It seems that you are missing the point here. You say that just about every feature in Opera has an equivalent Firefox extension.
Fine.
But the thing is, I have to find that extension, and I have to install it. And different extensions have different authors with different goals. Things may not fit together very well.
As opposed to Opera, which is created with one goal, and everything is right there, integrated tightly in the main application. Everything works together in a way, towards a common goal. It just feels more polished.
Hunting down extensions just to mimic Opera's behavior in Firefox seems a waste of time to me, and extensions can't mimic the whole package anyway. So I went back to Opera.
Since I need Opera's features I'd rather use the real deal instead of trying to build my own Opera all the time.
Disclaimer: This is not trolling or flamebait. Firefox is an excellent basic browser, and I am sure the extension system works for a lot of people. It just doesn't do it for me. I don't see the point in spending time finding useful extensions when all these features are right there when I install Opera.
"My complaint had nothing to do with ads so much as with the crufty layout of the new interface."
The interface in 7.5 is actually a lot cleaner than 7.23, at least if you use Google ads. You have only one button toolbar, and the panels sit nicely to the left, avoiding confusion.
"While other Opera users may like having IRC, "Notes," and syndication in their sidebar, I was putting forward a way to get all that out of the user's face and putting the browser back at full front and center."
"View/Panels/Panel selector placement/Off", or right-click the panel selector? You can even click the left edge of the screen (see the tiny arrow?) to show/hide the panel selector.
It's easy to get just the browser too. Just disable M2 from the "programs and paths" prefs.
This is based Opera and the ads you can choose to see when using the free version.
But it's got nothing to do with spyware. These ads don't "spy" on anyone. The user knows damn well that the URL needs to be reported back to Google for it to work. The user is told up front!
And that, my friend, is not spying. It is not spyware.
"If you're like me, you're really trying to like Opera 7.50, not for what it is, but for what it once was: a light, zippy web browser which gave you excellent web-and-email functionality in a straightfoward, no-nonsense package."
This is a typical nostalgia run based on total nonsense.
Opera never was just a browser in the first place. Even Opera 3 had a newsreader! This "Opera is becoming another Netscape" screaming has been going on since some time around version 5 when the program became ad sponsored instead of limited to 30 days. Suddenly, everyone had an opinion, and obviously the new people who didn't know anything about Opera kept yelling about how "Opera should go back to its roots as a browser only application".
But it's crap. Opera never was just a browser. Anyone who speaks fondly of "the good old days when Opera was just a fast browser" obviously haven't been using Opera for very long, and they are showing some incredible ignorance.
So this kind of whining is not new, far from it. But it doesn't get any more clever of you to wish yourself back to the days when "Opera was just a fast browser", because those days never existed!
The security hole is already there. How do you prevent it by paying people for finding it? Microsoft paid money to catch the virus author because he was doing massive damage. Why? Not because the security hole wasn't found (it was), but because people don't patch their systems.
I'm not usually one to stand up for Microsoft, but come on! What is it with you people who compare Microsoft's reward for catching virus authors and Mozilla's security bounty?
Security holes are found in IE all the time. So what's the point in Microsoft wasting money by paying people to find what they'll be finding anyway?
I don't know about that. In the martial arts classes I go to most people are typical nerds. They look the part too, but you should see them move while fighting.
I don't know the full story, but looking at the page with all the screenshots on it, most of them are far apart, as in hours or days.
If this management guy's work was more paperwork than doing stuff on a computer, this pattern could be more of an indication that he took a quick round of Solitaire every now and then to take a short break. If he didn't, then the screenshots would have consequently shown screenshots 30 minutes apart, running Solitaire.
But as far as I could tell, the screenshots were often far apart in time, which means that he didn't use the computer much. Couple this with the fact that the program only took screenshots when there was activity, this management guy must have done a lot of stuff outside the computer.
So if you look at the screenshots without considering the time between each shot, it definitely looks suspicious. But if you look at the time and consider that maybe this guy's job didn't involve the computer at all, then the sysadmin who installed the spyware is suddenly in a bad light.
I'm not concluding with one thing or the other, though, since I don't have all the facts. That the manager misused the computer equipment for games seems clear, but I am not sure there is any proof that he didn't do any work.
Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I couldn't find any comments on it.
