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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.
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!
They split the advertising revenue generated by the searches through the Google toolbar. This is how firefox pays their employees too. Google pay per click advertising is BIG money. It's a win win for both Google and firefox/opera. Both sides earn more revenue, and Google also takes market share from Microsoft.
Wyatt
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
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.
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.
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.
Did you even read the article? The whole point is that Google pays the Mozilla Foundation and Opera to include Google in the browser, of course Mozilla doesn't pay Google.
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.
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
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.
"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.
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....
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"
Volume!
Best Buy can have you arrested
..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
Opera's internal buils are very close to passing Acid2.
Opera 9, AKA Merlin, is adding XSLT, designMode, more CSS3 stuff and "HTML5".