http://www.osnews.com/story/10325/Can_Opera_survive_ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Sat, 25 May 2013 14:25:53 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? If you look closely at Opera 8's features, there is no doubt that more and more people are going to use it.

It is a mile away in front of other good browsers and Internet Suites (Maxthon, Mozilla, Firefox).

The problem is that not many people know about Opera. They are pioneers for many things (native SVG, voice, etc...)

For an animated SVG demo: http://www.opera.com/features/svg/

Here's a review of Opera 8 features: http://www.leyton.org/weblog/archives/2005/01/opera_8s_new_features...

And the whole list of features be prepared
http://www.opera.com/features/ Sun, 17 Apr 2005 21:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I really love Opera 8.0. Waiting for the release version to come out. In many ways it's the fastest browser overall I have used on both the Windows and OSX platform.

I hope Opera 8 causes many new people to try it out and love it. They have been around a long time now. Sun, 17 Apr 2005 22:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? OPERA was and still is a kick ass browser, (i still use it now and then) but there refusal to include an ad blocker is really pushing me towards firefox, as firefox's ADBLOCK plugin is brilliant and almost halfed my browsing bandwidth and internet use effectiveness.

COME ON OPERA WE NEED ADBLOCKER! Sun, 17 Apr 2005 22:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? opera is the *best* browser currently out.

@ Anonymous

just get an adserver host list and add it to your hosts file. can be done in windows or any *nix. will block out most of the adds. Sun, 17 Apr 2005 22:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I've been using the current beta of Opera 8 since it was released, it's lightning fast and problem free. Easily the best version of Opera and I'm sure that the full release will be even better.

Firefox may have the advantage of being free, but IMO Opera is well worth the money. I don't see any problems in Opera's future while they're still making such wonderful software. Sun, 17 Apr 2005 22:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? With the market already filled with free contenders, is there room for a pay product? In the long term, I just don't see how it stands up to the most excellent Firefox. People that would be inclined to try alternative browsers, the hardcore computer geek crowd, are often the people driven off by ad banners. Sun, 17 Apr 2005 22:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? > The problem is that not many people
> know about Opera. They are pioneers
> for many things (native SVG, voice,
> etc...)

1. Opera does NOT have a native SVG implementation. SVG-tiny is not SVG.

2. The problem is that many people prefer uncluttered interfaces. Opera needs A LOT of customisation for that.

3. Opera still has A LOT to do about its desktop integration. On my system, it does not even use my system fonts.

Come on, this is unacceptable. It is a real Qt app and yes, I installed the dynamically linked version, but it still does not use the fonts that were specified with /usr/bin/qtconfig. Firefox does use the GTK fonts although it is not a real GTK app!

=> No, thanks. I do not need a browser that has to be configured here and there in order to even look decent. It is similar on Windows. Mozilla folks learned that people do not accept "stylish" applications that do not integrate with the desktop at all like Seamonkey, so they created Firefox and made its appearence decent and consistent.

Opera must implement something similar, otherwise people will uninstall it immerdiately after looking at it for the first time, at least this is what I see regularly. Sorry to say, but Opera is simply not good enough for an app that is EUR 34. Yes, it consumes lees memory than any other browser, but I have enough memory and prefer nice apps.

The desktop is obviously not Opera's strength. Opera creates the best products for smartphones, mobile computers and similar devices. Opera should either concentrate on these or drastically improve its desktop products since there are better ones today! Sun, 17 Apr 2005 22:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? If people try Opera and start using it as if they were using Firefox or IE, they probably won't pay for it. The only difference will be speed and session saving.

If they discover and enjoy all "hidden" features like the wand, sessions, the excellent database-driven email client, the RSS reader, the chat client, the Usenet client and all that, they will find that the low fee is more than affordable. Sun, 17 Apr 2005 22:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? "2. The problem is that many people prefer uncluttered interfaces. Opera needs A LOT of customisation for that."

How is Opera cluttered? They've stripped a lot of the UI features from it's default UI and it now seems very clean and simple to me. Most people are happy with Internet Explorer, that's a lot more cluttered than Opera IMO. Sun, 17 Apr 2005 22:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? There are a number of ways to block ads with Opera...

As someone else said, use a hosts file... Or you can use Opera's built in web page blocker by editing the filter.ini file... Or you can use a custom CSS sheet that can block ads, flash, what have you... Or you could use something like Privoxy, a proxy to filter out ads... Just because there isn't a plugin (and there probably is, even if I haven't seen it) doesn't mean it can't be done both easily and effectively. Sun, 17 Apr 2005 22:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? > 1. Opera does NOT have a native SVG implementation. SVG-tiny is not SVG.

http://www.opera.com/features/svg/

> 2. The problem is that many people prefer uncluttered interfaces. Opera needs A LOT of customisation for that.

