Slashdot Mirror
Opera Founder Is Back, WIth a Feature-Heavy, Chromium-Based Browser
New submitter cdysthe writes Almost two years ago, the Norwegian browser firm Opera ripped out the guts of its product and adopted the more standard WebKit and Chromium technologies, essentially making it more like rivals Chrome and Safari. But it wasn't just Opera's innards that changed; the browser also became more streamlined and perhaps less geeky. Many Opera fans were deeply displeased at the loss of what they saw as key differentiating functionality. So now Jon von Tetzchner, the man who founded Opera and who would probably never have allowed those drastic feature changes, is back to serve this hard core with a new browser called Vivaldi. The project's front page links to downloads of a technical preview, available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Firefox users who likewise prefer a browser with more rather than fewer features (but otherwise want to stick with Firefox) might also
consider SeaMonkey, which bundles not just a browser but email, newsgroup client and feed reader, HTML editor, IRC chat and web development tools.
As the browser is based on open source chromium,
is the source for this chromium fork available, or has Opera not learned the lesson yet?
It feels like a fast version of Chome. But I don't have all the cache filled in the same way so probably not a fair test. But so far not a problem with it. Have used it on facebook game that requires flash 15, (won't work with firefox) was flawless.
Not found a single gotcha so far
The original dream we hardcore Opera users had was replacing the Presto engine with Blink, but wrapping it with the feature-full Opera interface experience. That was more a pipe dream. Vivaldi already has more of the old Opera features than the new one does. It's a technology preview, so it's got a lot of rough edges, but the spirit of the old Opera is there.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
I disagree, Presto is (still today) quite usable. Opera Mobile Classic, the current name of the Presto-powered browser for Android (which is available alongside the 'real' WebKit-based Opera), breathes new life into ancient Android phones. It doesn't cope with all sites, but it's a lot better than the old Android browser. (And Chrome doesn't run on Android 2.)
The column handling is awesome, which is a particular advantage on mobile devices.
For whatever reason, the 'real' Opera browser for Android, is absolutely awful. You can't even add your own search-engines beyond the ones it ships with. (Seriously.) It's nothing more than Chrome-but-terrible.