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Opera 10.10 Released, Includes New "Unite" Tech
Opera 10.10 has been released, and with it their new "Unite" technology, which allows users to share content directly between all of their own devices. Unite wraps both web browser and web server into a single package in an attempt to change the way users think about their browser. "'We promised Opera Unite would reinvent the Web,' said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. 'What we are really doing is reinventing how we as consumers interact with the Web. By giving our devices the ability to serve content, we become equal citizens on the Web. In an age where we have ceded control of our personal data to third-parties, Opera Unite gives us the freedom to choose how we will share the data that belongs to us.'"
It's great that Opera Software understands the power of P2P like sharing between people. I dont want to have everything on sites like Facebook just so people can see them.
Let me give you an example.
If you're cooking your own pizza, you have the choice on what to put in it. Make it a normal pizza or a pan pizza? Make it square or round? What toppings to put on it? Unite allows you bake your own pizza in the heart of your pc, and you can choose what to put on it. Want ham? Fine! Want pineapples? Fine! Want tuna? Fine! Want pepperoni? Fine! What would you have as a sauce? Barbeque sauce! The widgets you install and enable are your toppings and you choose what you want to have.
What comes to the "from the but-does-it-live-in-the-cloud dept.", I personally dont want it to be in the cloud. Then I lose control over it. That would be like having a happening in your town square where everyone is ordered to bake their pizza. They bring it there, put it out and lose control over who eats it. Direct friend-to-friend model lets you control who eats your delicious pizza, or who even knows about it. And if that said pizza happens to be a bad one and it comes hunting you later, you can pull it off. Good luck trying to do that in the town square after people have ate your pizza already.
So what I'm basically saying is that *I* should be the one controlling my content, not some other site or cloud service. Unite makes that easy for people.
But why won't you try Opera? Is there a good reason? Is it because it's closed-source? Is it because at the beginning they were not offering their browser for free?
FWIW, Opera is a fine browser, much better than IE, on par with Firefox and Safari. Also runs very nicely on a Nintendo DSi, given the limits of the system.
ISP's wont care about it. They only do if you start running some heavy traffic stuff on it. Here in Scandinavia that has been standard clause in the TOS for ever, but I've never got any saying from ISP about it (even while actually running a high traffic website on my 100mbit).
Lots of people also run gaming servers, even more so because for example MW2 is now automatically choosing one of the players as a listen host. P2P clients also usually start a listening server, technically, and so do all the IM clients when sending a file and so on.
They wont have any problems with this.
By this line of reasoning, would you agree with the following?
Despite low desktop usage numbers after more than a decade in existence Linux folks continue to spew out features. Good for them but I still won't touch their product.
Nuff said.
My grandmother used anecdotal evidence all the time, and she lived to be 120 years old.
And I would even say that it's a better browser than Firefox or Safari, but that's of course everyones own opinion. The robust interface and feeling on how fast things work is just good though. Firefox doesn't really come close with it.
That being said, Opera doesn't really even have low usage numbers. It has over 50% marketshare in Russia and CIS countries, being the #1 browser. It has really wide deployment on mobile phones, Wii's, other electronic equipment and hotel tv's and so on.
Actually making a better profit than Mozilla too, so I don't see why they wouldn't keep developing new things (and Opera has usually been the first one to actually develop new browser features)
Mozilla Foundation: Revenue $75 million (4 employees)
Opera Software: Revenue $89 million (675+ employees)
I love how all the computer companies have these new-age wonderful human mottos for their products, like "Unite", and then cut deals with dictators to try and make a couple of extra bucks.
This is my sig.
I have. It's on my system right now along with Firefox, Konqueror and Chrome. Addons are the critical component in which these other browsers than Firefox are very much behind. I would ditch Firefox in an instant if Chrome or Opera or Konqueror managed to be as flexible as Firefox but they're not... yet.
Most of the features that are provided by add-ons to Firefox are built-in to Opera. Additionally, Opera allows User JavaScript, and even supports GreaseMonkey script. So ... is it just a matter of the principle and theory of flexibility, or are you actually missing some specific function that is provided by add-ons in FF and not provided in Opera?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
Best kept secret.
Nice features with a target size small enough that malware that might go after IE or firefox won't touch.
I browse in a VM with Opera. Never lets me down.
Still a small size. Damn thing fits in less than 10 MB of disk space.
Stuff like this unite threatens this. I wish they would stop making it better so suckers will stay with IE and firefox.
The unite stuff rocks. Your parents could never setup p2p or ftp, but they can use unite. Better than some file sharing site when all your family has got FIOS pipes. Only possible downside is needing to setup a opera account to use the DNS to get the "myopera" addresses, but I believe it is just another port 80 server that you could point to directly via IP. And any filehosting site is going to require a login/email, but will probably only give you crappy throughput and make it hard to share large binaries.
Not sure if this was mentioned anywhere, but this technology is sure to break many user's broadband service contracts. You are affectively running a web server, which isn't allowed under most plans. I wonder how this will be addressed?
Someone asked: "How does not having any kind of access to Opera Mobile/Google/etc helps the people in China, compared to having a censored version?"
I haven't seen a response to that yet.
What were Opera's alternatives?
Refuse? They would be thrown in jail, and the Chinese office would be history.
Pull out? How would that help anyone? It would just deprive the Chinese people of another way to access the web. The more ways to access the web, the more work for the government when they are trying to censor it. There needs to be as many ways to access the web as possible, because the more there are, the more difficult it is to police, and the easier it is to poke holes in the firewall. You are clearly blinded by your own ignorance.
Clever signature text goes here.
No, they chose to comply in order to avoid trouble like arrests of their Chinese employees and such.
But you didn't answer the part of my comment that dealt with how staying in the market helps the Chinese people, and how pulling out would be detrimental to their freedom. Again: More services = more work for the government = less oversight = more chances that there are holes in the firewall.
As it happens, there are several ways to access the uncensored web through Opera Mini even after this. If Opera pulled out, these holes would be gone forever, and there would be no opportunities to open new ones. Your brain. Use it.
Clever signature text goes here.
You're dealing with nerds, here. Coming up with 'Ogg' was probably a defining moment in that young person's life.
Rejected names were "ReallyGoodVideoCodec", "VideoOpenSource" and "dvxiddidvxd".
Right-click->Edit site preferences.. lets you edit those for individual sites. If you want a no-script like thing, disable global javascript and enable for sites you want it to function at.
Just tried it on a vm running Windows 98 and it works! Holy retro Batman! We don' need no steenkin IE 6
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994