Opera has the most uncluttered and integrated interface around. This applies at least for Windows and Gnome.

> 3. Opera still has A LOT to do about its desktop integration. On my system, it does not even use my system fonts.

I don't know about KDE, but on Gnome, I just had to install Opera and all fonts appeared in the fonts section of the preferences. It does use my true type fonts and my webcore fonts.

> Sorry to say, but Opera is simply not good enough for an app that is EUR 34

I don't agree. Come on, $39 is what I pay every time I go to the supermarket!

Well it all depends on how much you use a browser. If you use it just a little bit once in a while, maybe it's not worth paying, but then there is the free version with a discrete top text-based banner ad. I use a browser all day long (from 8:00 to 1:00 am) everyday for my work, research, e-mail, etc...) - $39 a year doesn't make a dent in my budget Sun, 17 Apr 2005 22:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? The is a very simple and in fact the only way for Opera to survive: go open-source. Sun, 17 Apr 2005 23:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? No. Opera sells licenses to manufacturers of mobile devices. This is Opera's business, this is what Opera does very well and this is what Opera should continue to do. Sun, 17 Apr 2005 23:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Opera doesn't need adblock. We webmasters want our simple ads to be seen(not talking about popups or big banners).
Fortunately, there are already scripts out there that block ad-block or simply refuse to load the page for those who have ad-block. Sun, 17 Apr 2005 23:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? > The is a very simple and in fact the only way for Opera to survive: go open-source.

Are you kidding?
Going open-source would cut totally Opera Software's revenues and stop research and development. This is definately not a good idea. They need to keep their code and protect it from hackers/thieves.

It's like asking Microsoft to open Windows source code. There would start springing copies all around (pretty much like all the linux distros), and no one would invest in R & D to develop and improve their product.

I really hope they don't do it. This is anyway the decision most experts say not being wise at all. Rather, they need to advertise massively their Internet suite on major web sites, and there's no doubt people are going to pick it up. There's little to improve in their core product for now.

More info: http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=84307&highli...

And: http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=81448&highli... Sun, 17 Apr 2005 23:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Once again, SVG-tiny is not SVG. Opera does not support SVG. Opera supports SVG-tiny. SVG-tiny was designed for mobile devices and not for desktops. It was designed because flash is too complex for mobile devices.

On the desktop, we do not need SVG since we already have flash. SVG on the desktop is dead, nobody even cares about it, not even Adobe pushes it any longer. And before someone tells something else: Flash is an open platform, exactly as open as SVG.

Second point: Yes, Opera offers me to use my system fonts, but it does not use my default menu fonts for its own menus by default. Firefox does although it uses a custom toolkit. OpenOffice.org does although it uses a custom toolkit. Opera does not although it uses a standard toolkit. Why? Poor design? Sun, 17 Apr 2005 23:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Every time someone tries to say that Opera is a second rate browser it absolutly pisses me off. Their isn't a single original idea in Firefox. 95% of the existing extensions have been created to immulate native features found in Opera (Tabbed browsing, session saving, mousetures, ect.) Even the Google search bar first appeared in Opera. Opera was the first browser to actively campaign about speed and usability (to many keyboard short cuts to mention, simple user interface) If you think Opera's interface is cluttered, you must not have tried Opera 8 Beta 3, because I almost got a little upset after seeing how they've slimmed the menu down and created basically 5 (not 6,7,8,9, or 10) Preference tabs that control basically all of Operas native functionality.

As for the adds, sure i'd love it if they were gone from the free version, but the bar is so small, that in truth, I hardly ever notice it. In fact, Opera's more than worth the couple of dollars their asking. You can even get the student discount if you're that cheap. Don't really even verify that you're a full fledged student. If no one kept paying them, who would innovate and provide IE, Safari, and Firefox with a roadmap of what's actually usefull to users. Opera is in fact the only Browser worth paying for, because their only ones that actually produce something new with each release.

