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Update: Opera Browser for Linux
S7 writes "Opera Software has indicated that it is currently diversifying its browser to accomodate a wider flavour of Linux distributions, not just RedHat and its derivatives. Hope they finish soon!" Yeah, I know Mozilla is going to have wonderful features like instant messenger and changeable themes and I don't know what-all else if and when it ever gets end user-usable, but Opera is a plenty good enough browser for the likes of me; it's fast, compact, simple, and reliable, all of which are software qualities I admire immensely. In fact, the only two things I really miss from Windows are Opera and NoteTab, which is IMO the worlds's finest text processing tool for online journalists. Now that Opera's on its way to Linux, all I need is a Linux version of NoteTab or something like it and I'll be in PC heaven!
Yes, we all are all waiting for this new browser that will be replacing netscape.... Are they planning to distributed it like netscape?
Although netscape really hasn't crash that many times for me.....
I think this is the real news. Availible beta for BeOs.
When Opera for Linux comes out, and it's as good as the hype, I will pay for it. That being said, I find extremely amusing their justification of why nothing is free .
I know this is Offtopic, but it seems that over the last few weeks, Slashdot has increased the rate of posting. It seems that whenever I reload, there are new stories, and those stories qickly get up to over 300 or 400 replies.
has anyone else noticed this?
dave
I have to say, being a long time Slashdot reader, I really don't like Roblimo's style. Whereas most other Slashdot news announcements identify the link with a little bit of commentary thrown in, Roblimo tends to write an entire paragraph with his opinion on almost every story in the announcement.
I find that kind of lame, when all of those who post Slashdot stories thus far have seen fit to simply announce the story with a little bit of Slashdot spin, Roblimo thinks everyone needs to hear every last detail of his opinion on the news item on the stories he posts (maybe not all the time, but much more than other posters).
Keep the noise down, Roblimo!
Will Opera give distros discounts to bundle Opera with their boxed versions? Will they count on being lighter than Mozilla? How will they differentiate themselves? What can they possibly do that Mozilla can't match?
As much as I like Opera, I wouldn't give much for their chances.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
We've heard these updates before. How old is Opera by now, and since when have they been promining ports "real soon now"? It's a nice Windows browser, but the window of opportunity has slammed shut for them. In the time since Opera first started planning ports, Macs have gotten a version of IE that's actually not too bad (and fairly quick), Linux users are in the process of getting decent browsers with KDE and Gnome, and Mozilla is actually starting to finally grow up, and in public where everyone can see the progress.
In the early days when Netscape and Microsoft first started heading up the bloatware path, Opera had a nice market opportunity, but I think it's been squandered. Nobody's going to pay for a closed-source browser, however spiffy, when there's a reasonable selection of respectable open _and_ closed browsers, all of which are free. It's time the Opera folks started a new project.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
A port of Opera to Linux is extremly important for Linux. Though I myself find lynx the ultimate browser, I constantly hear complaints about Netscape and demands from Windows users, who'd like to switch to Linux, for a java-capable, graphical browser.
Regards,
January
While I'm sure Opera is a great browser, it seems to me their marketing philosophy is about as incompatible with free software's as you can get.
From their own literature: "Nothing is really 'free'. It is merely subsidized by other products. It is done in the interest of market share and domination, but not necessarily in the interest of the user. "
They further claim that the only reason software is given away free is to "tie in" users to buying software later. To those of us backing free software, this is obviously a gross overgeneralization at best, and complete ignorance of what we stand for at worst.
The following bothers me even more: "And besides, you may get something 'free', but then it's mostly 'cheap' and of inferior quality. 'Free' and Opera don't go together - and never will."
If this is really what they believe, they need to do a little research before they even think about pushing their way into the Linux market.
---
Consult, v. t. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.
Tough road for opera I'd agree.
But they might get some sales merely by being in stores, something Mozilla may not do. Linux users aren't very used to going to stores for software, but new converts from Windows may be different. They could also play the bundle game, with distros, or apps they play well with.
