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The Internet

Opera Turns 10, Gives Away Free Registrations 583

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-still-just-don't-get-it dept.
osvejda writes "Opera Software ASA is celebrating 10-year anniversary of its browser. As a surprise party favor they're giving away free registration codes (for as long as the party lasts). Also see photos from the party, listen to music by employees, play games and more."
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Opera Turns 10, Gives Away Free Registrations More

Opera Turns 10, Gives Away Free Registrations

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  • IE works fine for me. No viruses, no pop-ups, and it works great for everything I need it to do.

    • Re:Never had a reason to use Opera (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Welcome to Slashdot. Replace IE with Firefox and it would be modded +5 Insightful in 10 seconds. Nevermind that for most people, IE is virusfree and pop-up free...
    • shouldnt this be modded as funny?
    • Yeah, now add tabs, a customizable UI (if you want that...), a MDI, an undo feature for closing tabs and a download manager that can resume. Even if you don't need it, it's nice to have.

    • As usual... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MSFanBoi ( 695480 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:37AM (#13436447) Journal
      If you use Opera, FireFox or Mozilla you can do no wrong.
      Use IE, and you are a troll.
      Go figure.

      • Re:As usual... (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "Use IE, and you are a troll."

        No, no, no. You IE and you're an idiot! Even Windows bias sites tend to agree.

      • Re:As usual... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Typical clueless response (Troll me if you want - I know this is anti MS /.). IE works fine if you know how to protect yourself. As said so many damn times. You aren't 100% secure in FireFox, Mozilla, or whatever you use either. And never will be. Just because you do not know how to use IE right, doesn't mean that those who do, are trolls. You are a troll for being so damn bias.

    • Re:Never had a reason to use Opera (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bronz ( 429622 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:38AM (#13436466)
      Candles work great for me too, but I still like electric lights. Built-in mouse gestures, tabbed browsing, BitTorrent client, mail client, irc client, RSS reader, completely customizable interface, screen reader ... cross platform ... ability to (easily) shut off images, flash, animated gifs, cookies, doesn't take 4 minutes to clear its cache ... And its all of 3MBs.

      You might not know what you are missing.

    • Re:Never had a reason to use Opera (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:41AM (#13436497)
      IE works fine for me. No viruses, no pop-ups, and it works great for everything I need it to do.

      Apparently, you don't browse.
    • ... it rather *languishes* away,

      considering the - for modern users - nearly unusable interface
      (ex: "hey, why does rocker nav open a popup menu?? what? i have to actually *move* the mouse to the button and click, *just to go *back*???" "where are the tabs??" "where is the adblocker??"),

      the tons of bugs
      (ask a real web developer. i'm pretty sure he answers you that he wants to strangle everyone still forcing him to support this load of misdocumented inconsistent unreliable crap that IE calls an API ;),

      and the

  • Easy instructions (Score:3, Informative)

    by dividedsky319 ( 907852 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:22AM (#13436247)
    "For one day only, you can get an ad-free version of Opera. Simply e-mail registerme@opera.com to obtain a registration code. This offer is valid from 12 a.m. Tuesday, August 30 to 12 a.m. Wednesday, August 31 2005 (PDT)."

  • Kudos Opera and quickie registration link (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xmas2003 ( 739875 ) * on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:23AM (#13436256) Homepage
    Great idea Opera - I wonder if other companies would consider doing this - i.e. get free Windows Vista registration on Bill Gates 50th birthday? BTW, here's a direct link to the Free Registration Page [opera.com] and I see chat, photos, and some podcasting/MP3's are available ... but no live webcam feed of their party [opera.com] - I'm sure that would be more exciting that the concrete cam ... ;-) [komar.org]
    • is the day that, simultaneously, chickens will grow teeth, pigs learn to fly for extended periods of time and grannies compete in extreme skateboarding competitions while mainlining heroin.

      It's not happenin'

      • Re:the day MS gives software away for free (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Stanistani ( 808333 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:45AM (#13436546) Homepage Journal
        I received free copies (with keys) of Windows 98, Windows 2000 at various MS promotional events.

