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Ask Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner
Opera Software
has gotten all kinds of media play lately, including rumors that both Google
and Microsoft
were buying the company. Whether you love or hate Opera, you've got to
give them credit for building a decent browser and grabbing a small but
noticeable market share in the face of competition from both MSIE and
Firefox. Co-founder/CEO Jon
von Tetzchner is obviously reponsible for at least some of
this success -- and for much of the company's high press
profile, due not only to the Opera
Browser itself but to at least one whacky PR stunt
and at least one high-profile beef
with Microsoft. So who is this guy? Ask and find out. He's
obviously not your typical software company CEO, so we don't expect
typical CEO-type answers from him. We'll send him (direct, not through
a PR person) 10 or 12 of your best questions Friday
afternoon (US EST), and run his answers during the first week
of 2006.
Will the BitTorrent client get put in a final version (not just a technical preview)?
I can understand how a company competes against microsoft in the browser world, but how has things changed now that Mozilla and Firefox came into the picture. How do you plan on making money when a free, open source product is directly competing with you? Not only is it a complete product, but because it is open source, it has addons for just about anything available. Seems like an impossible battle to fight...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
As the CEO of Opera, do you have any idea how many inncent men you've put through a night of HELL as we patiently sit through the damn thing in order to get into some chick's pants? OH, sorry. Wrong Opera. (Please don't really send this to him...)
local.google.com
Native user agent switching
Opera 9's upcoming Acid2 compatibilty
Eye candy and general coolness factors
Can you give us a taste of new, unannounced features we'll see in future versions?
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
Does he think that the advent of Firefox et al signals an end to Microsoft dominance of the browser market? If so, does he think this will be good or bad for Opera as a company?
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
What is your favorite development platform? Your most promising browser platforms seem to be mobile. What do you plan to do in the future in terms of supporting more platforms (mobile, or other)?
The Television Wiki
Why would you hate Opera?
And no, this isn't a setup for music jokes.
Do you find that the majority of Opera users are on the IT side of things, and if so how do you plan to get more users who are the "typical user", or only use their computer at work for their assigned tasks? Since IE is embedded when they get their new machine out of the box, how are you introducing Opera to users that probably have a limited understanding that they can have a different browser, or even more than one browser on their machine?
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dougneedham
What do you see happening with your browser in 2006? Are there any exciting new features coming, or are you trying to get your browser bundled with any major PC company (ex: Dell with FireFox in the UK)? Give us a good reason to use Opera in the coming year.
Thanks for your time,
Bob_Villa
Recently someone suggested that MS should simply buy Opera as a web browser for Vista. What do you think of that idea? Would you sell?
--LWM
Opera has been an innovative browser for some time; it was one of the first to offer popup blocking, tabs (or MDI of some description), sessions, mouse gestures, and so on. However, since then, other browsers have implemented them as well; Firefox has extensions offering mouse gestures and sessions, and popup blocking and tabs are now commonplace.
After offering so many features, would you prefer browsers such as Firefox and IE to come up with their own ideas instead of taking them from other browsers, or prefer the sharing of ideas so the web is better off overall?
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
Soooo... :D
Are you a good swimmer?
Are you going to try again?
You know what I'm talking about.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
What can you tell us about the future of Opera in terms of integration with the host OS/environment ? One of the main things that keeps me Operated is the fact that one application covers most of my internet/client needs. I see the native integration-of-all-things as a great advantage over other "suites" of programs like FF/TB. So considering the future, is Opera wanted as a software that only needs a vanilla OS to provide for most peoples' needs, or is modularity (akin to FF's extensions) planned somewhere in the future, with everyone and their cousin adding things that might break the overall sleekness of design ?
I'm one of the few people who switched from Opera to Firefox. The reason was AdBlock. Why doesn't Opera have a rightclick-blockad feature? Is this simply just a case of the absence of a feature, or rather an expression of your company's policy on internet advertising?
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I'm just curious to what you think would happen to your comany if you were to merge with Google. I'm guessing with Google's corporate culture, you willl still be able to innovate browser technology like you have been in the past. But the Google tag with your browser will help gain more market share, and promote people coding web pages with W3C compatibility. For the good of all concerened, Opera and Firefox need to be the dominant web browsers in the market. What do you think?
Was Google just the obvious choice because of its scope, or is there some flirting going on in the hopes of a more lasting relationship?
Better extensions/plugins. Firefox has earned great acclaim for its dynamic extension support. Extensions such as Fasterfox, Adblock, Web Developer, and many others are the sole reason people use Firefox over Opera (or any other browser). I know Opera is working to help unify the Netscape plugin API, but the upcoming version 9 doesn't appear to have anything that can match Firefox's extension capabilities. When will we see Opera support plugin/extensions as powerful as Firefox's?
Why did you choose to make the reload button the same as the stop button. Will there be a complete makeover for Opera 9?