"I would consider jumping over to another ship if the people maintaining the ship that I was on knew that the screws were being loosened but did nothing about it."
Sounds like Microsoft and the known and still unpatched vulnerabilities. It's sad that security company which had a page with 30 or so unpatched and well known security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer let themselves be bribed to take the page down.
"Especially when those "screws" are in plain sight for everyone to see and exploit. Isn't that the whole benefit of having open source?"
You would have to ask them open-source advocates about that. I personally prefer Opera, a closed-source browser.
"I'm not saying IE is perfect (or any better), but atleast their source isn't available for everyone to go in and find problems to exploit."
This comment does not make sense. First you insinuate that open-source is supposed to be more secure because more people can look at the code. Now you say that it's less secure because people can look at the code.
But guessing either way is useless. The fact is that with open-source anyone can check the code. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. But it is also a fact that Firefox is still more secure than Internet Explorer.
And aren't most exploited vulnerabilities discovered by whitehats in the first place? So thinking that some blackhat would bother to waste his time reading through the Firefox source code to find security holes seems a bit far-fetched.
"With Mozilla and Firefox "mainstream" browsers now, real security experts are starting to look at them"
I don't get this defeatism. First off, real security experts have looked alternative browsers for years. Opera and Mozilla have been scrutinized from the bottom up. Why do you think vulnerabilities are reported in the first place? Because people have been looking for them for ages.
It is very true that as the browser is more widely used, more attacks will be designed for it, but here's the thing:
Firefox has a far better security record than MSIE despite the occasional vulnerability.
The same goes for Opera. Whitehats do discover vulnerabilities, and yes, it is important to fix them rapidly, before they can be exploited.
But I don't get people like you, who all but say that everyone should just give up and move back to IE because Firefox has vulnerabilities. Would you jump over to a sinking ship if you discovered a loose screw in your own boat? It sounds like you would.
Alternative browsers have fewer and less serious vulnerabilities, and they are not exploited as often. And if more people started using alternative browsers, and we got even more alternatives to use, then a security hole in one browser wouldn't be a disaster like vulnerabilities in IE today are.
We have to continue to evangelize for alternative browsers. Not only does it give users an actual choice and avoid lock-in if we get real competition. Security holes will have far lesser impact.
Just because it doesn't have blood and gore doesn't mean that it is only playable to kids. For real adults, what matters is gameplay. If it's a "cute" game but plays great and is fun, who cares? Only angst-bitten teens need blood and gore to convince themselves that they are grown up and cool.
As for Nintendo making a "costly mistake" by continuing in the handheld market as they have done until now... That must be why they completely own the entire handheld gaming market worldwide, right?
Criminal? Give me a break. He didn't sell the episode downloads. It was a fan site and the purpose was a service to fans of the series. And he's brought in plenty of $$$ to the copyright holders.
"The guy belongs in prison."
For mail fraud, yes, if that is true. Not for making low quality rips available for download.
You need to stop buying into the "intellectual property theft" nonsense and start thinking on your own. You shouldn't need huge companies to tell you what is right and wrong.
"There is no excuse for making pirated copies of that show available."
Of course there is. There are plenty of reasons and excuses. If you think anyone lost any money over those low-quality rips, they need to turn on their reality device.
Like many, my first reaction was "screw the MPAA and FBI", and "silly PATRIOT act apologists".
I still strongly disagree with the PATRIOT apologists, and I hate the MPAA, and see the terrible behavior FBI shows every now and then, but as I read the comments, interesting details were hidden here and there, such as Adam McGaughey being investigated for fraud a few years ago. Here's one post about an investigation for Federal mail order fraud:
"I am in the midst of legal procedures to weedout & prosecute this individual..***Adam McGaughey//Mac Sales (mac_sales@powermac.org)*** for violations to include Federal mail-order fraud..& punnished to the fullest extent of State & Federal laws."
Something tells me that we are not getting the full story here. Could it be that the real story behind this is mail fraud, and that the FBI has just added more to their own case?
Yeah, I know about the full episode downloads that were available, but come on - they haven't even been available for ages. But could it be that Adam is trying to raise funds for his court case.
As several people in this discussion have pointed out, I don't think we know the whole truth here. If he has really been defrauding people, what would prevent him from pulling such tricks again to raise funds from his site by misinforming his fans, to get more money to deal with the fraud charges?
