. People love to say "it goes fast even on old equipment". Opera goes faster on fast equipment too. Firefox still has that annoying lag time when you click the back button, and Opera is nearly instantaneous. It is more memory efficient too, so it lasts for a longer time before a restart. It reloads to your previous position on crashes (which almost never happen). It can save your old pages you were viewing too, so if you close the browser, it will load them all back up. On benchmarks, Opera takes almost every single benchmark, as is shown here: http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html
2) Configurability. Opera is configurable as hell. Basically everything on the browser can be changed. Don't like the skin? Change it. Don't like the status bar on top? Move it to the bottom, or turn it off completely. Don't like the fast forward button? Get rid of it. It's this that gives you a highly functional browsing experience, while at the same time taking up a lot less space so you get more web page viewing. Choice is power.
The one down point that people like to point out is that occasionally Opera won't work on a page. The opera guys have spent years engineering little differences out of the engine, and that almost never happens anymore. And the thing is, that will start to change when a lot of people start using the browser. That, and I mean even Firefox misses on some of those gross IE designed garbage pages.
Look, I know a lot of people here are set on Firefox exclusively because its open source and blahdeblah, but don't decide your browser on nontechnocratic grounds. I've been surfing the net for over 10 years, and I remember when Opera 3 was out. Opera used to be a slow, buggy peice of crap that didn't work on anything. It's now an incredible browser, and it blows the competition away.
In short, just try it.
...when searching just 'browser', mozilla.org shows up #1 and Opera is bumped to #4. Not only that but Mozilla.org has some fancy extra links that no one else has, not even Opera.
"Which is closest to W3C's standards? "
/khtml based browsers such as konqueror or Safari
/konqueror on linux , opera on all occasionaly .
.I have written compliant code which rendered better on Firefox than safari . I am yet to make standards compliant code that will render more accurately on MSIE than the other browsers though (Mission impossible) .
:how about a single OS for everything , Everyone could drive the exact same car , everyone could wear the same clothes , we could all eat one food .Life would very boring.
Web-core
"which is best?"
Totally up to personal preference . I use safari on mac , Firefox
"I've written pages which were valid, standards compliant according to the W3C docs, and displayed correctly in Firefox "
I have written standards compliant code which firefox did not render properly , though it did do a far better job than MSIE-but Safari displayed it exceptionally
The reason we have a standards committee such as the W3C is to create a (You guessed it ) set of standards . A set standards so that all browser makers can code towards it , giving web devs security that their code will render well no matter the browser.
Of course no browser is fully compliant , but some are more compliant than others.
The point about one browser seems a little odd to me
I understand the frustration of web devs . but one browser monopolising the market has given us the scourge of MSIE.
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Don't forget search terms or mistyped URLs entered into the address bar.
Matched up with all the other data they collect those Google databases on all of us must be pretty damn full!
According to the announcement, the thing is that Opera has gotten a better search deal with Google than before, so I guess it's partly true. But paid search referrals have been there for ages.
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With several browser with about the same market share, the impact of viruses/worms targeting specific browser flaws will be lessened.
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While the UI is somewhat cluttered, most of its features can be tamed or turned off.
I'm impressed.
This was pretty random, but: http://inovis.com/ http://espn.go.com/ http://www.cbgarden.org/ (compare javascript menu speed with Firefox) freshdirect.com (have to log in to see it, but there is a key section of images missing) Outlook web access - login unsupported (ooh, just saw something I like about Opera - it can rememeber the pages you had open when you last exited.) Most of these were fairly minor rendering problems, but I just don't find any sites anymore that Gecko doesn't render well. The performance was also lacking on a beefy Mac (slow scrolling, javascript). I haven't installed it on Windows yet, so I don't have an apples to apples comparative opinion.
Your email and your bank site don't work properly? Two pretty important sites. "Everything looks horrible in firefox" is of course a ridiculous statement, but do you have any example sites where Opera does a better job? I can't find any.
I don't see why we have to choose browsers at all, really. I use both FF and Opera (IE as well for a couple of sites that need it, but I don't like using it) and have no problem with it like that. FF is my preferred browser, due to its easy to install extensions (I have weather forcasts in the menubar, Adblock, etc, it's heavily customised), installable search engines, and UI, but I can use Opera as well, for the voice commands.