      • is the day that, simultaneously, chickens will grow teeth, pigs learn to fly for extended periods of time and grannies compete in extreme skateboarding competitions while mainlining heroin.

        Microsoft gives away free Windows licenses at our University here. They say they support education, but /me thinks it's to make sure every student knows how to work with Windows software, and all Software Engineering students know how to write Windows software...

        So, in the end, Microsoft does give away free licenses

      • Does this [wikipedia.org] count?

      • When Microsoft charges money for software or features, everybody bitches because they're a greedy monopoly. But when MS includes features for free, everybody bitches and sues them, because they're evil greedy monopolists trying to undercut their competition.

        The Eurocrats recently forced them to release a version with no media player on it, which everybody viewed as silly and ignored. But earlier, when they gave away IE for free, Netscape got the Feds to investigate them, because MS was greedily interfe

    • Re:Kudos Opera and quickie registration link (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      smart companies realise this just pisses off paying customers.

    • Now if Opera really wants some market share, they just need to find more things to celebrate for another 364 days with the same benefits... ;) </toungeincheek>

  • Registration Code (Score:3, Informative)

    by nemexi ( 786227 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:23AM (#13436260)
    Get your free registration code here [opera.com].

  • Codes are for (Score:4, Interesting)

    by byolinux ( 535260 ) * on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:23AM (#13436262) Journal
    Windows, GNU/Linux Intel, GNU/Linux PowerPC, GNU/Linux Sparc, FreeBSD, Solaris and Macintosh.

    Pretty good give away. Opera is a good third browser, after Firefox and Safari.
    • Dang. The only place I use Opera is on my OS/2 box.

    • Re:Codes are for (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dakisha ( 526733 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:39AM (#13436469)
      After firefox and safari? :)

      I use opera before I'll touch firefox. There is the odd website that prefers firefox, but its pretty rare.

      This is nothing more than the usual opera fan pouring his heart out about how wonderful the interface to opera is. I cant stand the tab implimentation in firefox, it's borked!

      Tabs in opera work with proper focusing. If you have 5 notepad windows open, click number 1, then 5, then close 5 - you expect number 1 to be below it. If windows were firefox then you'd be presented with number 4. Not to mention the bare minimum of shortcut keys in firefox.

      what can I say - I'm an opera fan, it does what I want it to, it does it quickly, it saves me time over the course of a day. And the email client rocks once you learn how to use it. I get ~300 emails a day that need my attention, and operas system of filters and views lets me manage it all with minimal hassle.

      I also have some 30,000 emails in opera and it still searches the whole lot in real time. If I had to complain, I'd only ask for one more feature.

      Nested tabs. Opera has a session manager ; when you close it, you can have it load excatly where you left off. All the tabs you had open are all waiting for you when you re-open the browser.

      While this does do away with the need for bookmarks - it does leave you with 20-30 tabs constantly open sometimes. If I could sort these into catagorys - my torrents/anime go into one nested set of tabs, my tech news into another - all those pages could hide in the space it takes for just one tab until I need them.

      I keep meaning to send this in as a feature request.

      Thats enough rambling on the joys of opera ; free key, now you've got no excuse :)

      • Re:Codes are for (Score:4, Insightful)

        by semifamous ( 231316 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:54AM (#13436641)
        Yes, but the fact that you can add all of those features (including that "Tab Groups" feature you wanted and more) to Firefox with Extensions is what makes Firefox so great. If you want a feature, just grab the extension. I like how much Firefox can be customized.

        Can I have Flashblock in Opera? How about something like the "NukeAnything" extension? Can I configure it to automatically open new tabs when I type an address in the address bar? I'm sure there's a way to do that. I just haven't found it yet. Can someone point me there? I'm going to give Opera a try since it's free, but so far, I can't figure out how to get things the way I have them in Firefox.

        • Re:Codes are for (Score:4, Informative)

          by nicomen ( 60560 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @01:37PM (#13437743) Homepage
          Opera has a lot of nifty "extensions" by using User Javascript. That means JavaScript snippets that are appended to web pages (this in addition to being able to have JavaScript in buttons and panels)

          The webpage http://userjs.org/ [userjs.org] has a lot of them listed.