Are you saying that he took away SG from the copyright holders so they could no longer sell or distribute it? Interesting. How does one go about doing this with digital media? I had the impression that making a copy of something didn't destroy the original. But hey, if he stole it, then it must have been removed from the copyright holder's possession somehow. Can't wait for you to explain to me how he did it.
Are you saying that he took away SG from them so they could no longer sell or distribute it? Interesting. How does one go about doing this with digital media? I had the impression that making a copy of something didn't destroy the original. But hey, if he stole it, then it must have been removed from the copyright holder's possession somehow. Can't wait for you to explain to me how he did it.
Oh, the facts are right here in front of you. US troops are kicking terrorist ass, and Iraq has a new government which needs help to get rid of these infidels.
Last I heard, the leech who registered google.no had lost the domain in a more recent court decision. The guy who owns it runs some shady mobile business, and the sunglasses thing was just a cover - he most likely wanted Google to pay him loads of money to get the domain.
When the guy lost he came up with some lame excuse about "googles" being the English name for glasses and that's what the domain was there fore. Apparently he doesn't realize that it's "goggles" that's the right word, but that word isn't even used about sunglasses in the first place.
His real site is smsfun.net or something like that.
You are a very angry man, and I guess there's nothing wrong with that, except you fail to see the facts and instead make up conspiracies and blow things out of proportions.
The US soldiers in Iraq are kicking terrorist ass as we speak.
You obviously can't take the success in Iraq. They're now easing back to give more and more control to the new Iraqi government. A few terrorists are of course trying to make things difficult by killing civilians, but that just goes to show that they are at war with the Iraqi people, and the Iraqis need help in getting rid of them.
The Iraqi people is not attacking the US troops. In fact, the terrorists who still cause problems attack civilians, police and people who generally try to help the Iraqis.
Oh dear. Anti-US are we? In case you didn't notice, the "rebels" in Iraq are busier murdering their own people than attacking the US troops. That's because they are chicken shit terrorists who know that the US army will crush them like a steam roller over a slimy snail.
Slashdot Mirror
Fine.
But the thing is, I have to find that extension, and I have to install it. And different extensions have different authors with different goals. Things may not fit together very well.
As opposed to Opera, which is created with one goal, and everything is right there, integrated tightly in the main application. Everything works together in a way, towards a common goal. It just feels more polished.
Hunting down extensions just to mimic Opera's behavior in Firefox seems a waste of time to me, and extensions can't mimic the whole package anyway. So I went back to Opera.
Since I need Opera's features I'd rather use the real deal instead of trying to build my own Opera all the time.
Disclaimer: This is not trolling or flamebait. Firefox is an excellent basic browser, and I am sure the extension system works for a lot of people. It just doesn't do it for me. I don't see the point in spending time finding useful extensions when all these features are right there when I install Opera.
It's easy to get just the browser too. Just disable M2 from the "programs and paths" prefs.
But it's got nothing to do with spyware. These ads don't "spy" on anyone. The user knows damn well that the URL needs to be reported back to Google for it to work. The user is told up front!
And that, my friend, is not spying. It is not spyware.
Opera never was just a browser in the first place. Even Opera 3 had a newsreader! This "Opera is becoming another Netscape" screaming has been going on since some time around version 5 when the program became ad sponsored instead of limited to 30 days. Suddenly, everyone had an opinion, and obviously the new people who didn't know anything about Opera kept yelling about how "Opera should go back to its roots as a browser only application".
But it's crap. Opera never was just a browser. Anyone who speaks fondly of "the good old days when Opera was just a fast browser" obviously haven't been using Opera for very long, and they are showing some incredible ignorance.
So this kind of whining is not new, far from it. But it doesn't get any more clever of you to wish yourself back to the days when "Opera was just a fast browser", because those days never existed!
I'm not usually one to stand up for Microsoft, but come on! What is it with you people who compare Microsoft's reward for catching virus authors and Mozilla's security bounty?
Security holes are found in IE all the time. So what's the point in Microsoft wasting money by paying people to find what they'll be finding anyway?
I don't know about that. In the martial arts classes I go to most people are typical nerds. They look the part too, but you should see them move while fighting.