They may also have a shot at the browser market for embedded Linux devices if they are light enough.
I'm attracted to their tables-capable text only browser as well, I don't think Mozilla has done that.
If they want desktop market though, they better get out there well before Mozilla releases officially. Without being buggy. Ouch.
For those of you who cannot hold your breath: Opera is WINEable.
//Mutende
--
Unselfish actions pay back better
Before Netscape made their announcement that Mozilla would go open source, Opera, I think, could have had a good chance at becoming the browser of choice for Linux users. There were a lot of people clamoring for a port back then.
However, instead of jumping on it, they made the absurd demand that people pay up before coding even began. Obviously, not many took to this. (The fact that a few did actually shows how desperate people were for a good browser.) If Opera had seized their opportunity, there's a good chance a good portion of us would be using it today. But, history being what it is...
Like you say, they're gonna have a tough time in the face of Mozilla now, as the lizard is just on the threshold of being ready for everyday use. Besides, the fact that Mozilla is free/open source software gives it a huge edge, and Opera doesn't appear to be budging on that issue. (Not that I blame them, since the browser is their only revenue. Of course, if nobody uses it, they'll have trouble getting money whether it's closed or open.)
On linux, I compared display speeds side by side with Netscape 4.61, and Mozilla release 10 was much faster. The design is much nicer too. Can't say Opera did much for me.
tcboo
NoteTab is one Windows Apps which I really prefer to any other Text Editor. I had written to the creater of NoteTab but he didn't seem too interested in porting it to Linux. Reason: too much of effort involved. I even offered to help there but he wasn't willing to take help. Anyone's given it a try?
Prakash
FreeOS.com - The resource center for free operating systems.
Hi, Opera on Linux will be themable since it is based on Troll's Qt libraries. Really cool themes are available /AC
After buying NoteTab Pro, I was pleasantly surprised by the mileage I could get out of it. I was looking for an outlining tool, which is one thing that NoteTab Pro isn't so great at, but instead I got a very extensible bare-bones editor that knows just enough HTML. My fledgling website owes a lot to NoteTab Pro.
A unix version would be greatly appreciated. And don't talk to me about EMACS! EMACS might be good for solving the Towers of Hanoi, or as a LISP platform, or for whatever new feature that they've piled on the heap, but it certainly isn't lightweight like NoteTab.
I think they announced opera for linux about a year and a half ago.....
Whats the rush???
Attention Opera Software: stop announcing new projects and just port the damn thing already. Geez. How can a company diversify a product that doesn't even exist yet? As an aside, there's an old joke about Microsoft promises. The punch line is "My husband's a Microsoft developer and he just sits at the end of the bed and tells me how great it's gonna be when I get it." Sound familiar?
Opera's right! Freedom is an illusion. It's a shame they won't use the the same marketing ploys as the big boys, and make their product seem just as "free" as the rest.
Their "free" argument is basically directed at IE and netscape. The only free browser that actually exists right now is lynx, and is not really in competition with the high end (faster than 286) market. If you think about it, all their claims in the argument are true when applied to netscape and IE. IE and netscape are nothing resembling free.
In the near future I will need to evaluate Mozilla/netscape, opera, and then there is the underdop aramadilla. Netscape sucks right now, opera is non-existant, and armadilla is still pre-beta (alpha). Mozilla surprisingly is not too bad even though it is pre-beta. The nicest thing I remember about opera is that it offered a nice browser in a nice small package. Netscape is bloatware and mozilla is half the size but still a a lot bigger than the other browsers. Linux is in need of a browser, that is it.
You say:
Linux users aren't very used to going to stores for software, but new converts from Windows may be different.
Ha! I've seen a lot of Linux users order CD's for Linux distros off the web. As long as the browser is available on the web, people will by it. This is the age of e-commerce!