Thanks
I like Opera...in fact, I have stopped using Firefox in favor of Opera for reasons mentioned in someone elses question. Would you ever consider going back to charging for the browser, yet making it Open Source, and offering support for the paid version?
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
I'm a bit of a Firefox evangelist, and one of the huge problems I've had is that a vast number of non-technical types don't even understand what a "web browser" is. "Firefox? Uhm, no, I already installed the Internet on my Windows."
The problem is that these people form a large chunk of users, necessary for gaining large market share, but they don't even know that Internet Explorer is different from the Internet. What is Opera doing to get installed on the computers of people with "technology IQs" lower than their ping times? Is market share even a goal to Opera, or would it just be icing on the cake?
OMG! Wau!
I'm a happy user of Mozilla Firefox browser on both Linux and Windows. As Opera CEO, can you give me some possible reasons why should I switch to Opera? What advantages or outstanding featues it has, compared to Firefox?
Why would Opera's code be GPLed? They developed it themselves, and they've never released their source code.
In your mind, why have most of the people, who switched to alternative browsers, chosen Firefox over other ones such as Opera.
Opera Watch - An Opera browser blog.
Isn't this like insisting on winning the jumbo jet for collecting five billion Pepsi Points or whatever? Some advertising claims are outrageous enough that you can pretty much assume they're exaggerations.
Will Opera continue to expand the inclusion of XML standards such as SVG? Will we see namespace support, SVG full, MathML, XLink, XPath, XSL -FO & T etc.?
:-)
Of course, OpenSourcing the beast would be a dream-come-true, since I'm one of those people who prefer compiling their software themselves
Please don't mod this down. I'm sincerely interested in the answer.
OMG! Wau!
I have been using Windows x64 (don't laugh) for at least 6 months. I use FireFox as my default, but love the speed of Windows Internet Explorer x64 (when pulling things from cache). I have tried FireFox Deer Park (thier x64 browser) and it's nice but seems unfinished.
Are there any plans in the works for a x64 browser from Opera, and if so, is it going to be soley for 64 bit operating systems (like Windows XP x64) or for 64 bit processors (running 32 bit OSes)?
User Note: If there is already an Opera 64bit application, can someone hook me up with a link?
After years of preaching the Gospel of Opera I try to get it to render a page using Transparency porperties present in CSS 3 and to my shock and dismay it didn't work. It either Opaque or clear as far as Opera is concerned. This works in both IE and Firefox! What is going with Opera?
Reference page: http://www.mandarindesign.com/opacity.html
Because if this was implemented as part of the browser, many websites would block Opera outright, and with good reason.
It is possible to do AdBlocking in Opera using URL filtering. See Opera equivalents to Firefox extensions. There's also a second part. HTH.
Karma: Could be worse (could be raining)
I am homophobic but even so I feel so much love for you that I think it can overcome all obstacles.
So, theoretically.... Would you prefer Google or Microsoft ? :)
I've worked in a few high profile companies in the UK who are all very serious about adhering to web standards, checking all designs in internet explorer, firefox and safari, but I've yet to encounter a company who will ensure that Opera renders page layouts correctly.
What level of market share would you say is required by Opera for web developers to ensure their layouts render correctly ?
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
When does Opera plan to implement a "Bookmarks Toolbar"?
Without one Opera is well nigh unusable.
Are there any plans to provide a XUL compatibility layer so Opera can make use of Firefox extensions, XUL applications, etc?
So you'd go with "Yeah, in corporations we tend to lie a lot. Get used to it". That's fair enough. This is about individual morality though, just saying that "Hey, I expect Pepsi lie about stuff too" doesn't mean it should be a given that any randomly selected businessman will. They each need to decide their own ethical positions.
Do Pepsi in fact have a history of not honoring offers of jumbo jets? I seem to recall a case where they or someone like them offered a harrier and refused to deliver but I believe restrictions on sales of armaments got them off the hook. I don't see why they wouldn't be required to deliver an item merely because it represents an excellent deal for the consumer. If they offer a passenger plane then they should be expected to deliver.
All the methods to block ads under Opera using methods like css file etc are all fudges at best.
They need some kind of plugin/extension system akin to Firefox's Extension system and (to a much lesser extent) IE's ActiveX.
And then Opera would have to lie to those sites about what browser it is...functionality which it already has, IIRC, for "IE-only" sites.
I don't see this as a big stumbling block.
Now, Opera may not want to piss off various other companies by doing something like this, but that's a different issue entirely.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
I am an avid fan of Opera and it's sucked the soul out of my other browsers and even my email/news/IRC/RSS clients to the point where I use nothing else.
However, I still have to have a seperate piece of software for IM (Trillian on Windows, GAIM on Linux). Any plans to extend the IRC support to support major IM protocols and put Trillian out of business?
I have seen a PCWorld article http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123615,p g,4,00.asp claiming Opera 9 will support widgets, however I am unclear on what the magazine means by this. Will they be on the desktop or will they be somewhat like Firefox's extensions?