In short, every cool feature you've seen in Firefox, Safari, and Mozilla over the past 3 years, you shuold thank Opera for. Comparing Opera to IE is a joke, because IE is so far behind it's sad. Even Apple did a double take on their UI guidlines because Safari customers demanded the same Tabbed browsing fuctionality. Opera is hands down the most innovative browser created to date. The only reason Firefox is the FOSS darling is its Mozilla or better yet Netscape roots. If you want immitation and overblown security hype, Firefox is your girl, but if you want innovation and hands down the most open standards compliant browser, Opera's the man for the job. Sun, 17 Apr 2005 23:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Opera has been in the desktop browser business for 10 YEARS and is doing better than ever. Sun, 17 Apr 2005 23:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? No wysiwyg editor support.
Firefox/Mozilla has done there own implementation (what IE started) and it works ok in all supported OS-s.

I can't recommend to my clients as they updating their stores/blogs/portals/forums with wysiwyg interface.. Sun, 17 Apr 2005 23:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? They're both quite good. The adware free version of Opera is a non-starter for many people (including me) and a lot of advanced features will never be touched by the majority of users in the world. For them, Firefox is clearly the best choice.

Personally, I have mostly switched to Opera (full version), but it took a while to appreciate a lot of what it offers (it's implementation of RSS aggregation is the killer app for me), and I spend a lot of time customizing the look of it.

That said, I do use Firefox as well...some extensions have functionality that Opera doesn't have. Linky, Downloadthemall, Scrapbook, Web Developer, Bugmenot are some of the most useful. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 00:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? "Opera doesn't need adblock. We webmasters want our simple ads to be seen(not talking about popups or big banners).
Fortunately, there are already scripts out there that block ad-block or simply refuse to load the page for those who have ad-block."

Let them block whatever they want. If they do, they are not worth visiting. I hope more ppl use add blockers, so in time those websites dies. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 00:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? no, Flash is not a open format. go back to Macromedia web site and check your facts, please. there are very severe restrictions to its use. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 00:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? In short, every cool feature you've seen in Firefox, Safari, and Mozilla over the past 3 years, you shuold thank Opera for.

Let's not get carried away. I'm pretty sure FF's extension architecture and RSS reader came first. That said, Opera is definately the most innovative and feature packed browser. And well worth the money for those who use all of it. But I prefer a simpler browser, and FF does the job well for me. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 01:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Let them block whatever they want. If they do, they are not worth visiting. I hope more ppl use add blockers, so in time those websites dies.

... Along with most all the free content on the web. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 01:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I've been using opera quite a bit primarily because it seems to run faster under Debian than mozilla, and has an option to open all items in a bookmark folder that I like.

There are other features that I think would be really revolutionary. I'm intrigued by the interface design for its mail system, but unfortunately, I've had a lot of trouble getting it to play nice with my IMAP server. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 01:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? > Let them block whatever they want. If they do, they are not worth visiting. I hope more ppl use add blockers, so in time those websites dies.

Is this a joke?
If you remove all sites with ads from the web, what you have? Company corporate web sites Isn't that great? No content, no valuable information, no news, nothing. That would be great, I wouldn't even need Opera, I wouldn't use the Internet

You have what you pay for. You will hardly have valuable content for free. OSNews, C|Net, Slashdot, etc. are free, but then need ads to contribute to their high costs of maintainance: authors, analysts, webmasters, programmers, bandwidth, web hosting, etc... They need to live, they need to buy food and raise their kids. Do you work full time for free? Mon, 18 Apr 2005 02:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I switched from Firefox to Opera 8 recently. I was just tired of the bloat and memory leakage from Firefox, and the painfully slow development cycle. Opera has a cleaner design and has more features than any other browser I've encountered. If you're someone like me, who spends 8+ hours a day using the web, you should have the best browser. That is why I am using Opera. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 02:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? you remove all sites with ads from the web, what you have?

You'd have the web as it was in the beginning - FULL of valuable content and void of cyber squatters, banner bitches, and commercial scum. If you're first visition to the web was less than 8 years ago, well ... it was beautiful once ... Mon, 18 Apr 2005 02:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Apple is dooomed!

oh wait, they're alive and well

Opera is dooomed!

oh wait, ... Mon, 18 Apr 2005 02:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? For those of you wanting to kill ads in Opera, check this out:

http://www.monroeworld.com/operafilter/index.php

It's not adblock by any stretch of the imagination, but just by installing the above's default filter.ini without even running the program full time, that'll kill most of 'em right out of the gate.

As for Firefox, it contains one thing Opera lacks that keeps me using it - the 'nuke anything' extension. Opera REALLY needs this to complete its voice functionality. Ever try to hightlight a page for reading, only to have a table or something in your way right in the middle of the page? Mon, 18 Apr 2005 02:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? ... please reread the content of what I replied too..

