Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Opera Software Co-Founder Passes Away

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the rest-in-peace dept.

worb writes "One of the two founders of Opera Software, Geir Ivarsoy, recently passed away after a long battle with cancer. His funeral yesterday was attended by Opera employees who paid their last respects to their former lead programmer. While Opera hasn't had the same success as Firefox on the desktop, it has had considerable success in the mobile phone market due to its speed and small footprint, combined with excellent standards compliance and innovative features."

3 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So long, and thanks by lanc · · Score: 5, Informative

    sun4m, right.
    but not only that - If you want to download it, ofcourse it exists for linux, but it is not merely usual that there is a prepackaged version for Debian, and highly unusual that you can choose packages for:

    Debian Unstable (Sid)
    Debian Testing (Etch)
    Debian 3.1 (Sarge)
    Debian 3.0 (Woody)
    Debian 2.2 (Potato)


    it exists for Mac, QNX, FreeBSD, it runs on a pile of mobiles. That I call userfriendly, supportive.


    --
    "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
  2. Why Opera? by worb · · Score: 5, Informative
    Opera has lots of features in a small (and fast) package. By default, Opera looks any plain browser, but if you feel like it, you can dive below the surface and discover a lot of features that speed up browsing, such as mouse gestures and extensive keyboard support (both shortcuts and spatial navigation for using the keyboard to navigate pages).

    If you search Google for "why Opera" you'll find pages like this one, with a nice list of reasons for why you should consider Opera.

    The best thing you can do is to simply download it and give it a fair go. If you surf around and read about Opera you'll discover lots of nice little touches that make browsing more convenient. Maybe you'll find that you love Opera. Maybe you won't. It's a slightly different approach than what Firefox is doing, but at least you won't have to rely on extensions for functionality. That can be both good and bad, I guess. (Opera seems to be a bit more efficient on the memory usage than Firefox, mind you.)

    But Opera is actually also extensible in various ways, such as User JavaScript ("Greasemonkey"), and similar. There are lots of nifty things to discover, such as custom made toolbars.

    Anyway, the Search Engine Journal editor asked Opera users to convince him to use Opera. He got quite a few useful replies. Maybe they will be of interest to you, too...

  3. Remembering Geir by Lawmune · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is a remembrance of Geir Ivarsøy from someone at Opera Software who knew him: Death in the Family