Do you mean all other browsers are hopeless? Let's see, doesn't Star Office come with it's own browser. Doesn't KOffice have it's own browser? Doesn't the W3C have it's own browser called Amaya? OK. So, with Mozilla being open source, all other browser development will discontinue for Linux. Fat chance! I can't wait till M$ comes out with IE for Linux. Competition is great!
There's a notetab-esque clone you can check out on freshmeat: gnotepad.
Works wicked nicely for me, and i've had pleasantly few problems with it:)
-blarg
-- familiarity is only skin deep
I've used it as the ideal HTML editor for a long time, just downloaded the LaTeX2e clipbook libraries and it's good to see how well NoteTab and dvi viewer from the MIKTeX distribution work together. :)
I don't think that this should have been posted as a story, as it s not news for nerds. I also don t think we should all team upand criticize something for not being open or free, when there is no free & stable alternative yet. Just my 2 yen.
Why?
;)
1) Their HTML rendering is quite lame. It doesn't render most simple HTML correctly, so things look 'weird' compared to Navigator/IE. If they can't even get that right, they've got no chance.
2) The interface to the program is, well, 'weird'. It's not intuitive; it's way too complex and hard to configure the way most people are used to browsers working (and yes, I realize some people may not like the way Navigator/IE work interface-wise, but that's what people are used to).
3) It costs money. Duh. Remember how Navigator started losing the browser war in the first place?
And lastly, c'mon, the name of the thing! The only thing worse than Opera is Country & Western!
Personallity, I'd prefer Opera in Linux. Why? It's still smaller than netscape, faster (at least in the windows version) and it has features that are useful. For now, instant messaging is something I won't support. V4.61/Win9x of Netscape came with AIM, and I erased it. Cause no one I know uses AIM, and I don't have the HD, or memory to install 2 IMers. (I'm a long time ICQ person.) Until they standarize upon 1 standard, so all IMers can talk with one another, IMing in a browser is a useless bloat. To me, browsers is used for 1 thing. Browsing web pages. Too many browsers want to be a jack of all trades, and it takes Netscape way too long to start up. Opera loads almost instantly, and is pretty stable. So when it comes to linux, I'll buy a copy of it. Anything however is better than lynx :)
Not Netsacpe. Not Opera. Not one of these damned CORBA projects that seems to invent the entire universe to pull out a browser. No "massive application frameworks" just so they can make a call to Browser(). They need a browser. Written from scratch to JUST BROWSE the web and do nothing else. I mean, come on, people.. this isn't hard. I myself have written a parser. How hard is it to write a layout engine for JUST HTML? Then to throw in graphics? I can't imagine it to be something worth billions of lines of code, especially since Opera HAS proven that a browser can be small..
So anyone want to take up the call? To make JUST a graphical browser and not a full featured internet (cr)application?
Magnwa
Personally, I will not buy any product that does not come with complete source code that gcc can compile and link. I suppose it's ok to not have the source code to a program provided the product itself does not cost anything (such as Netscape). Using truely FREE software has spoiled me. I usually take it for granted when I download that latests and greatest Linux or BSD program that it will come with the source and when it doesn't I find it very irritating and usually end up deleting the entire package unless it is an exceptionally good program. But from my experience of late, all the really good programs are open sourced.
With that said, I really do not see how Opera will ever be able to have an exceptional product simply because they keep the source code closed. I think it is a shame too. Not only would it be a wonderful program but it's development cycle would be much shorter provided there were enough open sourced programmers interested in it.
You have been assimilated.
Nedit is light, know html, and is very configurable. I love it. I've never tried the Windows app, but if you are looking for a killer unix X11 editor, nedit is excellent. Try it.
Well, a few kept promises would be a good thing, I think.
- Project Magic will be updated monthly. Big surprise, it's updated every two months, unless somebody (like me) leaves them a nastygram in the guestbook telling them they haven't done so in two months.
- In April, we were told that at least a beta for linux would be released in 2Q, 1999. Shocking! We've got nothing other than a couple of (easily faked) screenshots of a text based browser!