          NukeExtension and Flashblock:

              http://userjs.org/scripts/general/enhancements/hid e-objects [userjs.org]

              http://userjs.org/scripts/general/enhancements/rem ove-transparent-flash [userjs.org]

          Open new tab when typing address:

              Type this in the addressbar:

              javascript:void window.open("http://cnn.com");

              Ok, a but long, but you can add a button that pops up a requester (and open the address in a new tab) in a very simple manner.

              You can also cut'n'paste the address and when middle clicking tell opera to open that url in a new tab.

      • Re:Codes are for (Score:4, Informative)

        by rsheridan6 ( 600425 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @12:45PM (#13437188)
        I prefer Firefox's interface, but Opera is undeniably faster. I use Firefox for normal browsing, but for long documents like manuals, I use Opera, which can search through several hundred KB worth of html without slowing down a bit (unlike Firefox on my machinge).

    • Re:Codes are for (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Y-Crate ( 540566 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:55AM (#13436648)
      "Pretty good give away. Opera is a good third browser, after Firefox and Safari."

      Let's not forget OmniWeb [omnigroup.com] which is OS X-only and exists as a wonderful showcase of efficient multithreaded Cocoa programming and a damn good browser. It's not free, but after giving it a test drive I can't imagine why I wouldn't pay for it if I had the cash around to do so at the moment. I like Safari...well, actually...I love Safari, but OmniWeb makes Safari look like a broken down Land Rover on a er...nevermind. While OmniWeb is the Concorde roaring overhead.

      Due to my small laptop screen, I have to say that if they added an option to display Tabs at the top of the screen (as opposed to the drawer they currently reside in), I would probably go sell crack on the street to pay for it now.

  • Happy Birthday Opera! (Score:5, Informative)

    by samj ( 115984 ) * <samj@samj.net> on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:25AM (#13436293) Homepage
    The form was already running slowly before Slashdot arrived so if it breaks (as it no doubt will), you can get a code by mail per http://www.download.com/Opera/3000-2356_4-10421507 .html?tag=excl [download.com]
    Note: For one day only, you can get an ad-free version of Opera. Simply e-mail registerme@opera.com to obtain a registration code. This offer is valid from 12 a.m. Tuesday, August 30 to 12 a.m. Wednesday, August 31 2005 (PDT).

  • The one thing keeping me from using Opera (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:26AM (#13436299) Homepage
    Zooming with the scroll wheel also zooms the images. I only want it to zoom text (like Firefox). Anyone know how to change this behavior?

  • About time (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DoddyUK ( 884783 )
    The very thing that's put me off Opera is the fact that you have to *pay* to get rid of adverts, especially considering that it's a web browser. I mean, why pay when you gan get a free alternative elsewhere? *cough* Firefox *cough* Still, happy birthday to them.
    • Really, the ads are very small and don't bother me. I did use the free registration to see what it looks like without the ads. I still don't think the ads are a big deal.

      This browser has come a long way since I first tried version 2.0 on Win95. That was clunky and I uninstalled it after a couple of days and went back to Netscape. I tried it again around 5.X and liked it a lot better. I stuck with it and now use it as my main browser on multiple platforms, but I also use Firefox, Konoqueror and Mozilla as

    • Re:About time (Score:4, Interesting)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:51AM (#13436606) Homepage Journal
      "I mean, why pay when you gan get a free alternative elsewhere?"

      Because the little Google text ads aren't very obtrusive and Opera's actually a really nice browser?

      Frankly, I'm glad Opera is ad supported. You're right, $40 for a browser these days is a hard sell. However, Opera's making money, in return they're making a good product, and they've been around for 10 years. Ad support != evil evil bad bad bad.
    • It's been a while since I used it, but as I recall it was *MUCH* lighter on resources than Firefox. Firefox is pretty darn bloated. Some folks will be glad to pay for a light fast alternative.

    • Re:About time (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bronz ( 429622 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:53AM (#13436625)

      Because when you look at a lot of the popular browser innovations, Opera has been a fundamental cornerstone. Tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, a built-in BitTorrent client. All happily working together with a blazingly fast browser. And it's cross-platform. Firefox is a great browser... #2 in my list... but I don't mind rewarding people for innovation. Be it a coprorate entity, shareware registration or a donation to an OSS project.

