A Talk With Opera CEO

With several new areas of expansion for Opera The Register took a few minutes to talk to Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner. The interview addresses several of the most recent news items on the Opera front including, the adoption to Nintendo's Wii console, several advocates switching to Firefox, and others. "We just try to focus on our side. We've always focused on a somewhat richer interface. We've had a lot of negative comments ourselves over the years; for example, when we introduced tabbed browsing a lot of people said it doesn't make sense. We've introduced things like zooming, mouse gestures and the like - and we find they find their way into other browsers; tabs found their way into IE7. We are being copied, but we would like to focus on features and giving users a good experience."

Translation: Theenking ooootseede-a zee Oopera bux

Interfeeoo Sume-a ooff Oopere's lung-term bets ere-a begeenning tu pey ooffff. Zee Nurvegeeun veb peeuneer hes infested in TF und mubeele-a fur yeers, und noo Neentendu's heet Veei cunsule-a hes poot Oopera intu mure-a thun ieeght meelliun leefing ruums. Um gesh dee bork, bork! Meeni hes mede-a zee veb useble-a oon meelliuns mure-a phunes. Um gesh dee bork, bork! Und zee must recent mejur releese-a ooff FureFux hes beee met veet pooshbeck oon its perffurmunce-a, usebeelity, und secooreety. Bork bork bork!

Thees veek ve-a cooght up veet Oopera fuoonder und CEO Jun fun Tetzchner tu deescooss thees, und sume-a ooff zee thurneeer chellenges feceeng zee cumpuny. Bork bork bork!

[rinkworks.com] [rinkworks.com]

Su ve-a sterted veet a beeggie-a - ves zee veb leefeeng Oopera beheend?

Isn't it joost getteeng herder tu keep up veet zee veb, ispeceeelly oon mubeele-a?

Sufftvere-a ingeeneers veell elveys feend veys tu meke-a a defeece-a seem sloo. I'm a sufftvere-a ingeeneer - I knoo I deed. Bork bork bork! Veet Oopera Meeni zeere-a ere-a sume-a theengs thet mey nut vurk, boot must theengs vurk fery qooeeckly. Bork bork bork! Ve-a deed feesooel cumpereesuns ooff Oopera Meeni in zee lebs, useeng zee seme-a vebseetes Stefe-a Jubs used et zee loonch ooff zee iPhune-a demunstreteeng hoo qooeeckly it roons oon GPRS egeeens zee iPhune-a oon Vee-Fee. Oon GPRS, Meeni is fester. Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp! Ve-a deed it fur foon. Bork bork bork!

Oopera Meeni is nut zee seme-a es zee brooser yuoo hefe-a oon iPhune-a, oor desktup Oopera - zeere-a ere-a theengs Oopera cun du thet Meeni cun't du, boot fur must generel uses Meeni dues zee jub.

Undroo Broon, a beeg fun ooff Oopera, vrute-a thet he-a chuse-a tu mufe-a tu FureFux [rinkworks.com] [rinkworks.com] (http://vvv.gooerdeeun.cu.uk/technulugy/2007/mer/2 2/medeea.cumment) becoose-a it ves mure-a cumpeteeble-a veet noo vebseetes, pertly ceeting Fleeckr cumpeteebility. Bork bork bork! Du yuoo feel yuoo're-a felleeng beheend?

Ve'fe-a elveys beee mufeeng in a spece-a vhere-a peuple-a cume-a up veet zeeur oovn idees ell zee teeme-a. Noo Netscepe-a 4 is oooot ooff zee merket, su cumpeteebility veet thet isn't su impurtunt; IE6 is fedeeng, vheele-a IE7 hes mure-a cumpeteebility - dues thet meun prublem hes gune-a? Es peuple-a meke-a mure-a und mure-a eppleeceshuns ve-a see-a mure-a und mure-a stunderds. Um gesh dee bork, bork! IE in perteecooler hes its oovn stooffff, boot thet's pert ooff zee reesun us, Epple-a, und Muzeella vurk oon soobmeetting noo stunderds tu zee V3C, und getteeng zeem edupted. Bork bork bork! Su ve're-a qooeete-a oopteemistic.

Oopera CEO Jun Fun Tetzchner

It's a cheeckee und igg seetooeshun, vheech meuns ve-a need tu get mure-a users. Um gesh dee bork, bork! Und ve-a ere-a. Ve-a hefe-a by fer zee must used mubeele-a veb brooser. Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp! Net Eppleeceshuns' soorfey is shooeeng Meeni es zee feefft must used brooser in zee vurld und in sume-a cuoontreees it's beeteeng Sefferee, und oozeers it's beeteeng Muzeella. Zee Neentendu Veei is elsu helpeeng und ve're-a vurkeeng oon noo ferseeun cumeeng oooot. Um de hur de hur de hur.

Ve're-a elsu spendeeng teeme-a veet zee serfeeces, veet Guugle-a und Yehuu! deescoossing cumpeteebility. Bork bork bork!

