Actually, Lisandro might not have realized that the latest public beta of Opera 9 contains a built-in Content Blocker. I find it even easier to use than Fx's Adblock extension, and the latest weekly builds of Opera 9 have refined the feature even further.
I don't know if this helps at all, but when I view the page in Opera's User mode (as opposed to Author mode) which applies a custom stylesheet to the page, it renders just fine (all the text appears, anyhow; no scrolling problem).
When I come across badly rendered pages, applying user stylesheets solves the problem most of the time.
Not so much the development team or Mozilla marketing fanboys but basically a pretentious, self-righteous, deluded few.
When browsing the web, I see "best viewed with Firefox" buttons quite frequently. Every once in awhile, I'll even run into a site that uses a browser detection script that either tells me to switch browsers (I currently use Opera) or deliberately prevents me from reading the content. Luckily, I can mask my browser, but it's still annoying and having to do that prevents accurate browser stats from being collected.
The official (and correct, IMO) stance of the Mozilla Foundation is that they do not support "best viewed with Firefox" buttons. Unfortunately, overenthusiastic fans need to be reminded of this far too often, even on spreadfirefox.com (which I generally think is a good site)
I've written about the "best viewed with" phenomenon here, with a comparative look (using Google) at how many people create sites that are "best viewed with Firefox" versus people who make sites that are "best viewed with Opera".
"Opera will have two modes: fit-to-width mode (similar to what mobile users are already familiar with their mobile phones using the Opera Mobile browser). This mode will use Small Screen Rendering to fit the page across both screens. Alternatively, there is a DS mode which displays an overall page view on the lower screen (where you may use the touch screen to navigate around a sort of "mini map") and read the text on the top screen in full-sized view."
Still not convinced? See what your website looks like on a small screen using the Opera Mini Simulator (which probably isn't exactly how it will look on the DS, but it's an approximation. The DS certainly has more screen real estate than my pathetic cell phone, anyway.)
"The Opera software is currently slated to release in Japan during the month of June at the price of 3800 yen, roughly $30, and will include ATOK Kanji conversion software."
There is an increasing demand for cell phone applications, and Opera (being multi-platform) seems well-positioned to take advantage of that. Widgets, therefore, appear to be part of Opera's cross-platform strategy.
"Opera first began encouraging people to build widgets within its software late last year with the introduction of its Opera Mobile Platform, a system meant for developers creating wireless applications to run in the company's mobile device browser."
"Ford said that Opera is hoping to make the widgets capable of working across many different types of devices, from PCs to mobiles and even consumer electronics."
"Opera Mobile Platform, for instance, allows developers to build widgets that can work on wireless devices running completely different operating systems, which could help push development across other types of machines, Ford said."
(Regarding that last one, I am still convinced that tab thumbnails are kind of silly, and that Opera's tiling function is already much more useful. See here: The Problem with Tab Thumbnails)
As I wrote about here, Opera has had this type of functionality for a long time. Unlike foXpose, in Opera you can actually use (scrolling, following links) the tiled windows without remaximizing them.
That's interesting. The notions of "linkware" and "signware" are new to me as well.
Here's a quote from that site:
All the web sites which contains any adult-only (not for children under 18) contents or illegal/vionlent issues. If your web site contains any of those contents, it is not "link free".
I have to wonder...
Is this a recommended guideline, something mandated by Japanese ISPs, or a matter of Japanese law?
Also, it would appear from this description that listing a site as "not link free" is an indirect way of protecting minors online. By listing itself as "not link free", the site indicates that it may have content that might accidentally be linked to inappropriately.
Yet, "not link free" doesn't seem to be used that way a lot (or even most?) of the time. For example, why is the webpage for the 15th International Symposium on Plant Lipids not link free? It's not stuff I would normally consider harmful to minors.
Here's the (unlinked) url: http://www.nibb.ac.jp/~ispl15th/
Also, there are a lot of Japanese porn sites out there. Do they all have a notice saying they are "not link free". (If so, most of them don't show up on google)
Even just looking at "linkware" and "signware" policies, it seems as if Japanese website creators may have a slightly different attitude towards the protection of intellectual property than we (in America) do. For example, Japanese anime fan sites rarely have scanned images of copyrighted materials, whereas American fansites are chock full of them.
Or maybe it's just an issue of bandwidth being so expensive in Japan that websites only want to cater to very exclusive audiences?
A final note: I did find this interesting website with form letters pre-written in Japanese to ask Japanese website owners for linking permission.
Does this issue pertain to all the websites out there that are "not link free". I did a google search for "not link free", and came up with 465 hits. Maybe it's just my imagination, but a large number of those seem to be Japanese sites. Any idea why?
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Lisandro might not have realized that the latest public beta of Opera 9 contains a built-in Content Blocker. I find it even easier to use than Fx's Adblock extension, and the latest weekly builds of Opera 9 have refined the feature even further.