Also, to all of those claiming Opera does not have Adblocking features, try going to this page:
http://nontroppo.org/wiki/BlockAdvertisements
I suggest using OperaAdFilter (http://www.operaadfilter.com/) for the most integration with the browser and for its ease of use.
I love Opera and bought it... several years ago, then a recent upgrade. THEN, you made it free!!!
So, that makes me think, maybe you made the PC version free, and are going to concentrate on the mobile versions, which you probably really make money on. Does this mean that the free PC version will stagnate? Or will future versions be built, with fun new features?
Also... how about a new logo? Or maybe a cross-marketing deal with Oprah?
Thanks!
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Given all of the hoopla about Intellectual Property and Patents, how do you feel about the Open Source Community implementing some of the neat features that Opera has created? If you are eventually bought out by a large company, would your answer change?
Will you swim over the Atlantic as promised?
I want to thank each and every one of the one million plus people who have downloaded Opera 8 over the last days. I am proud to say that this is the most successful browser launch in the ten-year history of Opera.
I have received numerous requests over the weekend on whether or not I am going to swim to the USA should we reach one million downloads.
Although I blatantly admit that my promise was based more on joy and enthusiasm than my swimming abilities and physical health, I will do my very best to keep it.
I think you should walk.
What will the Internet look like in 5, 10 or 25 years from now?
(And are you still interested in long distance swimming? If so, then we should perhaps meet up for a training schedule.)
an A.C. in search of swimming mate to cross The Channel.
Which web browser(s) do you use and why? and Are there any plans to release the sourcecode now that it's gone 100% free?
Why should a pay for a product that has no-cost competitors that are "good enough"?
All's true that is mistrusted
Actually, it was a Harrier.
For a jumbo jet, I would never have drunk 4,140 cubic meters of Pepsi.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
If you were going to be shot out into the void of space in self-sustaining space capsule and have to float around doing nothing for the next 10 years before you returned to Earth, what brand of hair conditioner would you take?
I kill harmless processes for sport
Dear Sir,
I work in a college library. Libraries have a lot of 'online databases' they subscribe to now days; typically several dozen. One week I got bored and tested various browsers against all of our databases that we pay for, and a few that are free.
Opera was not working very well with some of them. And there are certain ones, such as Ebrary's collection of e-books, which use Active-X plugin thingies, that wouldn't work at all.
Thus, we cannot use Opera in the library. It is not that it is a bad browser, it is just that the higher ups have payed thousands of dollars for these databases; some of them are very good databases and contain information important to our library users, but many of them are only designed to work with IE.
Is there any business case for making Opera compatible with all the little twiddles of IE, so that it could work for certain segments of the internet population? Such as, for example, databases of the type that are used in libraries?
This is what I'm sure everybody wants answered:
Have you ever been consciously abducted by extra-terrestrials?
I kill harmless processes for sport
Are there any plans to use Opera as a platform for creating other applications? I think it would be a great engine for creating desktop to web crossover apps such as JavaScript widgets etc.
You guys, seriously, can we maybe get some negative consequences for moderators who have no idea what the fudge they're doing?
How the hell is this redundant?
Offtopic? Maybe. Funny? hell yes.
Redundant: adj, Needlessly wordy or repetitive in expression
IF the parent's comment had been said before _on this page_ AND added nothing new THEN it might be ok to mark it as redundant. ELSE, moderator is a dumbass.
To stupid moderators:
Options for this comment include: Offtopic, Interesting, Flamebait
Options for this comment exclude: Troll, Funny, Redundant
Support the FairTax
Do you have any plans for Opera being the first Windows Browser to pass the Acid2 Test? Is that in your plans for the competition against IE and Firefox?
What else in addition to your current mobile browser platform do you believe has to be in place before web browsing on mobile devices can become commonplace?
How do you think each of what you listed is going to unfold?
Opera Watch's take on this. See the comment where VirtuElvis (an Opera developper) says they probably got confused with the Opera Platform SDK.
Karma: Could be worse (could be raining)
Currently, common wisdom says that Opera is being kept profitable by it's market-share in the mobile market. It's probably safe to say, however, that in the future other browsers will try to eat into that market share. Are you planning on trying to stay ahead of the curve and depend on the mobile market for profits, or do you have other markets your trying to make profits in?
1. Opera Bug Tracking System
My experience with Opera's bug tracking system are rather frustrating. I can not check if some bug is already known ( describing a bug and creating a test case is time consuming). Also, I reported some things and never ever got any feedback besides an automatic email. I do not know if Opera considers it a bug, if it is not a bug but an error on my side, if someone works on it, if it was fixed, simply nothing comes back. The Opera BTS is a black hole, and since some time now, I do not feel like making the effort to report bugs.
Do you plan to open up the BTS or at least allow the submitter to view the ticket? Or enhance the feedback?
2. Developer Tools
How about a DOM Inspector (and a Javascript Debugger)? Firefox's DOM Inspector and XMLHttpRequest Monitor are dearly missing in Opera.
