Former Dev Gives Gloomy Outlook On Linux Support For the Opera Browser

An anonymous reader writes: "It doesn't take a Columbo to figure out that the 'previous employer, a small browser vendor that decided to abandon its own rendering engine and browser stack' is referring to Opera in this comment answering the question 'Do you actually use the product you are working on?' It appears to originate from Andreas Tolfsen, a former Opera developer who is now part of the Mozilla project. From releasing a unified architecture browser including Linux support since 2001, Opera decided to put Linux development on indefinite hold, communicated through blog comments, and focus on Windows and Mac for their browser rewrite centered around the Blink engine that had its first beta release last spring. The promise to bring back the Linux version in due time was met with growing skepticism as the months went by, and clear answers have been avoided in the developer blog. The uncertainty has spawned user projects such as Otter browser in an attempt to recreate the Opera UI in a free application. Tolfsen's statement seem to be in line with what users have suspected all along: Opera for Linux is not something for the near future."

Comments

OPERA!?

[agapeton]

The Opera Browser?? WHAT YEAR IS IT!? (Robbin Williams)

Re:OPERA!?

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Reply hazy, ask again later.

Re:OPERA!?

[PRMan]

One time at a startup we were trying to figure out what e-mail system to use. I asked my boss what the Magic 8-Ball was (although I knew because I had one as a child). I asked it, "What e-mail system should we use?"

He said, "You can only ask it yes or no questions."

I got the answer: "Outlook good."

We ended up using Outlook.

Re:OPERA!?

[khellendros1984]

Of course, it all depends on whose stats you use...

Opera is dead.

[suss]

It's just a disfunctional Chrome with Opera branding now.
It died when they abandoned their own codebase.

Re:Opera is dead.

[Threni]

It died right at the start when it was `pay up for love the ads`...resuscitated briefly when it was the only decent browser for pre-smartphones, then got finished off when Safari and stock/Chrome was let free on smartphones/tablets.

Re:Opera is dead.

[theArtificial]

It's just a disfunctional Chrome with Opera branding now.

Chrome is just a dysfunctional Webkit, which is just a dysfunctional Khtml....

While losing Presto, which has been around since the early days, sucks it's not exactly cheap "me-tooing" the other guys. Besides, one of the reasons for the lack of popularity was the obscure rendering issues occasionally encountered with pages. "Whelp, my banking site just doesn't work, gotta switch browsers" type situations weren't exactly uncommon and arguably speak more about the markup than the engine itself but an end user might not be so understanding. Operas approach makes a lot of sense from a technical standpoint. One could dream about an opensource Presto but with the whole software patent blight I don't see that occurring any time soon.

It died when they abandoned their own codebase.

Seems more like a fork, doesn't it? Feature branch the engine, keep the UI. Granted it's still under heavy development, I'm excited about seeing it mature - I'd like to see how their development tools will be integrated (element inspection and whatnot) since the "old" Opera is known for having many useful features baked in. I'd like to see a webkit with some sweet extensible architecture so we might have Firefox level plugins, see Adblock. I realize this is available now but the effectiveness varies from Chrome to Firefox due to how webkit handles network requests, I'd like to think there is an opportunity here. If development time is ultimately saved as a result, hopefully additional features will once again be the focus instead of reinventing the wheel.

Opera was great... till v12

[diorcc]

Been an Opera user since '98. Not die hard, but I always had Opera running in conjunction with other browsers. For a time solo, and now back to using FF, and Chrome (which is what the new Opera really is, minus the extensions - so what's the point?). It was a great browser because it was like an swiss army knife - one that is highly configurable WITHOUT the need for any extensions. Couldn't agree more with the ex-Opera dev. Sadly, they've decided to kill it. I'll keep an eye on Otter browser and keep using v 12 as my research / search and rescue - browser.

For Those Who Forgot about Opera

[jazman_777]

Opera users typically were hardcore about it, and would only let go when you pried their cold dead hand away from it. I've been a longtime Opera user...the new version is derisively called "Chropera" and I've dumped it. It's just bad, so many of the things that made Opera are gone, so why use this Chropera? It didn't even have a bookmark manager, just that stupid Speed Dial. And then there is the general evasiveness of the devs, especially about a Linux version. So if you've forgotten about it, consider it a mercy. For those of us who loved using Opera, it's very painful.

Yup, an epic management coup.

[game kid]

Yup, this was a glorious coup by company higher-ups.

Grats, Opera management. You managed to kick out a good founder, kick out a good engine, and kick out any certainty that you won't be sold out to Facebook (Facebook, ffs!). You even made me wonder, between Tolfsen's account and the second engine change (from WebKit to Blink), if Google has simply stuffed your ranks with their management just to Elop the place.

ggwp.

Sad

[pwileyii]

I had been an avid Opera fan since I first started using it quite a few years ago. I used it when it was the only browser that had tabbed browsing. A feature that is now part of every browser out there. The folks behind the Opera browser were innovators. They had tabs, the speed dial, Opera link (which would sync bookmarks and other items between your browsers), and gestures years before other browsers and they fully believed in being standards compliant. When I heard they were moving away from being a browser developer to being a browser repackager, I stopped using it. They went from innovating to tagging along for a ride. I recently fired up the new version of Opera to be very, very disappointed because it was simply a repacked version of Chrome. Most of the features that I had grown to love were gone and I found no reason to continue using it.

Re:Sad

[Barsteward]

yep, i started with opera 5 which i think is where the tabs were introduced and it was so much faster and bullet proof compared to anything else.

Another webkit is irrelevent

[linebackn]

One of the strengths (and simultaneous weakens) of Opera was that it used it's own unique rendering engine. That gave it an advantage in specialized situations where others would not quite fit.

Since they changed to using webkit, they are, in my opinion, basically irrelevant now. They might have well just become another one of those circa 2000 Microsoft Internet Explorer shells.

Say what you will about Presto not working on site x, y, or z, more diversity is good, and it helps keep real standard in check. There were once too many sites that were only viewable in IE, I do not look forward to a future internet that is only viewable in Google Chome.

Is there any hope at all that they might open source the Presto Rendering engine?

Re:No Market Impact Expected, but Short it anyway

[TeXMaster]

There are only two rendering engines for Linux, and they are Gecko and Webkit, both of which have horrible support for a lot of advanced web standards such as SVG and MathML, because the focus today is on who makes the fanciest sliding div effect rather than on actually properly implementing existing stuff. The loss of Presto and the reduction of alternatives is a very sad day for the web.