"The attitude of Opera zealots"... Have you seen Slashdot lately? What do you think about the attitude of Firefox zealots? Firefox fanboys aren't hated all over the web for no reason at all. The Firefox community has a bad reputation, and for good reason.
"I just think the CEO of the company came off rather poorly in this article. And apparently so does most of/."
Yeah, because the open-source crowd at Slashdot isn't biased... No matter what Opera does it "comes off poorly" on Slashdot! On the other hand, the Opera guy stuck with facts, and he is right. Just because you don't like what he has to say doesn't mean that he's wrong.
And as for the UI... Opera 8 has a superior UI compared to Firefox. It's simple, easy to use, yet does loads more. It's just more polished. Better.
Firefox zealots have been attacking Opera for ages. Heck, MoFo has been attacking Opera!
"way to disguise your browser by default then bitch when you don't get ratings other browsers are getting."
Quit trolling. He is simply pointing out the fact that stats are wrong for many reasons, one of them being that Opera identifies as IE by default. It is not "whining", it is pointing out a simple fact.
"Seriously mate, if you're jealous, and think mozilla's model allows them to have it better, then move open source and get some funding. It's competition, that's how it works."
It doesn't work that way. Opera spends far too much money on technology to rely on rich sugar daddies.
Opera employs several people that work in W3C, they invent new stuff all the time (all those things Minimo bragged about for mobiles? Opera did that years ago, as the very first browser to do so). Open-sourcing Opera would mean one thing: Fire all the good people and be left with nothing. And the W3C people employed by Opera would go back to doing W3C work for free again.
"If you're faking IE then you're really pushing it."
Not at all. The simple fact is that more sites work when Opera identifies as IE.
"Why won't these fucktards who think their commercial browser is getting a bad wrap just take a clue from Netscape and go away? No one cares."
Because if Opera goes away there's no one to continue innovating. Look at the features Firefox users are bragging about... Most of them were invented by Opera.
"You have hard-working people coding and developing for FREE"
Clue: Mozilla pays people to work for the organization. It actually pays people to work on Firefox. Those money come as donations from companies like IBM, Sun, Nokia, etc.
"Go develop something innovative and QUIT blaming!"
Funny that. Most of the features Mozilla brags about in Firefox were invented by Opera, or added to Opera long before Mozilla stole it.
"I think the "who actually uses it" argument is a good one."
Millions apparently. They had four million downloads in a few days when 8.0 was released.
"Opera is envious of how Firefox became the darling of the internet community and threads like this prove that they still don't understand why (hint: clean, crisp interface and a lot of word of mouth)"
Yeah, good job posting a link to a thread posted long before Opera 8.0 was released... Have you actually tried Opera 8.0? It has fewer menus than Firefox by default!
"It's odd that the CEO of a for-profit company whines that they don't have a not-for-profit "sugar-daddy" like MoFo. Who funds MoFo? Isn't it a not-for-profit company (I'm not sure if AOL still does any funding there)?"
It's not whining. It's pointing out the fact that Mozilla gets funding from huge corporations like Nokia, Sun, Google, IBM, and so on. It's just a simple fact, and he's explaining how Opera needs to actually sell products to make money to hire devs. Mozilla has hired staff as well, you know, but those rely on donations from large companies.
"It's also odd that they are whining about setting the user string agent to IE's when they are doing it to themselves."
Sigh. It's not "whining", it's explaining what's going on.
"If Nokia wanted to put a tiny Opera on their phones, they'd have to pay Opera Inc. a fee for each unit they produce. On the other hand, if they work with an Apple or a Mozilla Foundation to develop their own open-source microbrowser, they don't have to pay a cent in licensing costs per unit"
No, but they'll have to pay someone to work on the browser. Just using Opera instead could be cheaper, as developing a decent mobile browser from a desktop browser... Well, it is probably harder than it sounds! Isn't KHTML known as a memory hog?
Don't count on Opera being out of the race just yet... If they can deliver something better, that's what people will use.
This isn't necessarily bad news for Opera. It might not affect them at all. Remember, Nokia first started supporting Mozilla, then they started working on their own browser, and now they are working on yet another browser. In addition to these, they use browsers from companies like the Japanese giant Access.
Nokia is just making sure there's lots to choose from.
However, no one has come close to Opera yet. You can't just throw a bunch of programmers on a project and expect them to catch up with ten years of browser expertise...
And the WebCore based browser is for Series 60 too, which apparently... sucks.
"Some of the tatics detailed in the article require a spyware (google toolbar?)."
I wish people would get their facts straight. Since the Google Toolbar clearly explains to you what happens, and you know that it sends the URL to Google, it is not spyware.
"This is a blow for the Opera for Mobile product, it seems to me."
Not necessarily. It could indicate that Nokia's quest for a decent alternative to Opera has been a failure, and this is yet another desperate attempt (which will probably fail too - KHTML is apparently a bitch to embed, and then they have to emulate Opera's Small Screen Rendering?!). Or it could be that they are just keeping all alternatives available, including Opera (with whom they recently renewed their contract). In either case, Opera comes out on top.