I've given up. Mozilla still isn't ready for even beta use, Opera is dead (IMO), and I've not yet tried Amaya (though that will be fixed later today). Netscape is buggy (at best). No good browsers for Linux yet, and none on the horizon.I give up, and will simply stick with Netscape for now.
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
Personallity, I'd prefer Opera in Linux. Why? It's still smaller than netscape, faster (at least in the windows version) and it has features that are useful.
We're not talking about comparing Netscape 4.x to Opera. We're talking about Mozilla (Netscape 5.x) and Opera. Mozilla is very small, extremely modular, and really fast. Opera has no chance.
The last time I checked, Opera doesn't do PNG files. Too bad. (Then again, the Big Boys don't do PNG correctly, either.)
I probably will never use Opera; if I need pages tested with it, I get a net.friend to look at them and report back.
Besides, Communicator 4.7, despite its "Shop" button staring at me, has not crashed yet.
--
Gleepy the Hen. More intelligent than the average hen.
Yes. I love to bite anyone who says lynx is a wonderful browser. It is anything but wonderful. The art of web design, half of the wonderful webpages will be gone if only lynx is available. (yes, godly aweful gnu page will still be there for geeks to browse) I will go back to the library card searching instead of using internet.
Will this "diversification" include any hardware architecture besides x86-PC? Will it include any Unix other than Linux? The Opera web page says that they are "experimenting" with FreeBSD and Linux/sparc support. When will we see the results, and why such a small range of platforms?
The advantages of free/open software go beyond cost, stability, and features. Nearly every major open software project (with a few notable exceptions, such as FreeBSD) is portable to a wide variety of hardware and software systems. I don't deny that commercial software has certain pros, but almost all of it has one huge disadvantage which completely cancels out any of those advantages. Closed software for Linux is fine, as long as it is for Linux, and not just for Linux/x86, or RedHat Linux, etc.
Can I install Wordperfect 8 on my PowerPC 603e box? How about Opera? [No; neither the BeOS or Linux ports have been compiled for PPC.] Heck even free (beer) closed-source projects---like the MIT Scheme interpreter, which runs on Linux and NetBSD---are distributed in x86 binary form only.
I don't have an Intel box, so I haven't even had the chance to test these programs. In the meantime, I've gotten along just fine with free alternatives. With open-source software, I don't need the maintainers to develop on my specific platform; I can simply compile myself from code if no binaries are available. In the rare case that there is a problem, I can work with the authors to fix it.
I applaud anyone bringing software to free operating systems. But until they unlearn their old habits from growing up in the Wintel duopoly, they will never compete with open source software.
I'm sorry, but I'm all for new products if they're better and free and everything, but Opera is simply a horrible browser. Say what you will about Netscape and IE, but they're pretty damn easy to use, and almost every web browser on the planet has followed their UI leads, even the simple ones like the one found in KDE. The few times that I've been required to use Opera for testing web designs, I've found it's UI to be horrendous at best. They split the concept of the browsing pane into multiple windows, almost like a separate sub-desktop. Their fonts always rendered a size too high. Their HTML compatibility was awful (this was the 3.0 release). And they had so many extra things bundled into the system that I couldn't even beging to configure it to do anything even remotely like what I wanted it to do. There is something to be said for the simplicity of IE and Netscape, which made the web about as easy to use as a cheap hooker (which, honestly, is what the web has become).
As far as I'm concerned, Opera is nowhere near the browser that Netscape/Mozilla is and is only getting recognition because they're an 'alternative'. When they concentrate on making web browsing as painless as their competitors, then they'll have a product they can market.
We're not talking about comparing Netscape 4.x to Opera. We're talking about Mozilla (Netscape 5.x) and Opera. Mozilla is very small, extremely modular, and really fast. Opera has no chance.
.. i *love* that browser.
