Slashdot Mirror
A Talk With Opera CEO
With several new areas of expansion for Opera The Register took a few minutes to talk to Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner. The interview addresses several of the most recent news items on the Opera front including, the adoption to Nintendo's Wii console, several advocates switching to Firefox, and others. "We just try to focus on our side. We've always focused on a somewhat richer interface. We've had a lot of negative comments ourselves over the years; for example, when we introduced tabbed browsing a lot of people said it doesn't make sense. We've introduced things like zooming, mouse gestures and the like - and we find they find their way into other browsers; tabs found their way into IE7. We are being copied, but we would like to focus on features and giving users a good experience."
I'd like someone with more authority on the subject to say whether Opera or Konqueror introduced mouse gestures first. They've been there in konqueror since ever, it seems to me.
Not one item from the list looks like from outer space - all are concepts which any monkey can bring into a browser. If he doesn't like the deal he's getting these days, perhaps he should start patenting stuff or quit the software business altogether. Anyway, I am getting bored with all the Linus interviews, this is atleast a welcome change.
Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips."
Just a few days ago, I had the existing AT&T DSL service switched over to my name. Although I didn't need new equipment, AT&T said they needed to disconnect the service for four days, after which it would take an additional four days after registration under my name to reconnect the same service. Because they didn't send me any hardware, I never received an installation CD. (Not that I ever intended to defile my system with their awful installer.) When I called up AT&T tech support, the woman was relatively clueless--I pretty much walked myself through the process. But there was one hitch: Using either Firefox or Safari (IE was discontinued for the Mac), I could not register a new DSL username in their system. The hardware and network setup were working perfectly; something about AT&T's (aka Yahoo!/SBC) online registration system, however, required that I use IE. And as a long-time Apple user, I would switch to cable modem before I'd install "malware" on my machine. It then came to me to try Opera. I downloaded a copy on my PowerBook through a nearby free access point (I love that place--best danishes I've ever had). And it worked. Obviously, AT&T is to blame, but am I ever relieved that Opera came through for me. Granted, I've gone back to using Firefox, but just in case, I've kept Opera on my system.
From my experience using the two, Opera refreshes sooner so you can see the top part of the page sooner, but loads the page slightly slower. Firefox refreshes later so you don't see the page until later, but loads the page slightly faster. The "illusion" is that Opera is faster. The vast majority of the time, the important information is located at or near the top part of the page. The fact that Opera loads the bottom part of the page slower is rendered irrelevent because of that. I'd rather be able to see the top part of the page faster.
Then again, it's down to individual use. For me, Opera is faster because of my surfing habits. For others, Firefox may be preferable.
I always enjoy interviews with Jon Von Tetzchner - he comes across as a very forthright, positive, motivated CEO - and he's pretty good natured to boot. Contrast that with recent interviews with Linus, who's opinion on certain matters everyone respects but comes across a bit too sassy to make an enjoyable read, or major company CEOs, who sound more like company brochures than people.
I used to use Firefox over Opera because I could install Firefox with one command under Linux. Now that Opera is available in the same way, I find that I still choose Firefox, mostly because it's what I'm used to. I feel like Opera is just a tad too late to the party to really take off in a big way - had they made their product as easy to get and as visible as Firefox way back when (what with a website that auto-detects the correct package and provides a big easy-to-click button, prepackaged binaries for Linux, advertising, etc.) the bite marks in IE could be twice as big as they are now. Of course this doesn't mean that Opera has no chance - the world is plenty big enough for three or four major browsers - and they're certainly making a dent in the off-PC market.
Good luck to them, and the next time Firefox fails to download quite as promptly as I like maybe I'll give Opera another go! In the meantime, just keep getting interviews like this one out there and visible and Opera will keep growing.
http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/
I could of swore I read somewhere it's origins were with the Gecko engine and Mozilla (NetScape) browser projects.. but I cannot quickly find that info right now
I know now they use a different engine however.
They even had a real-human return an email once with significant info on my questions to them about their *great* free mail service at: http://operamail.com/ actually :)
However I *always* keep several browsers handy just in case one does not render what I need done at that moment.
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
I don't know what they do differently in Opera, but they do it right - and it's gotten them a number of new users in my company's administrative offices to boot.
- I voted for Nintendo and against Bush
The only problem I have with using Opera is that there is just no substitute for Adblock plus, something that allows me to subscribe to a list of blocked urls and html and have it do its thing in the background. If someone has found one please let me know.
Terrible strategy or not, Opera has had to make its own money. All other browsers are backed by some major corporation (Mozilla by several), and get a free ride. No such luxury for Opera. Then Firefox showed that you could make shitloads of money off of searches... Funny how Opera's innovation (search field) keeps the money flowing into Mozilla Corp.
Clever signature text goes here.
EDIT - Reverse IE & Opera in the memory occupancy figures I posted above (sorry, this is to "stop the nitpickers" on that account):
A.) INITIAL LOADING & INSTANCING MEMORY FIGURES (tested today here):
IE7 (least, with GOOGLE toolbar) memory usage = 18,272k
Opera (next least - & no widgets installed) = 19,048k
FireFox (most - & no addons installed) = 31,172k
----
B.) MINIMIZED & RESTORED WINDOWS AGAIN (this changes memory occupancy due to paging operations on Windows NT-based OS, since the app is no longer in the foreground):
IE7 (least, with GOOGLE toolbar) memory usage = 4,572k
Opera (next least - & no widgets installed) = 7,580k
FireFox (most - & no addons installed) = 31,144k
APK
P.S.=> Sorry about that folks - need my coffee this a.m.! Well, "read 'em & weep" firefox & ie fiends... apk
I currently run Firefox on my home PC, home Mac, home Mac-mini, and wife's computer.
Just last week I switched to Opera at work, after learning one of my, well respected, co-workers was using it for browsing. Ever year or so I'd done a "switch" for a day, but always went back to Firefox. I think this time the switch to Opera is going to stay.
Seems Opera is on par to all the features I've come to rely on in Firefox (tabs, mouse gestures, adblocking, tabbed download info), except that they are all baked into the browser instead of needing to be added in. The tight integration, shows in many subtle ways (e.g., where options are presented in the menus, etc...) that makes the overall product feel more polished. The smaller memory foot-print, faster (perceived?) UI response, and better standards compliance all make me feel more comfortable than the browser I've been advocating to friends the last 7+ years.
The lack of Open Source use to bug me, but not any more; I don't see myself ever becoming involved in the source code. I truely believe the money behind Opera is what has contributed to it being such a great product.
- Built in tabs (I don't care who was first, I care if there are tabs in the current version.)
- Built in tabbed download status
- Built in mouse gestures
- Built in ad-blocking
- Built in FULL full screen
- Built in "Speed Dial" feature (neat idea!)
- Better CSS2 compliance than Firefox or IE
- A solid bookmark manager
- Smaller (than Firefox) memory footprint
Another week of test driving this at work, and then my home computers are switching over too.
The lower the marketshare, the lower the chance that your browser ist targeted by malware authors. Since Firefox is gaining at such a great speed I have started to advise Windows users to use Opera for security reasons. Other than for security neither Firefox, IE7, nor Opera make a difference for the casual PC user.
Personally I use Iceweasel, because it comes directly from my good ol' trusted repository, but I also have Opera installed and use it as a secondary browser for sites that don't work in Firefox. I also prefer the cookie management in Firefox to that in Opera. Opera used to be way ahead, but they stopped making progress on that front a long time ago. Though I realize that privacy is more of a myth now with special Flash and Java supercookies and the likes that never show up anywhere.