3. HTML/CSS/JS
Any word on opacity support? On a Richtext Editing component?
Why does your browser suck?
Microsoft would be better off forming an alliance with Opera to bundle it with Vista. In turn, Opera could add some functionality to make it more integrateable into the OS.
There is a lot of anti-Microsoft sentiment in the browser world. I wouldn't trust anything that says Microsoft and Browser in the same sentence. If MS partnered with Opera, I might actually consider using it...
Well okay, maybe not (I still love the 'Fox), but installing 'fox wouldn't become a priority for every single system.
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
Yeah, but there's still a possibility...
Opera has a javascript debugger, I believe, and richtext editing is coming in Opera 9. As for Opacity, I don't see why that wouldn't be coming along with the other CSS3 stuff that will be supported in Opera 9.
Is Opera (the company) planning to diversify into other products, or the Opera browser will continue to be your only one? Opera is a terrific browser, don't get me wrong, but the browser market is very hard to break even in.
Not sure why you or the parent were modded troll (unless Opera has never bundled anything that could be considered spyware- if so, someone please reply with information); I cannot find anywhere in the instructions stating that all questions must be fluffy softballs. The man is a CEO fergoshsakes, they deal with hard questions all the time. I am positive that the question won't hurt his feelings too badly. And maybe everyone will feel better if he responds rationally to explain the situation.
Just get Proxomitron. Works on all browsers - ad blocking in Opera, FF, IE, even "links".
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
"unless Opera has never bundled anything that could be considered spyware".
Duh?
Yes, Opera has never bundled anything that could be considered spyware.
Clearly, Google is the next Microsoft.
Hi, I've been using opera from a long time and I've always found something really annoying: having to change Opera's id in order to see pages rendered ok. I've accepted that with microsoft pages, but with other pages i really don't get it. Lately, mi problems increased with Google (google groups and personalize). What do you thinks of this behaviour from sites? Is there anything that you from your side or we (users) from our can do to change this?
Happy new year.
"The True Nature Of The Force"
Download an adblock extension if you want it. http://nontroppo.org/wiki/OperaAdblock
It's just that 9 letters 2 vowels (both e) thing that's getting my poor Midwestern US brain confused.
Hey, I'm allowed after having Scandinavians butcher my last name for 18 years while growing up in Minnesota.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
One wonders if the Microsoft/Google possible buyout was just a PR scheme to get more people to know about their browser.
Opera does not have a JS debugger. It has a quite useful JS console, but a debugger is something like Venkman for Firefox or MS Script Editor for IE.
As for the other stuff: good news. For RTE to be any good, Opera would also have to support JS manipulation of selections. I hope they do that full fledged and not pull a fast one again like no initial POST support for XMLHttpRequest.
There never was any spyware in Opera. Back when it was ad-supported, the information that was provided to ad partners was basically what was required to send you targetted ads. This page has the details.
Karma: Could be worse (could be raining)
Kudos to a fantastic browser! I've been using Opera since early 2002 and have been pleased in every way.
However, rather akin to OpenOffice and Firefox, I've always thought that Opera was doing itself a disservice by "going its own way" with the GUI toolkits. I use Linux more than Windows (but still use both a lot) and I've felt more comfortable using other applications that use the native toolkits.* They seem to fit on the desktop much better and are not quirky.
What has motivated Opera to use its own toolkit with themes that only 'look' native? Is it the ability to theme? And now that it's free, do you think that Opera would have an edge over Firefox (and other browsers) if it used the native toolkits for the platforms on which it runs?
Alternatively, what do you think of perhaps creating a browsing engine (like Webcore or the ever-nascent Gecko engine) that can be distributed and used in various browser projects?
*- Yes, Opera on Linux uses Qt, but this doesn't fit in with any existing KDE themes. OpenOffice has made efforts to fit in with KDE and GTK+ themes, but this is too little too late; the widgets are still quirky.
Not always. Here in Finland Pepsi co. had a competiotion in which you had to collect certain (large) about of tokens from bottles in order to get a free laptop. What Pepsi didn't think of, was that the bottles costed about 900 euros, while the laptop is worth about 1200 euros. Some people just toke a van to a mall and bought themselves a huge load of pepsi and got a "free" laptop (and a lifetime of soda).
Does Opera have any plans to improve the cookie managing ability of its browser?
Opera has been a leader in many key browser innovations, why not patent protect them and start charging the companies who add them them to their product. Its about time Opera got its due credit and got paid for it!
Google for "opera adblock" and click I'm feeling lucky.
many websites would block Opera outright
Ah, but you see, that is nearly impossible! Why? Because! Opera had the brilliant idea that by default, it would identify itself as Internet Explorer, so that sites trying to lock out non-IE browsers would be fooled. I can understand the reasoning here, but as a web developer, it is actually really frustrating. Opera can do most everything IE can, as far as I can tell, but some of its CSS is a bit wacky. Not as wacky as IE, but certainly wacky in other ways. But because of the faked User Agent by default, I can't detect Opera and include changes to CSS to make it behave properly.