If this management guy's work was more paperwork than doing stuff on a computer, this pattern could be more of an indication that he took a quick round of Solitaire every now and then to take a short break. If he didn't, then the screenshots would have consequently shown screenshots 30 minutes apart, running Solitaire.
But as far as I could tell, the screenshots were often far apart in time, which means that he didn't use the computer much. Couple this with the fact that the program only took screenshots when there was activity, this management guy must have done a lot of stuff outside the computer.
So if you look at the screenshots without considering the time between each shot, it definitely looks suspicious. But if you look at the time and consider that maybe this guy's job didn't involve the computer at all, then the sysadmin who installed the spyware is suddenly in a bad light.
I'm not concluding with one thing or the other, though, since I don't have all the facts. That the manager misused the computer equipment for games seems clear, but I am not sure there is any proof that he didn't do any work.
Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I couldn't find any comments on it.
But guessing either way is useless. The fact is that with open-source anyone can check the code. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. But it is also a fact that Firefox is still more secure than Internet Explorer.
And aren't most exploited vulnerabilities discovered by whitehats in the first place? So thinking that some blackhat would bother to waste his time reading through the Firefox source code to find security holes seems a bit far-fetched.
It is very true that as the browser is more widely used, more attacks will be designed for it, but here's the thing:
Firefox has a far better security record than MSIE despite the occasional vulnerability.
The same goes for Opera. Whitehats do discover vulnerabilities, and yes, it is important to fix them rapidly, before they can be exploited.
But I don't get people like you, who all but say that everyone should just give up and move back to IE because Firefox has vulnerabilities. Would you jump over to a sinking ship if you discovered a loose screw in your own boat? It sounds like you would.
Alternative browsers have fewer and less serious vulnerabilities, and they are not exploited as often. And if more people started using alternative browsers, and we got even more alternatives to use, then a security hole in one browser wouldn't be a disaster like vulnerabilities in IE today are.
We have to continue to evangelize for alternative browsers. Not only does it give users an actual choice and avoid lock-in if we get real competition. Security holes will have far lesser impact.
WHBT. Looks like BigChigger is a known troll already, too. Lame attempt though.
As for Nintendo making a "costly mistake" by continuing in the handheld market as they have done until now... That must be why they completely own the entire handheld gaming market worldwide, right?
You need to stop buying into the "intellectual property theft" nonsense and start thinking on your own. You shouldn't need huge companies to tell you what is right and wrong.
I still strongly disagree with the PATRIOT apologists, and I hate the MPAA, and see the terrible behavior FBI shows every now and then, but as I read the comments, interesting details were hidden here and there, such as Adam McGaughey being investigated for fraud a few years ago. Here's one post about an investigation for Federal mail order fraud:
Something tells me that we are not getting the full story here. Could it be that the real story behind this is mail fraud, and that the FBI has just added more to their own case?Yeah, I know about the full episode downloads that were available, but come on - they haven't even been available for ages. But could it be that Adam is trying to raise funds for his court case.
As several people in this discussion have pointed out, I don't think we know the whole truth here. If he has really been defrauding people, what would prevent him from pulling such tricks again to raise funds from his site by misinforming his fans, to get more money to deal with the fraud charges?
Civilians in Iraq are mainly killed by Muslim terrorists who can't handle seeing the country slipping away from them.
Oh, the facts are right here in front of you. US troops are kicking terrorist ass, and Iraq has a new government which needs help to get rid of these infidels.
When the guy lost he came up with some lame excuse about "googles" being the English name for glasses and that's what the domain was there fore. Apparently he doesn't realize that it's "goggles" that's the right word, but that word isn't even used about sunglasses in the first place.
His real site is smsfun.net or something like that.
The US soldiers in Iraq are kicking terrorist ass as we speak.
You obviously can't take the success in Iraq. They're now easing back to give more and more control to the new Iraqi government. A few terrorists are of course trying to make things difficult by killing civilians, but that just goes to show that they are at war with the Iraqi people, and the Iraqis need help in getting rid of them.
The Iraqi people is not attacking the US troops. In fact, the terrorists who still cause problems attack civilians, police and people who generally try to help the Iraqis.
Thanks for the nice trolling attempt though.
Read about this benchmark thing. NVIDIA has optimized for Doom 3.