Ever tried Opera for windows? After installation the entire thingie (without cache) took 2MB. It opens in a second, the cache is extremely configurable
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
1.) If you say so. Under Windows, when I was using the trial version, it rendered everything I looked at fine except for one thing: Dejanews' "Power search" page. It placed one of the little boxie thingies (I'm so technical...) down a line, making it look a little weird. 3.6 or something might have fixed that, too, but I can't remember... Overall, it renders fine an dandy AFAIK. Maybe the linux port is different, if there's a downloadable beta I'm unaware of or some such thing...
;) If you're running Linux, you can figure out the Opera buttons in no time flat.
:) For the moment, I'm somehow dealing with the Goliath that is Netscape v4.61, and occasionally saying "hell with it all" and using w3m or lynx..
:)
2.) Eh, it's different, but it's not like it's absurdly difficult. It still has back/foward buttons and all, they're just... smaller...
3.) Yep. I agree... that's why I'm not using it right now. I would pay money for it, actually, but I don't have any right now.
I'm not sure what direction they're going to go for Linux (if it's as straight a port as they can do of 3.60/Windows, YESSSS!!!), but (as much as the Opera people might like it that way) I don't think Opera is meant to be "God's next browser". It's "the alternative", sort of what Linux is. Linux has enough hype behind it that it's going farther than that, but one can't say so much for Opera... That doesn't make it a bad alternative. As long as it exists, those of us who don't want a browser that wastes code on things as varied as washing the dishes will be relatively happy. At least, if we can afford it. Otherwise, we'll hope the next version of KFM is a doozy...
(Note: The above opinions are not necessarily that of the author... he wasn't meant to post stuff right after he got up...
Why? It's been out for a quite while now.
The context of your comments about Mozilla seems to imply you think it is going to be yet another slow and bloated Netscape browser. If you had read the previous comments on the other two recent Mozilla articles you would have realised that Mozilla is making really excellent progress and is a compact download size.
Netscape will be themeable but that's just a spin off of their XUL user interface language. The fact that all the interfaces are written in XUL means that it can be easily themed as well as customising the user interface to the way you want.
As for integrating Instant messaging with email. No one at Mozilla.org said that and even if Netscape does do that you can easily get a copy that wouldn't have this feature.
Mozilla is here now (although in pre-alpha form). You can't see a current build of Opera on Linux so I believe Mozilla will be along sooner rather than later. Even if you don't like Mozilla their rendering engine is good and someone can use it as a base for another browser with a different interface.
If Opera had started porting (although to be fair they didn't have much money when they started) to other operating systems before the Mozilla announcement I believe they would have got a good share of the market but now their browser is likely to follow behind Mozilla and so is unlikely to succeed unless they can offer something special.
--
first.. Opera gives you nothing over the Open Sourced Amaya but some poorly implimented javascript processing. second.. many people are looking forward to mozilla.. and I personally love many things about it but my greatest gripe is that IT USES XML. And I know what you all are thinking.. it makes it themable and work on all platforms, etc.. well, my gripe is that ALL these years unix users have been wanting Netscape to use a more modern toolkit (motif sucks); however, now that we have gtk being used the browser uses XML which destroys the whole purpose.
Yes, and you know why we order CDs of distros? Because distros are huge, and in many cases (i.e. no network) the only reasonable way to install is off a CD. A browser is not very large, and can easily be downloaded.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Find a copy of Mosaic. Now that had a configurable cache. :)
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
linux is a good os for medium size servers, but /. is getting more hits all the time.
- Alias for bookmarks
- Name completion
- Customizable displaying of pictures
- Save address info
Also, I can turn off animated gifs, all colour/layout info (nice for clueless designed pages), and rescale complete pages, including the pictures, not just the text. For the record, I am not associated with Opera Software in any other way than being Norwegian.I only have to type "a", and it goes to Altavista.
In addition to www.*.com, it searches www.*.net, www.*.org, or whatever you want it to, in your prefered order.
I can select if it should load and display pictures, only display already loaded pictures, or not display them at all. Very nice when I'm using a modem.