    • Re:About time (Score:4, Informative)

      by m50d ( 797211 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:54AM (#13436635) Homepage Journal
      I mean, why pay when you gan get a free alternative elsewhere?

      Because it's better, and better by enough to be worth the money.

    • Re:About time (Score:3, Insightful)

      by feargal ( 99776 )
      I'll bite. Why pay? Well, if you're one of the smelly's then obviously all software should be free.

      However if you want to know why some people feel it worthwhile to pay a company for their product, then I have two reasons:

      First, Opera has given me years of painless browsing on FreeBSD since back in the days when the only alternative was the hideously unstable Netscape 4. Gone were the days of "rm -f ~/.netscape/lock && netscape" and in were the days of saved sessions, mouse gestures, and tabbed brow

  • Hehe (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:37AM (#13436442) Journal
    I think I'm going to join their IRC party with Chatzilla. :-)
  • Rather, free registration codes as long as their server lasts. :)

    B

  • Quick (Score:5, Funny)

    by squoozer ( 730327 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:39AM (#13436471)

    I'm running out of ideas for fake names to sign up with.

  • Since the site's already slashdotted, here's the registration code: ...

    Oh wait. Dammit... :-)

  • how are they surviving (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Douglas Simmons ( 628988 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:43AM (#13436517) Homepage
    Taking the existing extensions and add-ons of both browsers into account (probably a similar list), why are there diehard fans of the opera browser? Unlike IE users, those running either Firefox or Opera, Opera users especially, are aware of the existance of Firefox, so what is keeping the relatively small portion of Opera users from switching to Firefox, and what's still drawing in new users into the Opera club? You'd think Opera's not being freeware (this article notwithstanding) would keep it out of my server logs entirely, but that's not the case.

    To rephrase, why ought I migrate to Opera?
    • Try it out. Opera has a different user experience that some people prefer. It also uses less memory. Like I said, try it for yourself and make your own decisions.

    • Re:how are they surviving (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gasaraki ( 262206 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:54AM (#13436643)
      Because I find Opera much more stable and reliable, much faster and just a lot easier to work with. To give a random example of something I consider really essential that Firefox does not have, where is the unified keybinding interface? Some (very few) keys you can change, sure, but at least 50% of them are hardcoded into the core files and basically impossible to edit meaningfully. To me this is just ridiculous.

    • To rephrase, why ought I migrate to Opera?

      Well, perhaps I can't answer for you but I can tell for me, my switch to Opera happened before Firefox was stable enough for everyday use.

      Consider this: the web browser is a tool - nothing more nothing less. Like most tools one gets what they pay for. $40 for a great tool (fast, stable, compatible, and extremely configurable) is cheap.

      Opera is to Internet Explorer what the BMW is to the Chrysler K car (for those old enough to remember those!).

    • In my case, I was using it before Firefox was available and I happen to like it. I have Firefox installed, but see no reason to go searching for all the plugins and options necessary to replicate the Opera experience.

      The killer features which got me hooked way back when were the MDI and gestures. Yes, I know you can do that on FF as well...

      As to what attracts new users to Opera over Firefox: I don't know. Personal choice maybe? Being recommended by a friend? Trying both out and (shock! horror!) actual

      • Re:how are they surviving (Score:5, Informative)

        by Pete ( 2228 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @12:27PM (#13436997)
        I find the mouse gestures on Opera are just so much better than those available (with an extension) on Firefox or Mozilla. It's like the difference between day and night.

        When I tried using mouse gestures on Firefox, they worked... just. But the "feel" wasn't responsive enough for it to be worth using. On Opera (at least on Windows - I haven't used Opera much on Linux) it was incredibly responsive and the overall mouse gesture experience was really really nice.