But, anyways, from the comments already, it seems built-in AdBlock is in high demand. I'd have to agree with this sentiment. If I had to choose only one extension that I couldn't live without, it would be AdBlock. Whenever I use a computer without it, I am appalled by how annoying the internet trully is.
Joseph?
One Person's Spyware is another person's Adware
I noticed something with opera about privacy. Actually two things. First of all it caches favicons even when you tell it not to cache anythign and delete everything when you exit the browser. The other is that again even if you tell it not to cache anything, store addresses, whatever, it still keeps the link which you can see because links show as visited on google and other sites that don't explicitly specify the colour of the hyperlink.
Michael-m.co.uk - Home of Michael Mulqueen
In the wake of the "open source movement," so-to-speak, do you feel that open source development has been elevated to an unrealstic level of reverence in lieu of the alternative(s)?
:).
I, for one, believe this is why people who think they know about technology use FireFox -- they've heard about it from the media who've presumably learned about FireFox through open-source advocates, not necessarily those seeking alternatives to Internet Explorer. Do you feel this has significantly hurt Opera's market share?
Thank you for allowing me to close my browser without worrying about what tabs I have open, because they are always there when I open Opera back up
I recently discovered Opera Mini, and now routinely browse the web not on my notebook, but on my cell phone, a Sony Ericsson K750i.
(For those of you who haven't yet tried Opera Mini, it's a Java-based web browser for cell phones, using Opera's Small Screen Rendering. The pages themselves are rendered on Opera's server, and are then transmitted to the cell phone in a highly efficient, binary format.)
Opera Mini is obviously revolutionary, in that it allows cell phone users to have a full web experience, without having to resort to specially designed sites. It's further proof that a "mobile web" is clearly redundant, and that cell phones (and other "small devices") can be first-class citizens on the Internet.
You claim that Opera Mini will remain free. Yet I would be surprised if you didn't intend to make money off Opera Mini somehow. To the extent that you are at liberty to disclose such details, are you negotiating with handset makers, to have this technology included in cell phones? Are you planning on supplying the web browser for most cell phones in the future, replacing the abysmal software that is currently bundled?
-- David Polberger Computer Science major, University of Lund, Sweden
Dear Mr. von Tetzchner:
With all the rumors as-of-late about Opera being acquired by Google or Microsoft, I'd like to ask you the question of what you would consider a realistic price tag for Opera would be?
Many of us non-IE web browsing enthusiasts would like to see the best features and code of both Opera and Firefox put together into a single open source offering. A sale to Google could make this a possibility, depending upon how restrictive the pre-existing licensing agreements your company has with various mobile phone manufacturers (which you probably cannot discuss legally).
So, with that having been said, what's your price and would you remain aboard such a project post-sale if given such room in a contract?
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Mr. Tetzchner promised us that he would swim the atlantic should we download 1 million copies of Opera. When the moment of truth arrived, he pulled out the smoke and mirrors and backed out on the deal. As a responsible CEO, Mr. Tetzchner must publicly address this scandal, lest he present an image of deception for his company.
should there be only one open-source browser project (mozilla + opera + flock) that just has different skins, extensions and plugins?
Where is the Bork edition of Opera 8 or Beta 9?
Where did you get the idea for mouse gestures? Brilliant idea!
All those rumors of "________ is thinking of buying Opera"?
"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue." - Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged
Wait, are you trying to say Google uses spyware? Because, If I remember correctly, Google displays relevent ads that match your search text. Even worse... in GMail, we get targeted ads based on the content of the mail. So, if you think Google uses spyware, then Opera, once had spyware in it too. Seriously, why is it allright when Google does it?
Clearly, Google is the next Microsoft.
From previous Opera related posts on Slashdot, it has come to my attention that you have some real babes working for you in Norway.
Are any of them single and if so, would they be interested in dating a guy who reads slashdot? BTW I use Safari but I can be persuaded to switch...
Putting syrup in coffee is some form of blasphemy.
Why is NTLM not supported in Opera, even though IE and Firefox support it out of the box? It's a feature many Opera users have requested for several versions now, especially in corporate environments. I know about the NTLM Authorization Proxy Server, but that's an inconvenient workaround. Is NTLM support something we can look forward to in the future?
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is a tribute.
Why does the Linux version force me to install the 15MB Qt library, then patronize me with a "Native Windows" theme and not letting me use the actual native Qt theme?
Please, please, please, please, please don't let the rumor about Microsoft buying Opera be true. Please.
...Embedded or Desktop ?
While the Opera browser is known from the desktop, it is a less known fact that Opera is also a very big player in the embedded world.
With regards to the developments in the next 5 years, do you envision Opera focussing more on the embedded world or trying to get a (larger) foot between the door in the Desktop world ?