I'll cut it out for you..

"Fortunately, there are already scripts out there that block ad-block or simply refuse to load the page for those who have ad-block."

I didn't mean any page that has a banner/ad. I meant the ones who block ppl who uses a adblocker/popup blocker..

I'm sorry to have replied from the start, this is clearly off topic, so this is my last post about this. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 02:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? With Firefox/Mozilla being around. What is Opera? Mon, 18 Apr 2005 02:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I am currently using Opera 8, Beta 3. It has some neat features, like the ability to force a page into the window width I select. Others comment about its speed. I will add the "rewind" feature. I typically run Opera without a menu, and with most of the various "bars" shut off. I leave my bookmarks on the left. Indeed, I run all my browsers this way.

Still, there are problems. Try viewing the Register in author mode. The fonts look awful. I can fix them by changing the fonts and backgrounds setting to the user mode selection, but that also changes the appearance of the site on other ways.

My main browser remains Firefox. If a generic Firefox were being compared to Opera, Opera would win. Firefox's better rendering is not quite enough to make up for Operas other advantages. I don't run a generic Firefox, though.

Had I typed this message in Firefox, I could resize the box I am typing in. I run a big hosts file and Privoxy, but Adblock in Firefox zaps more stuff and cleans the page up better. Opera has a wonderful quick preferences menu, but the Tabbrowser Extensions give me even more control. I will spell check this when I finish typing it in Opera, but I have added the same functionality to Firefox. Opera lets me change the user agent from Opera to Mozilla to IE. An extension to Firefox lets me add Links, Lynx, and various versions of browsers to the list (believe it or not, Netscape 4 is very handy). You get the picture.

I consider the money paid for Opera to be well spent, but Firefox has more than earned its buzz. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 03:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Adware!
No OSS!
No Gecko!
No Standard!

Why Opera?

In Fact more and more GNU/Linux Distributions are useing Firefox the Chance for Opera will be smaller and smaller.

@JMB: To say that we dont need adblock is so wrong...

Opera was behind MS, Mozilla and Apple and will be there in the next time. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 03:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? FireFox is free, small, simple, better.
why pay for opera if you already pay for IE? Mon, 18 Apr 2005 05:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I'm currently developing a website and I'm making sure that it looks good in Opera too. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 05:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Paying for a browser is silly. I'll pay for games. I'll pay for complex software that requires a combination of specialized knowledge of various fields of human endeavour.

I will certainly not pay for a college summer project. I will certainly not pay for the usability disaster that Opera is. Even free Firefox, gets it right in the usability department.

Things get worse because commercial/proprietary software vendors measure the worth/value of their software based on the increasing length of their feature list. Can anyone say bloat?

90% of the junk in Opera are supposed to be plugins. And for cryin out loud, can they at least higher a usability expert to fix the preferences interface? It took me a good 30 minutes to adjust the damn fonts in Opera. The fonts! Mon, 18 Apr 2005 05:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Just not so great on Linux.
Not their fault - but you cant get voice support and probably never will.
It looks weird also on the Linux Desktop. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 05:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Maybe it "pisses you off every time someone tries to say that Opera is a second rate browser", but it pisses me off every time someone tries to say that "innovation" is important. I don't care about who implemented a feature earlier, I only care about who implements it best.

Maybe "95% of the existing extensions have been created to immulate (do you mean 'imitate' or 'emulate' here?) native features found in Opera", and this is what I call a cluttered interface. You cannot add a single feature in Opera because it is not extensible, so all the features that only some people need are statically built in => cluttered interface.

And yes, there is not only a single "original idea" in Mozilla products, but hundreds of them. The most important one is XUL, which allows extensibility to the maximum extent => uncluttered interface since every user selects the features he wants to have on his own. Nobody else offers something comparable!

And no, I will definitely not "thank Opera for every cool feature I've seen in Firefox, Safari, and Mozilla", instead I thank Netscape for innovating XUL and opening up their code. And Opera is definitely not "the most innovative browser created to date" because it does not even respect the user's desktop preferences!

Finally Opera is nothing more than an average monolithic web browser. Mozilla and its descendants are more than web browsers, they are a platform and a technology on their own, built on XUL. You cannot compare a platform with a simple application. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 06:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? It seems the only real reason not to use Opera is because you might "not want to" or because you "use something else already". I can understand that. I know people who still won't use anything other than IE. Although most couldn't give an which browser they use.