"Not only has Opera been available for Series 60 phones for ages, as other commenters have pointed out, it really sucks."
Well, it's not like anything else is any good. Maybe it's just S60 that sucks? Anyway, my phone with Opera shows pages just fine. No side scrolling either, actually. What's so bad about Opera?
"Opera used to be great, but it's way behind the curve nowadays."
Compared to what, exactly? If Opera "used to be great", then how come it's actually getting better? (Smaller, faster, more stable.)
Yeah, a CD is cheaper than a DVD. But then again, a DVD can store several times the amount of data. DVDs are probably cheaper if you count how much you pay for each MB.
"However, Goodger isn't a paid employee of the Mozilla Foundation. He is basically a highly involved community member."
Like it or not, but he calls himself "lead Firefox engineer", and his job at Google is working on Firefox.
There's no talking one's way out of this. He should get his feet back on the ground and stop bashing other browsers. He did well, and Firefox is a success, but he needs more PR training. When the whole world knows that you are the lead Firefox engineer that's what the media will report. He's accountable for his own actions and words, just like everyone else.
He should focus on talking up Firefox instead of talking down others. Maybe his blog post was blown (slightly) out of proportions, but maybe it's a lesson to learn. My guess is that he'll be a bit more careful in the future to avoid this kind of attention.
I'm not sure exactly how to explain this... But he accomplished "proving" to the Firefox fans reading his blog that "Firefox is still the best, so continue spreading the word. Don't accept cheap ripoffs", sort of. Heck, on his personal blog, he has this annoying message to people not using Gecko. What's this all about? I thought we were supposed to get a choice between browsers! (Even more interesting is the way Google, Ben's employer, always supports IE and Firefox, but seem to ignore Safari and Opera, at least in the first version of new services.)
Now, I don't want to be too nasty about this, but I have noticed that Asa From the Mozilla Foundation seems to be "preachingto thechoir about how Firefox is leading the way and that others are just following, and always implying that you shouldn't accept anything less, and Firefox always leads the way, etc.
I wish some of the Mozilla people would stop trash talking other browsers, and focus on their own browser instead. You can talk about how excellent your product is without putting the rest down.
The Inq article is a bit over the top in one way, but there are some good points, and this kind of attitude is incredibly damaging. I hope various Mozilla representatives will be more careful in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
And as for the UI... Opera 8 has a superior UI compared to Firefox. It's simple, easy to use, yet does loads more. It's just more polished. Better.
Firefox zealots have been attacking Opera for ages. Heck, MoFo has been attacking Opera!
Opera has a cluttered UI? Man, at least try the latest version before spreading FUD. Opera 8 has fewer menus than Firefox by default!
No, he's saying that stats are unreliable, and that certain facts mean that Firefox's usage share is probably inflated compared to Opera.
Interesting that you should mention people that are whining... Maybe you should take a look at your precious Mozilla's behavior some time?
Opera employs several people that work in W3C, they invent new stuff all the time (all those things Minimo bragged about for mobiles? Opera did that years ago, as the very first browser to do so). Open-sourcing Opera would mean one thing: Fire all the good people and be left with nothing. And the W3C people employed by Opera would go back to doing W3C work for free again.
Not at all. The simple fact is that more sites work when Opera identifies as IE.What incident. That Opera pointed out the facts? Yeah, I heard that was a hard one for Firefox zealots to accept ;)
Opera identifes as IE by default because it makes more sites work.
Don't count on Opera being out of the race just yet... If they can deliver something better, that's what people will use.
When the site only uses Flash it'll be a problem. But Opera's Small Screen Rendering handles most HTML pages just fine.
Nokia is just making sure there's lots to choose from.
However, no one has come close to Opera yet. You can't just throw a bunch of programmers on a project and expect them to catch up with ten years of browser expertise...
And the WebCore based browser is for Series 60 too, which apparently... sucks.
Compared to what, exactly? If Opera "used to be great", then how come it's actually getting better? (Smaller, faster, more stable.)
Your comment doesn't make sense.
I'm all for it! I would pay for TIE Fighter if it was released again with upgraded technology. And I rarely buy games.
There's no talking one's way out of this. He should get his feet back on the ground and stop bashing other browsers. He did well, and Firefox is a success, but he needs more PR training. When the whole world knows that you are the lead Firefox engineer that's what the media will report. He's accountable for his own actions and words, just like everyone else.
He should focus on talking up Firefox instead of talking down others. Maybe his blog post was blown (slightly) out of proportions, but maybe it's a lesson to learn. My guess is that he'll be a bit more careful in the future to avoid this kind of attention.
Now, I don't want to be too nasty about this, but I have noticed that Asa From the Mozilla Foundation seems to be "preaching to the choir about how Firefox is leading the way and that others are just following, and always implying that you shouldn't accept anything less, and Firefox always leads the way, etc.
I wish some of the Mozilla people would stop trash talking other browsers, and focus on their own browser instead. You can talk about how excellent your product is without putting the rest down.
The Inq article is a bit over the top in one way, but there are some good points, and this kind of attitude is incredibly damaging. I hope various Mozilla representatives will be more careful in the future.