This is by far the best question in the poll. Everything else in here will be answered in mainstream news sooner or later.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
3. HTML/CSS/JS
This wasn't a question, but just for completeness:
- Web specs supported in Opera 8 .
(note, not the upcoming 9, which is getting a number of standards improvements)
- Changelog for Opera 9.0 Preview 1
(includes an incomplete list of standards improvement for Opera 9)
Any word on opacity support?
- Merling evolving: (Merlin is the code name for Opera 9)
On a Richtext Editing component?
Same here, although I think there are some bugs still in the non-final Opera 9 Preview 1, but it's a planned feature anyway.
See also: document.designMode is here!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I don't like the feel of Opera's toolkit, I don't like the feel of Adobe's (acrobat) toolkit and I don't like the feel of either QT or modern MS windows GUI toolkits. I do like GTK because it feels solid, slightly clunky even. Is it just me or does anyone else dislike the "feel" of these modern fluid (C++) GUI libraries?
Firefox's DOM Inspector and XMLHttpRequest Monitor are dearly missing in Opera.
Where is this XMLHttpRequest monitor that you speak of? I have been doing development using XmlHttpRequest for a long time now, and have never noticed such a feature/extension before, although I have many times wished dearly to have something of the sort.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
http://blog.monstuff.com/archives/000252.html
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Most browsers on the mac fall into one of two categories: supported by a mega-corp (Safari, Internet Explorer) or backed by the Mozilla engine (Mozilla, Camino, Firefox). What is Opera's market share when considering only the mac platform? What advantages do you think your product offers over Omniweb, for example, which is another browser that does not fall into either of the two categories mentioned? Do you have significant development effort put into your mac product to help meet or beat the market share of one of the dominant mac browsers? Or are you mostly "maintenance" on that platform?
What do you think of web-based applications (office and etc, etc) and do you have any thoughts on going in that direction and having them integrated with the Opera browser?
Why is it that Opera is still such an unstable browser after all these years? When it first came out it was unstable and it's still unstable to this day. It "magically" disappears off my desktop all the time (ie. crashes) plus it often has problems rendering pages (usually not drawing the screen correctly; some sort of graphical glitch). Dispite that Opera is generally faster, how can you expect people to use it instead of more stable browsers like Firefox (which I run a single instance of for months at a time)?
After all these years... What's the deal?
When are you going to have the toolbar redesigned so that the now-obsolete advertisement area, now blank, is filled? All of the home,back,forward, etc. buttons are over on the left, and need to be spread out, like the old Netscape browser did it, or perhaps use a custom setup like Firefox, where the user places the buttons where he wants them.
I currently use Opera 8.51 for Linux, and do enjoy it, especially how fast it boots up compared to Mozilla Firefox and Flock. On the older machines it makes a difference as to how fast the browser will boot up.
Rapidweather's Linux Screenshots.
One of Opera's many strengths is it's excellent rendering engine, Presto, which is light, fast, and standards compliant. To this point, is has held an edge over the competition -- over just about everything in terms of speed, over IE in standards compliance, and over Gecko in a clean and agile codebase (admittedly I haven't seen either, but judging from results and what I've heard).
However, it now has some significant competition from KHTML/WebCore, which enjoys both corporate backing from Apple (and to a lesser degree Nokia), and the support of the open source community. It too has a clean and flexible codebase (this was the reason Apple chose it for Safari instead of Gecko, in the first place), it has a degree of standards compliance comparable to Opera's, and with Safari 2, it's also the only browser to seriously challenge Opera in terms of speed. There has also been movement (by Nokia) to adapt it to the mobile market, which is, if memory serves, Opera's main source of income currently.
What do you think of KHTML/WebCore? Do you see it as a threat to Opera's position in the desktop and/or mobile markets? If so, how do you plan to stay ahead of it?
Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
Given what Microsoft did to Netscape, what made you guys decide to enter the browser market? What made you think that you could succeed? And do you worry about the day when Opera gets enough market share to make Microsoft respond?
Two browsers that have been (in my mind) at the forefront of offering accessibility features are iCab and Opera. However, nearly every screen reader works with Internet Explorer. Is there some future hope of seeing screen reader technology in a future version of Opera?
...why are Slashdotters such total cocksuckers when it comes to opera? Example: http://interviews.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=172 361&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&tid=154&mode=nested &cid=14352133
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
Opera offers so-called "native" skins for Windows and Mac OS X, where certain controls of the UI are drawn not by Opera's theming engine, but by that of the operating system. (I can't say for OS X, but in Windows XP this adapts to which Windows theme you use, even non-Microsoft sanctioned ones with a modified uxtheme.dll, so I am quite certain it is actually native, and not just Opera drawing them to merely look the same as the default). I don't know how this is done, but knowing that Opera makes use of Qt, and that Qt coincidentally also allows drawing of controls by the OS's theming engine on Windows and OS X, I could hazard a guess that it's done by making use of Qt's capabilities.
