Mozilla has already done a lot to clean up the user interface of its successful web browser, but it would seem they're not yet done. As someone who finds the current interface a little... Chaotic and distracting, I'm quite happy with the changes they're currently proposing. They basically pointed at Chrome and said "pretty much that".
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2005-06-29
What?? Goodness of your heart??? This isn't the Thom Holwerda I'm used to... (just kidding) 
That thought crossed my mind, hence the "I apologize if I'm the stupid one" part. But one of my fatal flaws is a hefty amount of cynicism and a bullshitometer that stays cranked to 11. And I tend to be extra cranky when I'm at work at 3:30am, and that's nobody's fault but my own.
Edited 2011-08-02 07:53 UTC
Member since:2006-07-14
I don't know he looks Scandinavian in his profile pic. Opera started in Norway and was a hit in the Nordic countries due to the different language versions.
Heck, I'm a US citizen and I was using Opera in mid 1997. The lab computers were stuck with Netscape 2 ( Netscape 4 was already out), and I didn't have admin privileges to install anything. I could install opera ( opera 2.x? don't remember) to a 1.44 mb floppy and take it from computer to computer. It was lightening fast compared to Netscape (2,3, or eventually 4) on those computers.
Member since:2005-06-29
Yeah, I realize looking back how much of an ass I made of myself there. I think I'm going to stop posting from work, where I'm always bitter and tired. Not an excuse by the way.
I had forgotten that Opera used to fit on a floppy! That was one of those things that piqued my interest when I first started using it.
Member since:2008-02-13
Member since:2005-06-29
Yeah I was being a jerk, and I'm sorry about that. One of the reasons I don't have as many "friends" on here as some is that I tend to speak first and think later. Add that to my cynical nature, and I end up making a fool of myself.
Either way, you were using it before I was, as I found out about it near the end of the "fit on a floppy" days. I remember actually having to hunt down an older version so I could use it like that.
I wish I could say I still love Opera, but it just doesn't have that magic it had back in the '90s. As I've said before though, the mobile version kicks major butt! I put it on our new (well, new to us) Windows Mobile-based barcode scanners at the part time job, and it runs crazy-fast. We use them for quick product lookups, and hopefully soon for full inventory management. That's my new pet project there.
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight.""And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
Member since:
2005-06-29
Really? Since 1996 you say? I'm sorry but it sounds an awful lot like you peeked at the Wikipedia article, saw the year, and ran with it to look impressive.
For one thing, Opera may have been released in the last three weeks of 1996, but from what I remember (and I first heard of it in late 1998) it was about as popular then as the Midori browser is today, i.e. far less than 1% usage. In those days it was Netscape vs Internet Explorer all the way. I can't imagine you having used it since 1996 unless you were on the dev team or a beta tester. If you were I apologize for my rude assumptions, but cynic that I am, I highly doubt it.
For another thing, Opera's interface has changed so much in the past decade and a half that it really is an entirely different browser from its early days. That tends to be the case with pretty much all of the current browsers save Chrome, which in its short life has had more "under the hood" changes than anything. If you really have stuck with Opera since day one, I certainly applaud you. I found it to be a curiosity when I first discovered it, mildly useful when I revisited it in 2000-2001, and more or less abhorrent in the years since. I will say that its mobile versions are very nicely done though.
So, please forgive my inherent skepticism, but I think you are making that up to sound smart, and it's not working dude.