See here for info and download links to the Opera 9 beta release: http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2006/04/20/
Here is a remembrance of Geir Ivarsøy from someone at Opera Software who knew him: Death in the Family
I don't know if this helps at all, but when I view the page in Opera's User mode (as opposed to Author mode) which applies a custom stylesheet to the page, it renders just fine (all the text appears, anyhow; no scrolling problem).
When I come across badly rendered pages, applying user stylesheets solves the problem most of the time.
Not so much the development team or Mozilla marketing fanboys but basically a pretentious, self-righteous, deluded few.
When browsing the web, I see "best viewed with Firefox" buttons quite frequently. Every once in awhile, I'll even run into a site that uses a browser detection script that either tells me to switch browsers (I currently use Opera) or deliberately prevents me from reading the content. Luckily, I can mask my browser, but it's still annoying and having to do that prevents accurate browser stats from being collected.
The official (and correct, IMO) stance of the Mozilla Foundation is that they do not support "best viewed with Firefox" buttons. Unfortunately, overenthusiastic fans need to be reminded of this far too often, even on spreadfirefox.com (which I generally think is a good site)
I've written about the "best viewed with" phenomenon here, with a comparative look (using Google) at how many people create sites that are "best viewed with Firefox" versus people who make sites that are "best viewed with Opera".
According to brianj (Opera employee) on the Opera forums:
"Opera will have two modes: fit-to-width mode (similar to what mobile users are already familiar with their mobile phones using the Opera Mobile browser). This mode will use Small Screen Rendering to fit the page across both screens. Alternatively, there is a DS mode which displays an overall page view on the lower screen (where you may use the touch screen to navigate around a sort of "mini map") and read the text on the top screen in full-sized view."
Don't know about small screen rendering? See here: http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/smallscreen/
Still not convinced? See what your website looks like on a small screen using the Opera Mini Simulator (which probably isn't exactly how it will look on the DS, but it's an approximation. The DS certainly has more screen real estate than my pathetic cell phone, anyway.)
Also, according to DS Advanced:
"The Opera software is currently slated to release in Japan during the month of June at the price of 3800 yen, roughly $30, and will include ATOK Kanji conversion software."
There is an increasing demand for cell phone applications, and Opera (being multi-platform) seems well-positioned to take advantage of that. Widgets, therefore, appear to be part of Opera's cross-platform strategy.
s p ):
Selected quotes from a recent eWeek article ( http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1920351,00.a
"Opera first began encouraging people to build widgets within its software late last year with the introduction of its Opera Mobile Platform, a system meant for developers creating wireless applications to run in the company's mobile device browser."
"Ford said that Opera is hoping to make the widgets capable of working across many different types of devices, from PCs to mobiles and even consumer electronics."
"Opera Mobile Platform, for instance, allows developers to build widgets that can work on wireless devices running completely different operating systems, which could help push development across other types of machines, Ford said."
(Thomas Ford is an Opera spokesman)
While we're on the topic of bonus links, here are some other useful resources for people who just downloaded Opera 9.0tp2:
Widgets user guide
Search engine customization tutorial
Content blocking tutorial
Setup info for tab thumbnails
(Regarding that last one, I am still convinced that tab thumbnails are kind of silly, and that Opera's tiling function is already much more useful. See here: The Problem with Tab Thumbnails)
As I wrote about here, Opera has had this type of functionality for a long time. Unlike foXpose, in Opera you can actually use (scrolling, following links) the tiled windows without remaximizing them.
That's interesting. The notions of "linkware" and "signware" are new to me as well.
Here's a quote from that site:
All the web sites which contains any adult-only (not for children under 18) contents or illegal/vionlent issues. If your web site contains any of those contents, it is not "link free".
I have to wonder...
Is this a recommended guideline, something mandated by Japanese ISPs, or a matter of Japanese law?
Also, it would appear from this description that listing a site as "not link free" is an indirect way of protecting minors online. By listing itself as "not link free", the site indicates that it may have content that might accidentally be linked to inappropriately.
Yet, "not link free" doesn't seem to be used that way a lot (or even most?) of the time. For example, why is the webpage for the 15th International Symposium on Plant Lipids not link free? It's not stuff I would normally consider harmful to minors.
Here's the (unlinked) url: http://www.nibb.ac.jp/~ispl15th/
Also, there are a lot of Japanese porn sites out there. Do they all have a notice saying they are "not link free". (If so, most of them don't show up on google)
Even just looking at "linkware" and "signware" policies, it seems as if Japanese website creators may have a slightly different attitude towards the protection of intellectual property than we (in America) do. For example, Japanese anime fan sites rarely have scanned images of copyrighted materials, whereas American fansites are chock full of them.
Or maybe it's just an issue of bandwidth being so expensive in Japan that websites only want to cater to very exclusive audiences?
A final note: I did find this interesting website with form letters pre-written in Japanese to ask Japanese website owners for linking permission.
Does this issue pertain to all the websites out there that are "not link free". I did a google search for "not link free", and came up with 465 hits. Maybe it's just my imagination, but a large number of those seem to be Japanese sites. Any idea why?