Under Linux, however, attempting to use these native themes results in the controls being drawn in a quite ugly faux Windows 9x (or is it Platinum?) style, with no regard to the Qt style you have chosen. If Opera uses Qt to draw native widgets under Windows and OS X, why couldn't it do the same under Linux? In this case the widgets would look native to KDE, which also uses Qt, but not to GNOME and GTK -- but in my estimation, this would still be a whole lot better than what support is there currently (which is to say, about none).
Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
I have read somewhere that of Opera's income from the desktop market, roughly a third was from the ad supported versions, a third was from people buying, and a third from partnering deals with search engines and so, for searches generated from Opera's searchbar. I have further read that Opera's plan with making the browser completely free of charge and ads was to increase marketshare to the point where the increase in revenue from search engines would be sufficient to offset the loss of the other two. How successful has this strategy been?
Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
Will you please see to it that this bug is fixed promptly? Or, more accurately, that the fix is released promptly? This is the sole reason that I dislike using Opera.
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suwain_2
In my opinion, Opera is the best browser out there, it's all I use. However, compared to other browsers (particularly IE) the rendering "feels" less shiny. The controls look oldfashioned (IE's are rounded), the font is rather blocky and the general feel is oldish. How do you plan to update the UI (the rendering UI, the rest is flawless IMO) to make it more modern?
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Why bother selling a browser when there are already is a better one (Firefox) and another better one on the horizon (IE7). More importantly, why bother paying for one?
And why bother having some swim from Norway to the USA as a PR stunt just to have people download the browser out of spite to see you swim the distance. Hell, I even downloaded it and didn't install it (and I'm guessing 999,999 other people did too).
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
It seemed pretty good to me--a bit cumbersome to get to the cookie controls, but otherwise really easy to work with...
You have done things like change Opera's cookie settings for a specific site before, right?
I have what is on the surface a very obvious and simple question.
What is your goal with Opera, really?
Read on. . .
Up until recently you offered a browser which not very long ago was the only real usable alternative to MSIE. It was offered as a retail product, or an add-supported "free" edition. However where Opera has been surpassed by KHTML-based browsers for standards compliance, and the open source Mozilla browsers function as well as Opera does PLUS are open source and are supported by hundreds of browser extension plugins and are highly customizable, Opera has become less attractive as an MSIE alternative.
Recently with Opera having been released as a free product, I'm wondering how your company can sustain itself. I grant you that embedded devices like kiosks, PDAs, telephones, and perhaps even automobiles' navigation systems could very well benefit from your browser, however with MSIE being bundled into Windows CE, it's got to be tough to compete and convince OEMs that licensing your browser in addition to Windows CD is a wise business choice, even though Opera is vastly superior to MSIE in every conceivable way.
So I and I'm sure that everyone else here is wondering: what is your goal? Is it to build an MSIE replacement to encourage a Microsoft buyout? Or perhaps, are you entertaining a Google buyout? Many here are wondering the same thing, but with your strong support for many platforms, I doubt a Microsoft marriage is in the cards, so I can't figure out:
1. How is Opera expecting to survive in the face of free extensible open-source browsers? Personally the only thing I use Opera for is for testing web sites and applications - for normal browsing I use Firefox due to the tremendous selection of extension plugins. I do very much like Opera, but in comparison to Firefox, or even Konqueror, I see little use for it (I mean no offense)
2. How does Opera expect to continue to gain ground on MSIE in the face of MSIE's continuing to be bundled with Windows?
3. Now that Opera is free and is not even supported by ads, where is your revenue stream coming from?
The Web Browser business can't be an easy market to survive in. I'm very impressed that Opera has been around this long; I'll be even more impressed if Opera is still viable in five years.
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Oh yeah. The big thing is that some settings apply to all sites (like "delete new cookies on exit"), and you cannot get those things to apply or not apply on a site by site basis. Opera has it half-way correct, a simple but inadequate approach. In other areas, Opera's standards are higher, cookie handling should be just as capable as those other areas.
What are the chances that you will port Opera to Palm PDA's? I have a PDA with bluetooth and wireless connectivity, but the Blazer web browser is not the best web experience. I would gladly pay for a version if it was available. I have been an Opera user since around version 3 and have paid for several versions on linux, mac, and windows. I appreciate that I no longer have to pay to use what is my favorite browser, but I miss it when I am not at my desk or don't feel like dragging a laptop around.
Web browsing on the PSP currently leaves a lot to be desired. Are there any plans to port Opera to the PSP? Yes, I know, you've previously said that such a port could easily been done if there was enough demand for it. This was a long time ago, however, and I'm wondering if there have been any recent developments in providing such a port?
What's the holdup of making a version of Opera for Windows PDAs? There's already great smartphone support, but I would just love this great internet suite (it is very sweet - browser, mail client, newsreader, irc client, address book... :D ) on my PDA.
Thanks!
Read some news every now and then... Opera is free.
Geez - I made a mistake here. Even included a question mark ("?") because I wasn't sure - and lazy...
Anyhoo - damn, that means M$ might consider buying them.