I often order stuff online, and when filling out address info, all I have to do is select the right fields, and paste in the info
The guy's okay if he either has long hair or no hair at all. Well, a combination of both can also be cool but forget about any median values. I welcome all non-average commentary(*) I can glue my eyeballs on.
(*) or commentary by the non-average. I'm especially fascinated by all the moronic replies to very intelligent comments.
Now I hope the MOzilla people read this.. I would REALLY like to see aliasable bookmarks. Hitting 'a' to get to altavista, 's' to get to slashdot. Does anyone know of a way to do this NOW in Linux?
(Maybe KDE hotkeys?)
I'm attracted to their tables-capable text only browser as well, I don't think Mozilla has done that.
I thought that was interesting as well. But I get the impression that it was just a toy one of the programmers hacked together. It sounded like their marketing people (if opera is that large of a company) couldn't wrap their heads around a piece of text-mode software.
Actually, I've found a distinct increase in noise lately. Most of the articles are pretty boring (AFAIC), and I often find myself equally disinterested in those articles which accumulate a modest 50 or so posts and those which acquire well over a couple hundred or so.
I have noticed a few comments to the effect that this "Roblimo" person has been posting an incredibly large amount of articles the past few days, but I'm not sure if that causes this paragraph to correlate to the first.. (and I wonder why the moderators don't appreciate my more-than-slightly off sense of humor..)
And strangely enough, I haven't really noticed any marked increase in posts. In fact, I've gotten quite bored the past few days waiting for an interesting topic, or even a topic I feel is worth talking about to come up.. usually becoming rather.. disappointed.. Maybe I'm just bitter because all of my story ideas get shot down (not that I don't understand why with most of them.. hee hee..). ;)
Oh, um, wait.. "the past few weeks"? Ah, sorry.. My attention span isn't generally that long. I thought we were talking about the past few hours or something. =L
~ Kish
Excellent ... a careful and reasoned argument.
I must say I am starting to agree with you, I am starting to think Cmdr Taco has gone mad what with the buyout and all and his new handle is Roblimo (yup Rob in a Limo).
CC
"Pray arm me further by your reply" Winston Churchill
I've worked with the Windows version of Opera before and I wasn't impressed. It is small, true, but so is Mozilla. And the KDE browser isn't half bad either. So why they think a non-free commercial browser will thrive in a free OS with equally good free browsers is beyond me, but I'm not a marketing droid. Opera will, I predict, die off as their business model crumbles. Times are changing, and openness is the new rules to play by. Closed source products have their days numbered. Opera could change, but they won't. And that's why they'll be just another has-been in the long run.
News reader:
Connecting to host news.slashdot.org... connection established.
Getting newsgroups... unread total> slashdot.almighty-buck 103256 slashdot.announce 3495 slashdot.anonymous-coward 1212350284 slashdot.education 2356 slashdot.flame 3475634855 slashdot.games 44338256 slashdot.graphics 3561256 slashdot.hardware 344673 slashdot.intel 678876 slashdot.linux 65537131076 slashdot.microsoft 6661666 slashdot.mozilla 1010101010 slashdot.science 3141561467 slashdot.technology 4351023 slashdot.united-states 4750 That would be pretty cool, IMHO.
From what I understand although Mozilla is free and open source it is *not* GPL. At the time the entire Mozilla project got started the impression I had was that Netscape was looking to get the open source community to do lots of free work for them; was I mistaken?
One of the biggest problems currently facing all operating systems, perhaps *the* biggest, is the lack of any decent open-source graphical browser that's under the GPL (or a decent variation of it). Considering how incredibly important the browser is (I'd consider it now the most important application) this is mind-boggling!
--
Chris Long, Departments of Mathematics & Statistics, Rutgers University
San Diego Padres, 100 Park Blvd, San Diego CA 92101
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by
Am I the only one amazed to see a 100 thread discussion about a Windows program on slashdot?
If so I must be in the wrong place.