I've been using Opera almost exclusively now for 6 years. There have nearly always been one or two features that I've been missing. I could still say the same for both IE and Firefox.

While the concept of plugins for a browser's core functionality (as opposed to for web content like java or flash) sounded a like a good idea. I'm somewhat dissapointed by the actual plugins themselves. I mostly use older machines these days and the plugins are slow, glitchy and sometimes have a feature bloat that rivals MS Word.

What each browser needs most (for me at least)

Opera
- WYSIWYG editor component (ala IE/Moz)

Firefox/Mozilla
- lower memory footprint
- smoother toolkit (the toolkit is simple and functional)
- faster more reliable tab handling.

Internet Explorer
- CSS2
- Tabs
- security overhaul

Safari/Webcore? (I don't use a Mac or Konq much sorry...)
- WYSIWYG (in development I believe)

All browsers need:
- better (preferably some standard & unified) plugin scheme for handling content and not just Flash and Java but also different image/audio/animation formats etc.
- CSS3 support (surrounded by frustrated designers here)
- Better and Advanced UI features for forms etc (not necessarily XForms but something)
- Better scripting support (pluggable with multiple languages would be nice)
- WYSIWYG editors that actually work with all features of webcontent including plugins.
- Flying pigs (backwards if possible!)
- Extra Zealotry features! Wage mock FPS browser war in an emersive 3D environment where you can "virtually" kill users of competing browsers, or pillage websites with browser specific features!!! Mon, 18 Apr 2005 06:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? > I'm currently developing a website and I'm making sure that it looks good in Opera too.

No need to, just follow the standards and it will look good.

What you need to think about though is to not use the fixes and kludges that you need to add to make it work in Netscape/MSIE. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 06:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? No need to, just follow the standards and it will look good.

Funny, I've got a website that says different:
http://www.webstandards.org/act/acid2/ Mon, 18 Apr 2005 06:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? guys. saying that mozilla is innovative is akin to calling microsoft innovative.

someone else coming up with the ideas, and then mozilla deciding to use them does NOT make them an innovator.

now, i have nothing wrong with that an organisation or person recognising innovative new ideas or new implementations of them at all; except when the organisation involved or its cheerleaders spout crap about this behaviour being innovation.

jeez... Mon, 18 Apr 2005 07:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? "And Opera is definitely not "the most innovative browser created to date" because it does not even respect the user's desktop preferences!"


Exactly what definition of "innovative" are you opperating under? Mon, 18 Apr 2005 07:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? "90% of the junk in Opera are supposed to be plugins."
no. plugins are crap. just wait for the spyware plugins...


opera is simply the best internet experience. period Mon, 18 Apr 2005 08:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? The WaSP Acid2 test is cute and the concept is all very good. But...

It uses Doctypes. Why does this even exist. Why would anyone ever encourage this.

It actually contains bad CSS which should be ignored. Nearly every webpage on the planet seems to contain bad (non-standard) CSS. Gecko has a decent collection of CSS extensions, it isn't just the usual baddies to blame here.

Data URLS are great, sort of. I wished that this idea existed years ago when I developed a basic webmail and a then a basic web editor. It would have been wonderful to embed images directly into the text in both these cases.

However it also means that the page was bloated and full of illegible garbage. It would have been simpler to just use PDF.

I note that above, one of the biggest complaints about Opera pertain to the lack of a decent adblocker. Well Data URLS are your nemesis. How can you block an image that will be downloaded with the text.

Should Data URLS be allowed to contain flash, PDF, css, script, java, activex, full other webpages complete with their own nested Data URLs.

The issue with the standards that people forget is that compliance is expensive. It takes time (and money) to build up the levels of support you are looking at.

Look at XForms. Supposedly a great idea, far surperior in almost every fashion to the ad Hoc web forms in current use. However the list of requirements is enormous.

Transparent PNGs are all nice and everything. But this hardly a browser thing. You might as well have put some flash into it as well. (No 64bit flash plugin) Mon, 18 Apr 2005 08:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I love Opera, and always have.
It´s the fastest browser (UI wise), it´s got good standards support by now, and it´s just complete (for me).

Opera gives me the most screen real estate (With the Breeze Simplified 4.14 Skin) (It has the best Skins btw).

Firefox has weird UI lockups, where FF is not responding because something is loading etc. I like FF DOM Inspector, and that´s something you can´t have without some plugin architecture. It doesn´t feel clean (no other way to describe it...) - it´s UI components use too much space (on windows), I can´t use CSS on all FORM elements (even though that is not standard, I want it).