- I voted for Nintendo and against Bush
In a related question, Opera has always been a tweaker's dream browser, with a high degree of exposed configurability. Yet recently the browser has moved to an affiliate-supported model driven by sending people to specific sites. How do you strike a balance between end-user control and affiliate dollars? Have there been any features cut or added in support of this bottom line?
The ______ Agenda
As a user of Opera for some 5 or 6 years I have been extolling its virtues to friends for a while now. The answer is always the same for the same reason, the interface is too complex and clumsy. While I have a wierd sort of love for its percularities and loathe the Firefox approach of a supplying the browser feature barren to mimic IE, have you had to resist the impulse to provide a similar interface to attract users of the currently most popular browser?
.ini files and on the forum, where it should be more openly available for a product of this kind.
Also, there are so many things in Opera I find make it a much much more efficient browser than anything out there, especially out of the box. Most prominantly, single key shortcuts (z, x, 1 & 2, w, s, e, d, etc.), far superior mouse gestures to anything out there, fully cached browser history, good default search shortcuts and bookmark shortcuts and the ability to fairly abitarily edit toolbars. I find, however that these features are great but could be amazing with just small changes, and many of the more advanced users of Opera I know agree. Have you thought of providing a more comprehensive and intuitive scripting system for buttons/gestures/shortcuts, more complete control over toolbars, and a gui for editing search shortcuts etc. ? It seems alot of the preferences and functionality is hidden in text strings found only in
Simple Question: Where did the Opera name come from? I've been using Opera since version 5 and love it, but do wonder where the name originated from.
For years now I've kept an eye on Opera development, and it's always seemed to me to be an excellent browser when I've used it. There are a few things which prevent me from switching away from Firefox fulltime, though, and I'm hoping this will get to you so that I can see what you have to say about them.
First and foremost is QT. I run a purely GTK/GNOME system, and I don't want to install an entire seperate widget library just to use a browser, so I'm stuck with the statically linked versions of Opera. It clashes with my GTK themes and generally makes my desktop a less integrated and plesant environment.
Secondly is the difference in development communities between the two projects. Whenever I find myself thinking "You know, I wish my browser would..." I head off to the extension repository on mozilla.org and find someone else who had the same itch, and scratched it. I find that the community surrounding and supporting Opera is either not as active, or does not have the same itches as I do.
Being a typical Slashdotter, I see openess as being the only real solution to these problems. Writing a toolkit-agnostic rendering engine with well documented features and API would allow people to write their own wrappers for the application, be it GTK, QT, or whatever you call the Windows toolkit. Simmilarly an open and easily extensible plugin framework encourages people to create extensions for your browser, thus giving it more features.
What are your thoughts? Is there any chance that we'll be seeing a more open, even if not Open Source, version of Opera?
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View menu, Toolbars, enable the personal bar.
Opera is more stable than Firefox on my computer. Guess you've got a broken operating system or something.
Opera will be making money off searches on the desktop. Like Firefox does.
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IIRC, Opera recently became publicly traded, which means shareholders ROI may make the company's planning more short sighted.
IIRC, Juha Christensen and Tod Nielsen, both from Microsoft, have recently infiltrated the board at Trolltech, the maker of Qt, upon which Opera is dependent, to possibly make Trolltech a publicly traded company. First off, that brings the problem that taint from their previous work environments will affect the work environment and, ultimately, the product at Trolltech. Second, you have again the risks of the Qt toolkit development map being written by shareholders. If it came down to it, Opera couldn't just fork off the QPL-ed Qt and use that in its current business model.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I appreciate all the work Opera has done to render the myriad of poorly-coded pages out there (even the non standards-compliant ones). What I really want to see is better plug-in support (which I realize that you are working on with Firefox). Those are the two reasons why I don't recommend Opera to boobies. They don't understand about poorly-coded pages, and they don't understand why plug-in don't work. What do you have planned for future versions of Opera in these regards? Thanks from a long-time Opera user. :-)
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With Opera already supported on three Unices (Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris) why isn't it available for more? Surely there couldn't be much more work involved than recompiling if things have been engineered correctly. Those of us using NetBSD, Irix, OpenBSD, and others would really like to use Opera too!
Constitutionally Correct
Huh! Aside from the shell extensions, there isn't a fuck of a lot of "embedding" of IE into Windows. I suppose the Windows Explorer / IE similarity seems inseparable to some, but it really isn't. Even now, when Iexplore.exe hangs up it doesn't lock the Windows Explorer shell, so they aren't really that closely linked. It's trivial to set up Firefox to be your default browser, and aside from pass-through authentication there isn't a lot IE can do that it can't. That whole embedding thing was just a red herring to keep MS out of hot water with the DOJ, and since a business-friendly Admin has been elected, it's pretty much been ignored.
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- Robin
Gecko has had XUL for about 5 years now; Microsoft liked the idea so much they're creating their own incompatible format (XAML). Does Opera plan to support either of these formats in future releases?