CC
"Pray arm me further by your reply" Winston Churchill
For what it's worth... in ~/.Xdefaults:
Netscape*myshopping.tipString:
Netscape*myshopping.documentationString:
Netscape*toolBar*myshopping.labelString:
It's still there, but at least it isn't staring you in the face.
Back when MSIE 3 came out, and the start of the real dirty browser wars... magazines, especially Ziff Davis ones, were going mad comparing Netscape ith MSIE.. every so often they would compare the two with Opera and Mosaic.
/. looks not right to me. Do I have time to customize my browser?
It's time for another comparison. I want to see the goods. Screen shots of some pages, reviews, etc. I don't have time to do it myself. I'm content fudging around with Netscape and trying to avoid crashes.
I don't see myself using Opera.. since I can't bring myself to pay for a browser when MSIE runs well under VMWare, which I paid for and find useful.
I never liked Netscape's text handling. Text handling in all the nix's is quite bad... but even Netscape for Windows (come on Adobe! Do what you did to Windows to Linux! Bring us some nice engines!) looks drab.
Text is all the wrong size too.. maybe it's because people write for MSIE... but even
- Hugh Buchanan
- Userfriendly.com
"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch!"
/.'s who don't know the difference between an assign and an equivalence are nonetheless guaranteed a place in hacker paradise.
A lot of posts here that Opera doesn't understand what free is, or otherwise complaining about Opera not being free. I think that most of these posters are still grossly confused between gratis and libre. Opera is neither but this hardly makes it satanspawn.
TAANSTAFL was first coined in the Great Depression of the US. Signs proclaimed "free lunch", but those seeking freebies during that hard time soon realized that "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch", since they had to "endure" sermons. Sometimes I think the preaching and gnuspeak on slashdot is the price paid for free software. Yeah, you don't have to pay money for Mozilla, but you have to endure endless sermons on how it is morally superior to Opera, how its developers are altruistic saints, and how those
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Opera rocks, man. Netscape is so overbloated, its pathetic !!! opera will fit onto a 1.44mb floppy, its easy to crack, and highly customizable. Hell, I might even PAY for the linux version, if it ever really gets released.
There actually already exist a textbased browser that can do tables, it even does frames. The name of the browser is W3M and I think it is working really great, renders slashdot as good as it gets in an xterm. And yes, it is gratis!
Find it here:
ftp://ei5nazha.yz.yamagata-u.ac.jp/w3m/
The very same day I read it on the Opera web site (who posted the news on the 5th). What the fuck is up with that shit? I'm pissed. Maybe I didn't include a geeky enough comment or sing "I'm a geek and I'm okay, I code all night and I sleep all day" (appologies to Monty Python). Rant over.
-- 100% MS-Free as of 4-4-1999, 11:47:38 PST. "The lapdance is always better when the stripper is cryin'" Free Kevin,
Humbug. I heard this story five years ago, and I'll be hearing it five years from now...
"You Free Software people can't build a usable UNIX replacement"
Oh, wait, we did - GNU/Linux, a modern cross-platform POSIX OS
"You Free Software people can't build GUI tools for end users"
Oh, wait, we did - Gimp, used by plenty of experienced digital artists and newbies alike.
There's always someone who says the next mountain is an impossible climb, and they've been wrong EVERY TIME so far. Why would it be different this time?
I agree it'd be nice to see Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, IE and (I wish) Konqueror line up side by side with a good objective review. But not on ZD mags. C|Net used to do some decent stuff. And MaximumPC isn't too terribly bad (though maxLinux sux).
Erik
blamem
"Their HTML rendering is quite lame. It doesn't render most simple HTML correctly"
/. have qualms with that :)
Gotta say you must be misinformed here. Every browser has a different implementation of the HTML standard, including good ole open source browsers. Load up ANY web page in two different browsers (or even different versions of the SAME browser) and they will definitely look different. I've used many browsers, and the html differences are usually minor however. Such as text begin centered differently or a picture being a little higher than another. My experience with Opera has been the same as with Netscape or IE, only faster.