Opera 7.54 was on a software CD in the magazine C´t, and you can get an upgrade to Opera 8 for 8 € (which is, imho, close to for free).

Besides, I don´t mind paying for good software (why not?), and Opera only has a tiny tiny price tag, especially considering that you get an all-OS license. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 08:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? You get what you pay for Mon, 18 Apr 2005 08:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Hey dude thanks!! It works great now I no longer have to see useless ads like those in OSnews! X-D Pwn3d & Own3d Mon, 18 Apr 2005 09:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? It uses Doctypes. Why does this even exist. Why would anyone ever encourage this.

Huh? Doctypes is used on XHTML to declare the W3C standard. Other doctypes are optional. What's your point? Mon, 18 Apr 2005 09:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Last time I tried opera (7.5 I think) you couldn't merge toolbars and the tabs refused to cycle in a useful order. I'll give the new 8 version a try though.

The reason I like Firefox so much is it's completely customisable and extendable. With Opera you seem to be dependent on what the devs can be bothered to implement. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 10:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I like Opera alot and use it often but it is not my primary browser on Linux for one reason only.

Mail integration with Thunderbird or other alternate mail clients is horrible.

I am not a fan of M2 and have had a great deal of trouble getting things to behave.

Having to manually configure body, subject, etc, is annoying Mon, 18 Apr 2005 15:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Using the hosts file to block ads is basically outdated: no wildcards, no blocking anything other than subdomains etc. A much better generic way is to use Proxy Auto Configuration - http://www.schooner.com/~loverso/no-ads/ . Basically runs addresses through a javascript checker that decides what proxy to use for each address. Addresses that serve ads (subdomains, folders, whatever) are accessed with a non-existent proxy (ie, not at all ). Very handy thing, for any modern browser.

Opera generally rules the javascript speed test at http://www.24fun.com/downloadcenter/benchjs/benchjs.html I managed to get my time down to 3.75 seconds on a 1.4 ghz processor.

The overall speed is great. If what I actually mean is perceived speed: that's fine by me! Mon, 18 Apr 2005 17:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? } Last time I tried opera (7.5 I think) you couldn't
} merge toolbars and the tabs refused to cycle in a
} useful order. I'll give the new 8 version a try though.

Eh? Opera has let you do everything humanly conceivable to toolbars since the earliest beta of version 7. Just right-click, hit customize, redistribute the buttons however you want, rearrange the toolbars however you want (I like having a vertical tab bar), and turn off whatever toolbars you don't want. Piece of cake.

Oh, and dragging is non-destructive in Opera. To remove a button, right-click on it and choose Remove from Toolbar. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 17:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Can you do this http://uberish.fastmail.fm/Clipboard01.jpg to free up an extra line of screen.

http://uberish.fastmail.fm/Clipboard01.jpg

(yes I am using an Opera skin in Firefox ) Mon, 18 Apr 2005 18:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? "Things get worse because commercial/proprietary software vendors measure the worth/value of their software based on the increasing length of their feature list. Can anyone say bloat?"

Opera has more many more features, yet it's faster, smaller and has a clean and usable UI. That's the opposite of bloat.

"It took me a good 30 minutes to adjust the damn fonts in Opera. The fonts!"

Click preferences, click advanced, click fonts. If that took you 'a good 30 minutes' then I feel sorry for you. Mon, 18 Apr 2005 19:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? "all the features that only some people need are statically built in => cluttered interface."

Nonsense. You make it sound like every feature in Opera is packed onto the toolbar and visible all the time. Most advanced features are hidden away by default, users who don't need them don't have to have them. Look at the default Opera UI; it's extremely uncluttered and it's easy to strip it down even more.

Have you even used Opera, or is this a knee jerk reaction to a competitor to your favourite browser? Mon, 18 Apr 2005 19:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Here you can find Menu Buttons that wil let you free up that extra line.

http://nontroppo.org/wiki/CustomButtons/ Mon, 18 Apr 2005 19:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Guppetto:
"In short, every cool feature you've seen in Firefox, Safari, and Mozilla over the past 3 years, you shuold thank Opera for. Comparing Opera to IE is a joke, because IE is so far behind it's sad....Opera is hands down the most innovative browser created to date."
Somebody please!...give this man a bear - he deserved one
Honestly, this piece of brilliant supere-duper soft is definitely worth 39$. And regarding OS - i hope OS community will some day be capable of coding such excellent, fast, clean, intuitive, versatile, uncluttered and ->consistent Mon, 18 Apr 2005 21:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments