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."

Comments

Link to Page 1 of article

[AskChopper]

The above URL links to page 3 of the article. Here's the fist page http://www.theregister.com/2007/08/18/opera_ceo_in terview/

Firefox tabs

[WK2]

We've introduced things like [tabs] - and we find they find their way into other browsers; tabs found their way into IE7. We are being copied...

Translation: We did tabs, damnit! Not Firefox! I repeat: Firefox did not do tabs first! It was us!!

Re:Firefox tabs

[LWATCDR]

"Not one item from the list looks like from outer space - all are concepts which any monkey can bring into a browser. "

Yea.. Sure they do.
Everything is easy once someone else does it.

Re:Firefox tabs

[ggvaidya]

If he doesn't like the deal he's getting these days, perhaps he should start patenting stuff or quit the software business [...]

... which is right about the point where I stop using their browsers, I guess. I love Opera, and one of my major reasons for doing so is that it's a well-engineered product made by a company which has always been pretty good "corporate citizens". Yes, they have strange ideas about design and advertising, but they make good products, run a sustainable business, give me a very decent browser for free, support said browser at no extra cost, and are very good at coming up with interesting new features, which have a much better record than most other software I use as being completely "fleshed out". They're also "good geeks": they don't go nuts patenting things, are pretty okay with other companies reusing and building on their ideas, allow you to download early tech previews of their software for testing and feedback, and have their browser primed for the kind of people who like having a couple of dozen tabs open at any one time - i.e. the sort who are much too fond of Wikipedia for their own good. Also, that bit you quote doesn't sound (in context) like sour grapes: Jon is pointing out that one of Opera's biggest strengths is coming up with innovative features, including mouse gestures and tabs (innovative half a decade ago). Opera 9 has several new features such as Speed Dial and Thumbnail Preview, which made things easier for me within hours of installing, so I'd say they're still doing a great job on that front.

Speaking of which, I checked Wikipedia on the mouse gestures bit; Konqueror's doesn't say when it got mouse gestures, but the mouse gestures page says Opera has had them "since version 5.11 (April 2001)", when KDE was at version 2.1. So if you can figure out when Konqueror got mouse gestures, you'll have your answer. Anecdotally, I found what might be the original patch for Opera mouse gestures in Konqueror, which would support Jon's idea of Opera as the originator.

Cheers!

Re:Firefox tabs

[Lord Kano]

Everything is easy once someone else does it.

That's what I say about female college Freshmen.

LK

Re:Firefox tabs

[jlarocco]

I mean who the hell was actually willing to use an operating system with adware built into it (or spend 30 dollars)? Not trying to troll, just stating that Opera started off with a terrible strategy, and they are paying for it now in the desktop market.

I don't know if you've noticed, but Opera isn't going for a massive userbase on PCs. Unlike Firefox, they actually have to pay their developers. And unlike Internet Explorer, they don't have a huge operating system and office suite monopoly to subsidize browser development. Opera making a huge push for PC market share wouldn't make sense, and they'd go out of business.

Their cash cow is mobile and embedded browsers, and that's what they focus on. Fortunately for those of us who use the PC version of Opera, their code is portable enough to run on desktops also.

Making their desktop browser available for free probably had more to do with publicizing the Opera name than it did with competing with Firefox and IE.

maybe it's a naming problem

[Anonymous Coward]

In Russia, Ukraine and in Northern and East European countries we have between five per cent and 10 per cent, and some above 10 per cent share; Japan similar.

Trouble is, in America most people think that going to the opera is for losers. Maybe they should call it "Rock 'n Roll Browser" in the US.

Re:maybe it's a naming problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a lot of the hatred for Opera stems from the fact that they messed up the cool naming scheme for major browsers. First you discover somewhere, then you explore it, then you conquer it, then you go there for fun. Navigator -> Explorer -> Konqueror -> Safari. I think it bodes well for the browser I'm developing right now, OverdevelopedHolidayResort.

Can't use IE, Firefox, or Safari

[wickerprints]

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.

Re:Are they really making money off Opera?

[bigbigbison]

They have multiple income streams. As noted in the interview, Opera, like Firefox, makes money from google and other search engines.

And, as the browser for the Wii and the DS, I'm sure that Nintendo is giving them a nice amount of money.

Re:Speed

[larry bagina]

I've heard opera's javascript interpreter was supposed to be fast. So, I just did a quick, totally non scientific (only one run, other minor activity in the background, etc) of a the slickspeed selector test, which tests various javascript libraries for their speed/accuracy. This was performed on Windows XP:

Opera (9.20/ build 8771)
246 : 3409 : 244 : 413 : 2518 : 329
Safari (3.0.3 / build 522.15.5)
322 : 1966 : 347 : 360 : 2488 : 519
Firefox (2.0.0.6) -- two times, second was with firebug enabled
397 : 10833 : 409 : 2569 : 14535 : 1100
423 : 14059 : 429 : 5188 : 14426 : 3352
ie (6.029)
4695 : 8536 : 3393 : 2379 : 17856 : 1890

Smaller numbers are faster, so opera is faster (in this test) than firefox. The toolkits, btw, are prototype, iQuery, mootools, ext, cssQuery, and dojoQuery).

Re:Speed

[Lisandro]

it might be because opera needs qt libraries.

I dunno... i use Opera 9.23 with QT compiled statically (on Linux using XFCE) and it runs quite snappier than Firefox, specially on startup/shutdown.

I'm starting to sound like a broken record on this subject, i know :) But, AFAIK, Opera is today the most useable browser out there. I like Firefox a lot, but Opera is still far superior, specially when it comes to user interfase, speed, and memory footprint.

Re:The only thing stopping me from using Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

Try http://operawiki.info/OperaAdblock

Re:Translation: Theenking ooootseede-a zee Oopera

[reanjr]

You are probably not aware that after MS changed one of their sites to specifically break Opera, Opera released a "version" that turned that site into Swedish Chef talk. The GP was making reference to that. Probably could have made his point with only a few paragraphs, but it is humorous to those with the requisite background knowledge to understand the joke.