    • Re:how are they surviving (Score:5, Insightful)

      by taskforce ( 866056 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @12:02PM (#13436715) Homepage
      Your post makes out as if Mozilla is the Be All End All of browsers and that it's the final evolution of said program. Many people prefer Opera; it's an excellent browser in my opinion and feature for feature is more useful and reliable than Mozilla. (And I use both extensively.) Obviously I can see why paying $40 (The same cost as a night of pizza and coke with friends?) might put some people off, but I still would highly reccomend people try at least the ad-free version, or just snap up a registration code for free today. (Nobody is forcing you to use it.)

    • Opera users especially, are aware of the existance of Firefox, so what is keeping the relatively small portion of Opera users from switching to Firefox, and what's still drawing in new users into the Opera club?

      Well, I think it might actually be the fact that Opera is good at what it does. (Gasp!)

      (Why should Opera users particularly want to switch to Firefox anyway? Is there an offer of 72 virgin brides in Heaven after you die or something that makes it worthwhile?)

      Seriously, I'd say it's because O

    • Re:how are they surviving (Score:5, Informative)

      by slapout ( 93640 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @12:10PM (#13436805)

      There are quiet a few reasons I use Opera. Without needing extensions, I get all the following:


      • Tabbed browsing that works better than Firefox's. And I can put the tabs on the bottom where I like them.
      • Settings for each window can be controled individually. I can have one site open with graphics turned off and another site open with graphics on, at the same time.
      • Mouse Gestures.
      • Control-D. This does a "Paste and Go". Instead of taking two steps, pasting in a url and going to it only takes one.
      • Built in search bar that supports Google, Amazon, Ebay and others.
      • If it crashes, I have the option of opening the same sites I was at the next time I run it.
      • Can view a page in "user view". Good if a page is hard to read because of poorly choosen background colors.
      • And more! -- See 30 Days to Becoming an Opera7 Lover [tntluoma.com]

      • I'll add a couple:

        - Undo: Press ctrl-z if you accidentally close a tab you didn't want to close and it pops right back up.
        - Unconditional back/fwd. Opera never refreshes a page you go back to with the 'back' function. Have the connection time out when submitting some big form? Just click back and you have the form there just like you filled it out.
        - Can be used as one fullscreen window only. All links are opened as new tabs regardless of where they come from, making sure you never have to wonder what browse

    • Re:how are they surviving (Score:5, Funny)

      by cocotoni ( 594328 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @12:26PM (#13436978)
      Opera is simply the best porn browser ever.

      It blocks pop-ups.
      It doesn't get infected with ActiveX crap.
      It notifies you of phishing attempts.
      It can zoom the images.

      Best of all: one handed browsing - you have a page with a lot of image links, you click the first and then just press space to go to the next link. Also works with pages where the next link is marked with Next or with >. Quite handy when you have only one hand to spare.

  • 10 years of Opera (Score:3, Informative)

    by brajesh ( 847246 ) <brajesh DOT sachan AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:45AM (#13436541) Homepage

    The Opera community page also has a slide show about its history. There are some interesting snap shots featured. [opera.com]

    Also, Opera version History [markschenk.com] for the interested.

  • Quicky review (Score:5, Informative)

    by Fished ( 574624 ) <amphigory@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:45AM (#13436547)
    I have to admit that I had not tried Opera in years. However, I decided to go ahead and try it again since (a) it was free and (b) I've been more or less stuck with IE because of corporate websites that require Microsoft's JVM to work.

    Cutting straight to the chase, Opera DOES work with corporate websites that require Microsoft's JVM, and Firefox does not. That's the good news.

    Bad news: I think the speed claims may be overblown. I also find the interface a bit klunky. More substantively, the browser would be improved by having it automatically import IE bookmarks. Unfortunately, I had to manually import the bookmarks.

    Otherwise, looks pretty good.

    • Re:Quicky review (Score:3, Informative)

      by jp10558 ( 748604 )
      The default interface is a topic of lots of argument - if you look at the screenshot history, many (myself included) liked the Opera 5.x era default interface (minus the ad of course).

      OTOH, Opera's interface isn't difficult to customize either, I have 8.02 looking very similar to that O5 default interface.

      On the my.opera.com servers (assuming they aren't melting) there are one click (or two click if you want to separate out look and function) downloads to mimic IE or FF or Safari.

      You can also create your ow

  • Happy Birthday... (Score:5, Funny)

    by warmgun ( 669556 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @11:52AM (#13436616)
    We've crashed your server! Happy Birthday!
  • Oh this is like Geek Heaven. Free stuff! Will I ever use it? Who knows. Do I ever use all that free swag I get at trade shows? Not really. I do have my Snap.com slinky proudly displayed on the mantle however. I will admit I was too lazy to try to win a t-shirt. It's not "free" if I have to work for it.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Happy B-Day Opera! + Another Way To Get Opera Free (Score:4, Informative)

    by d3bruts1d ( 639027 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @12:02PM (#13436720)
    I've been using Opera for probably 4 years now, and couldn't be happier. IMO, Opera has been (and still is) well worth the price. Obviously I'm not alone as many other people also purchase Opera. :P

    Though, for those of you who run websites, blogs, or whatever there is another way for you to get Opera for free. And that is simply by sending 250 referrals to Opera [opera.com]. So if you miss out on the birthday party, you want to look into that.

    I look forward to Opera's 20th birthday and beyond!

  • Second half of the party chat (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @12:09PM (#13436785) Journal
    OK, here's what I believe is about the second half of the party chat on IRC:

    ROBOd asks: how you like the "all-new, brand-new and polished" Internet Explorer 7?
    Haakon: They have made some improvements in the UI, it took them 4 years or so. I was very disappointed that they didn't fix any rendering bugs. They have promised some fixes, but will not support Acid2 fully. That's a mistake.

    ROBOd asks: can you express your feelings about William Henry Gates the 3rd?
    Haakon: I've never met him. I had lunch with one of his men, Ballmer, though. I believe they are hardworking successful man that, unfortunately, not have accepted the responsiilities that comes with their size and power.

    Jazmo__ asks: So what is typical workday for you? Do you code or is it more like sending mails and speaking on phone?
    Haakon: I don't read or write Opera source code. I code in HTML, CSS and other web languages, but email takes most of my days. Sometimes meetings, although I try to cut back. Phone confereces are also common. I like lounging on a couch, bean bag or bed while working....
    Haakon: Where I'm most productive though, is in the shower. It'a great place for thinking.
    Haakon: I shower a lot.

    PowerUser asks: You all use emacs I assume?
    Haakon: Absolutely, I've been using gnu-emacs since 1987 and have found no reason to quit.

    eps asks: working in a company that actively tests compatibility of our software with firefox and opera (most of our programs are webbased now, activex/java/js horrid mixtures) and is interested in linux, what efforts are you making to support (I hate the idea too, but it would be handy for bussiness) activex webbased apps under windows (and possibly linux as we are moving to FOSS in as many areas as possible)
    Haakon: Active-X is a security threat and a windows-only solution. I don't think it would do us much good to support it, although I have sympathy with your position.

    Jakub81 asks: Did you (or: will you) implement support for CSS3 selectors in the new (Opera 9?) core?
    Haakon: I should know the answer to that one, I'm afraid the deatails are slipping me at the moment. CSS3 Selectors is one of the most mature CSS3 modules and I think we should support it.

    ROBOd asks: Will Opera ever have something like iCab browser which shows a crying smiley face when a page contains invalid code? That would let users know about which sites are better and would also give the devs an impulse to follow the standards.
    Haakon: Actually, I implemented that feature in the Arena browser (now historical) in 1994. I think it's great and have been suggesting it internally. However, there are thousands of good ideas, but only that many developers....

    Danimal82 asks: I am wondering, what do you think the world would be like without microsoft?
    Haakon: a better place, I believe. Although windows, word, powerpoint and other applications have made computers easier to use for many, I consider the PC -- as MS developed it in the 80/90s to be a dead end. Only the internet saved it, and we didn't need MS for that.

    Moderator: (To answer some questions about women at Opera: yes, we have women at Opera. Yes, some are coding ;))

    RedPing asks: freedom of choice in the mainline. Is that round now in the level of smart devices (smartphones, tablet pcs, handhelds, and so on)? Is this the new battlefield?
    Haakon: Yes, I think so
    Haakon: MS won the desktop, but the mobile market is much more open. I hope we can build it on standards -- so that we don't battle unnecessarily.

    Joshtek asks: What do you feel is special about software development?
    Haakon: It's so easy to get started -- all you need is a computer. In other areas -- math, physics, music -- you often need years of training to make a difference.
    Haakon: This is also why I'm against software patents -- it's so easy to have good ideas in this field.

    keny asks: What do you think of firefo

  • Oprah? (Score:5, Funny)

    by hotwatermusic ( 911310 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @12:20PM (#13436920)
    You get a browser! You get a browser! You get a browser!

  • Guilt (Score:4, Insightful)

    by adolfojp ( 730818 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @12:29PM (#13437017)
    I preach Opera like a Jehovah's Witness preaches... well... Jehovah.

    It is like firefox, with most of the extensions installed, without hoarding your memory, and completelly integrated. Oh, It also reads your mail. It is a 4MB download.

    Opera spoiled me because now I cannot use any browser that doesn't use Sessions. Its usability is superb, nothing comes close. Every single detail has been polished.

    I have always used the ads to support Opera. Specially since the ad sense ads that occupy the same screen real estate as a toolbar. Getting a free version makes me feel rather guilty actually.If only Microsoft made me feel that way :-)

    Adolfo

  • Useful sites for all the new Opera users (Score:5, Informative)

    by Taladar ( 717494 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @12:38PM (#13437114)
    When you finished /.ing opera.com or still need reasons why to use Opera you might want to have a look at the following sites:

    Opera Wiki [nontroppo.org]
    Opera Userjavascripts at userjs.org [userjs.org]
    30 Days to becoming an Opera8 Lover [tntluoma.com]

  • Still No NTLM Support (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ThatDamnMurphyGuy ( 109869 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @12:53PM (#13437240) Homepage
    Unfortunately for me and others, Opera still lacks one critical thing: NTLM authentication to MS Proxy/ISA servers. Firefox works. IE works. Yet Opera still manages to write of NTLM compatbility just because 'it's an ensecure protocol from MS'.

    I merrily downloaded and registered my free version only to find out it's absolutely worthless at work not only for web access, but the access developmental pages/servers that do ntlm/windows integrated security.

    I'll stick with Firefox thanks.

  • *Thinks back to the 1.44mb days* (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CCelebornn ( 829849 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @12:57PM (#13437295)
    I used to LOVE Opera. Was back when I was using Windows 95 I think; after installing IE4 (thus active desktop), the whole operating system became awefully unstable, but especially when using IE itself.

    I'd tried Netscape Navigator; but I never liked that... was slow, displayed things poorly and so just sat on my computer. It was a computer magazine actually that showed me Opera; with its claim of its install being able to fit on a single floppy! Wow, how did they manage that!

    So installed it, and loved it. On my paltry 32 megs of RAM, on an unstable Windows 95; Opera was fast, stable, and displayed websites how I liked them. Perfect! But then I got more memory, Windows 98 came out and was more stable; Opera started becoming bloated for my likeing (so many features I would never ever use yet sit there taking up UI space) and so I went back to IE. Netscape at this stage? A joke.

    And now of course I'm on Firefox; fast, customisable and easy to use, even managed to get my ex to use it. Its not without its faults, but its the best there is for now. One thing though; this free registration offer will have done what its set out to do; I will definitely give Opera another try

  • Opera Inc is actually a good company! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mritunjai ( 518932 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @02:19PM (#13438121) Homepage
    Opera inc are actually a nice bunch of folks:

    1. Unobstrusive ads (google text ads), commercial != bad, google makes money from ads and your pizza ain't free.

    2. These people are pioneers of key browser features. Tabbed browsing, standards support, integrated mail/news/RSS/IRC/BT client, mail labels (what Gmail did later), etc etc

    3. Opera folks are in staunch opposition to software patents. Inspite of fact that they did all those features waaay before anybody else, they haven't patented anything. Their CEO said in an statement that Opera is opposed to the concept of software patents.

    Folks, the product is worth the money. They are good people(TM) and that is reason enough these days to support them.

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