"The interface to the program is, well, 'weird'"
Well it's pretty much browser standard buddy. Back and forward buttons, home button, search button, address entry button, and screen in middle where html view goes. What exactly is "weird" about that? Perhaps you come from a lynx background? Even if you do, take the time to learn Opera's keyboard commands because it is fully manageable from the keyboard.
"It costs money"
Then pirate it, I doubt many people on
We have netscape, why not get everyone on one big open-source boat until we have one really good, bug-free browser? Until this day, Lynx is the browser of the gods.
Where are my GPFs? I WANT MY GPFS!!
Be's interface gives all the advantages of MDI without all the grey poo.
I too use lynx for "utility" browsing. I'll switch to Netscape when I have to--when forced into it by a site that's a nest of ECMAscript links, or unmanageable frames, or other trickery.
And the key is that such things are trickery--cute hacks to improve not a site's utility but its trendiness. I have seen maybe three examples in the last five years where Java, ECMAscript, frames, Flash, or any of those other twinky weh gadgets have actually improved a site's benefit to me.
I'll try Opera when it comes out, provided they offer a try-before-you-buy deal. Otherwise, I'll stick with lynx when I can, Netscape (or Mozilla) when I must.
- Very well designed keyboard interface including many single-key hotkeys. You never have to leave home row to go forward, back, navigate over the links on a page, move from one open document to another, follow a link, close an open document, and many other functions. If you like a vi style interface you will love the speed and control of navigating with Opera. I like its keyboard navigation better than Lynx.
- Capable of keeping many windows open without performance problems. I very often have 30 windows open at once. MDI helps out here. For those with limited bandwidth this is a key feature, since it lets a big page trickle in while you're reading an already-loaded page.
- Capable of launching a new window in the background, with just a single ctrl-shift-left click. Way quicker than Netscape or IE.
- Very configurable in terms of customizing page rendering. I normally prefer to turn off all color and fonts, so that I can easily see what's text, what's a new link, what's a followed link. I haven't gotten it to 100% perfect but it is very good, much better than Netscape.
- Very stable, except for some javascript. If javascript is off, it never dies. Nor have I seen any resource leaks. Explorer and Netscape are too unstable for me to enjoy.
- Excellent hot list (bookmarks) access and configuration. No need to open a separate editing window to edit your hot list, and new hot list entries are automatically placed in the currently active hot list folder.
- Good plugin compatibility (including Sun JVM) for those occasions when it's necessary.
Opera is not just an alternative browser, it's a more industrial-strength browser for people who need a highly productive interface. I think it will carve out a niche among power users on Unix systems.Yeah, you don't think you can use other browsers to render their crap don't you?
Netscape sucks, Mozilla sucks, IE sucks, Opera (probably also) sucks. Graphical browsers are for lamerz, who like lots of graphics. Only Lynx is the RightIdeology(tm).
Opera _is_ wonderful, but unfortunately, it is bugged. Big time.
The following are just some of the bugs. They appear in the BeOS version also, so it's not just windoze.
* Some sites simply makes it crash, for no reason at all. Need I say the ad bar at xoom.com ?
* The short-cut to bookmarks is genious - but it can't be more than one character, even if you can define a complete word. It simply jumps when you type the first letter.
* Speaking of that short cut function - try defining a "z" shortcut and use it. Strange effect.
* JavaScript is, well, not very well implemented.
* Not possible to define the default size of the new windows
* The "show-url-you-are-about-to-go-to" randomly does not work.
* Browse by keyboard looses focus randomly
Worst of all, Opera Software do not reply to bug reports. I have reported these errors since version 2.12, but no replies, no improvements.
Maybe windows users don't usually report bugs ?
I am sure Linux users will !!
but then you are *.no just like me. So you probably are biased. I will agree that it is fast and makes browsing on a 486 somewhat usable. But the icons are ugly. And it has that terrible MDI. If I remember correctly, it renders links with no underline, which is ugly.