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Is Facebook Going To Buy Opera?
New submitter x0d writes with this excerpt from the L.A. Times: "The Facebook spending spree may be continuing as a new report says the social networking giant might be looking to buy Norwegian company Opera Software. Now fully under the microscope of Wall Street as well as Main Street investors, Facebook is trying to solve its mobile monetizing problems and has been gobbling up various companies in recent months to increase its presence in the world of smartphones."
The opera mobile browser works by offloading a lot of work to a server run by opera. This would give facebook access to everything which goes through every mobile opera browser.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
wtf is rockmelt?
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
I'm sure they could have picked up Internet Explorer for a steal. Imagine the positive effect on the stock price!
Task Mangler
Facebook to buy Western Digital. Because they're going to need all those drives to store EVERY. FUCKING. KEYSTROKE.
Opera owns Fastmail. Do you want Facebook to own your email?
Opera is the best browser out there. I don't trust Chrome not to report data about me to Google, and if Facebook buys Opera I wouldn't trust it not to report my browsing data to Facebook. I will have to move back to the mess that is Firefox
I hope not. I actually like Opera.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
On one hand I think the FB app could use a LOT of advice from Opera's mobile team. I have an overclocked GalaxyS2 running at 1.5ghz...modded to the gills. Nothing on this phone is slow...except Facebook. Every update makes the experience more and more miserable. Opera's mobile/mini browsers are among the fastest and smoothest apps I have ever used. By far. Bar none. On any mobile platform....or any platform ever, for that matter. On the other hand I've been using Opera for over 12 years now. It is my go-to browser and it is the first thing I install on a computer...regardless of OS. It has always been ahead of it's time...often by a very long time (we've been returning to the same multi-tabbed browsing session for how much longer than everyone else?). Anyone I recommend the browser to becomes a lifelong fan. Geeks and non-geeks alike. It's tiny, lightning quick, hyper-compliant and more configurable than anything else.
I know that having Facebook sized development money can be nothing but a great thing for the progress of the browser, but, I'm more concerned with the direction of this development. Also some very obvious concerns with the use of turbo-mode to help FB aggregate more of the world's information...
...I'm going to vote 'I really hope not' on this one.
Indeed. This is a Merger / Acquisition that, from a quality of life standpoint, I do not prefer to see.
Opera Mobile is...a very nice browser on my Droid. A very, very nice browser. I'd like to keep it that way (the thought of Facebook posting to my wall with updates based off of my latest webpage viewings is more than a little disturbing; "lightknight said he would be at Ken's BBQ by 5:00PM, but we can see that he accessed Google Maps 21 minutes ago, and his GPS / location shows him at least 47 minutes away. -> 5:01 PM").
I am John Hurt.
I haven't used Opera in a good long while*, and I've never heard of the mentioned source site Pocket-lint, but after the damning parting words of von Tetzchner, I wouldn't put it past Opera to allow let Facebook take them.
Nice knowin' ya, Oppy.
*Actually I did a few times a month or two ago for some SVG testing; otherwise I've barely touched it, and I'll be uninstalling it now just in case the probable turns out true.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Damn. I've been using Opera for several years now. If it comes under the thumb of Facebook, I'll jump ship. I don't want those fuckers backdooring themselves into everything I do online.
You like Opera? I love Opera. I've been using Opera since way back at version 2.0. Remember the browser that would fit on a floppy? I even paid for it. Sure, it's not perfect but it's pretty darn good. Now it's endanger of being taken over by a company I personally don't use and can't stand. I would have rather seen it die back in the 90s than to me such an ignominious fate.
"Technology.....the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it." Max Firsch
Damn. I've been using Opera for several years now. If it comes under the thumb of Facebook, I'll jump ship. I don't want those fuckers backdooring themselves into everything I do online.
Likewise. Opera has been my main browser for more than a decade, although my wife generally uses Firefox. Luckily, I've also been using Chromium, and consider it an acceptable replacement: not quite as good with privacy settings, but slightly more compatible with weird web sites. If Opera becomes part of Facebook, I'll drop it on principle (all Facebook IPs are already blocked by my router to inhibit unwanted tracking).
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Opera browsers already have a filtering mechanism build in. What they are missing is a list of stuff to filter.
Just search the web for an urlfilter.ini, download that, put it on your Android device and point Opera Mobile to it.
My, the spammers have mod points as well.
Best to just reset the password on those accounts.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'll go back to IE.