For those who go on about Opera being first, I don't care what was first and what wasn't, I care about what's good now. And using both, I can say, for myself, that FF with extensions does all but the voice support as well as Opera for me, Deer Park having the same speed on the back button as Opera (one of the biggest changes). With FF Firetuned, 1.0.7 runs as fast as Opera (I have compared them side by side rendering pages). And FF's Tab Mix Plus gives it the better tab support, I think. Also, I like the way pages are rendered by Gecko over Presto.
But there are things I can see Opera being used for, including slower systems, OSes where FF isn't implemented so well, and any sites which don't work in FF (yet to find any that will run in Opera better than FF). And the voice control is just fun to use. I say bring on the browser wars, competion drives quality up and, as part as that quality, encourages closer adherence to standards. I may be an FF fanboy, but I still want variety and alternatives.
Opera's internal buils are very close to passing Acid2.
Opera 9, AKA Merlin, is adding XSLT, designMode, more CSS3 stuff and "HTML5".
Type "n stuff" in addressbar and you get google news. In search.ini you can add your own. Find Opera Search ini editor to do this for you.
Viewing web pages correctly should be a free (as in beer) right. Just because Opera has some profit-making scheme up their sleeves that's causing them to give away their product doesn't mean they won't be charging for it tomorrow, or next week, or next year, or whenever their market share goes up and they feel like they can make some real money. You had damned well be running Linux or BSD right now (not using KDE, which uses licensed commercial software), using Firefox to surf, Thunderbird to check your mail, Jabber (in any open-source client) to IM, Wikipedia for information, D-Moz to search the web, a non-commercial mail provider, and listening only to public domain music, or else you will be the world's biggest hypocrite.
"Excuse me, did you say 'Trekker'? The word is 'Trekkie.' I should know; I created them." -- Gene Roddenberry
The article, if you read it, mentions that the Mozilla Foundation stands to make $30 million a year for making Google the default search engine in Firefox.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Someone does profit from keeping open source up to date: the users. In every case, the developers of open source software ARE the users; therefore the developers profit (in a non-monetary sense) from making the software better.
Didn't you mean financial profit when you first said it? If not, then all that applies to Opera too. The developers eat their own dog food, i.e. they use Opera too, but most importantly, if they don't make a good browser, no one would buy it or use it.
Opera has so many brilliant features. It supports User CSS the way the Accessibility specifications suggests, it has User JavaScript, and lots of other features. You just admitted to have downloaded it, run it and said I don't like it never to try it again. You don't sound really qualified to put it down as you have. Meanwhile, most Opera users also have FireFox installed, and they use both. I can tell you that FireFox is slow and bloated. Previous pages are refreshed, Opera can be run on old hardware, but we covered that...
I understand what you're saying about Open Source, but clearly it's not the only way because how do you explain Opera. I think it's better to have more than one browser in a Darwinian way. Competition, less universal exploits. Diversity stops attacks. If you have one browser, all bugs/exploits effect everyone.
I'm not fond of ad supported software, but opera is so good that I've overlooked it. I do have like each version of opera installed on my computer, and I've always been suspicious as to how extensive the spy features are, and I never use the search bars, but then FireFox gets revenue from quick search too, and it tries to connect to the net as soon as you open it.
Anyway, I don't see why we can't use both. That's what I do. I mostly use Opera. Maybe you don't, but I love it.
The reason people are attacking you is because your "we can only have one browser." and "open source only" and "Opera sucks" attitude is a bit extreme. You've used opera twice in your life, yet you appear to be on a passionate crusade against it.
haha, good point. All browsers have their quirks, and a page can validate perfectly but not render correctly. They both might impliment the standards "perfectly" but still render things differently. Why? Cause even in the most stringent of standards, there will always be places where its up to the implimentor to interperet things as they see, and they will always interperet these differently. Opera is not making this lunge as a desperate attempt for market share. They know they have a browser that LOTS of people rate very highly. I've seen heaps of reviews for opera where the only bad points they mention is the lack of rich text editing, which is being resolved in Opera9 (yay!), and the banner ads. They are simply removing the stumbling blocks that have held people back from using what is the most fully featured (in its default installation) web browser available.
my utility belt tells me its to the bar batman