Tu be-a frunk, it's nut deefffficoolt fur zeem tu meke-a thees vurk. Zeere's oone-a gooy vhu feexed boogs in Guugle-a und he-a used a JefeScreept theeng fur Oopera vheech feexed Meps und Meeel. Ve-a ere-a elsu ecteefely dueeng vhet ve-a cun - chungeeng hoo Oopera identeeffies itselff is oofftee inuoogh tu feex

Re:Translation: Theenking ooootseede-a zee Oopera

You are probably not aware that after MS changed one of their sites to specifically break Opera, Opera released a "version" that turned that site into Swedish Chef talk. The GP was making reference to that. Probably could have made his point with only a few paragraphs, but it is humorous to those with the requisite background knowledge to understand the joke.

Re:Translation: Theenking ooootseede-a zee Oopera

Holy huge wall of unintelligible text. You must be a Perl coder.

Link to Page 1 of article

The above URL links to page 3 of the article. Here's the fist page http://www.theregister.com/2007/08/18/opera_ceo_in terview/ [theregister.com]

Firefox tabs

We've introduced things like [tabs] - and we find they find their way into other browsers; tabs found their way into IE7. We are being copied...

Translation: We did tabs, damnit! Not Firefox! I repeat: Firefox did not do tabs first! It was us!!

Re:Firefox tabs

"Not one item from the list looks like from outer space - all are concepts which any monkey can bring into a browser. "

Yea.. Sure they do.
Everything is easy once someone else does it.

Re:Firefox tabs

Everything is easy once someone else does it.

That's what I say about female college Freshmen.

LK

Re:Firefox tabs

I mean who the hell was actually willing to use an operating system with adware built into it (or spend 30 dollars)? Not trying to troll, just stating that Opera started off with a terrible strategy, and they are paying for it now in the desktop market.

I don't know if you've noticed, but Opera isn't going for a massive userbase on PCs. Unlike Firefox, they actually have to pay their developers. And unlike Internet Explorer, they don't have a huge operating system and office suite monopoly to subsidize browser development. Opera making a huge push for PC market share wouldn't make sense, and they'd go out of business.

Their cash cow is mobile and embedded browsers, and that's what they focus on. Fortunately for those of us who use the PC version of Opera, their code is portable enough to run on desktops also.

Making their desktop browser available for free probably had more to do with publicizing the Opera name than it did with competing with Firefox and IE.

Re:Firefox tabs

If he doesn't like the deal he's getting these days, perhaps he should start patenting stuff or quit the software business [...]

... which is right about the point where I stop using their browsers, I guess. I love Opera, and one of my major reasons for doing so is that it's a well-engineered product made by a company which has always been pretty good "corporate citizens". Yes, they have strange ideas about design and advertising, but they make good products, run a sustainable business, give me a very decent browser for free, support said browser at no extra cost, and are very good at coming up with interesting new features, which have a much better record than most other software I use as being completely "fleshed out". They're also "good geeks": they don't go nuts patenting things, are pretty okay with other companies reusing and building on their ideas, allow you to download early tech previews of their software for testing and feedback, and have their browser primed for the kind of people who like having a couple of dozen tabs open at any one time - i.e. the sort who are much too fond of Wikipedia for their own good. Also, that bit you quote doesn't sound (in context) like sour grapes: Jon is pointing out that one of Opera's biggest strengths is coming up with innovative features, including mouse gestures and tabs (innovative half a decade ago). Opera 9 has several new features such as Speed Dial and Thumbnail Preview, which made things easier for me within hours of installing, so I'd say they're still doing a great job on that front.

Speaking of which, I checked Wikipedia on the mouse gestures bit; Konqueror's doesn't say when it got mouse gestures, but the mouse gestures page says Opera has had them "since version 5.11 (April 2001)", when KDE was at version 2.1. So if you can figure out when Konqueror got mouse gestures, you'll have your answer. Anecdotally, I found what might be the original patch for Opera mouse gestures in Konqueror [kde.org], which would support Jon's idea of Opera as the originator.

Cheers!

Re:Firefox tabs

Tabs or no tabs but Opera had an MDI browser back in ~1994.

maybe it's a naming problem

In Russia, Ukraine and in Northern and East European countries we have between five per cent and 10 per cent, and some above 10 per cent share; Japan similar.

Trouble is, in America most people think that going to the opera is for losers. Maybe they should call it "Rock 'n Roll Browser" in the US.

Re:maybe it's a naming problem

I think a lot of the hatred for Opera stems from the fact that they messed up the cool naming scheme for major browsers. First you discover somewhere, then you explore it, then you conquer it, then you go there for fun. Navigator -> Explorer -> Konqueror -> Safari. I think it bodes well for the browser I'm developing right now, OverdevelopedHolidayResort.

Are they really making money off Opera?

I do not use Opera these days, but used it from 2000/2001. Those days, the Firefox browser, then called Phoenix or so really sucked! Question though...Are these Opera guys really making money off Opera? The Firefox folks are not doing badly with their product. How are Opera doing?

Re:Are they really making money off Opera?

They have multiple income streams. As noted in the interview, Opera, like Firefox, makes money from google and other search engines.

And, as the browser for the Wii and the DS, I'm sure that Nintendo is giving them a nice amount of money.

Can't use IE, Firefox, or Safari

Just a few days ago, I had the existing AT&T DSL service switched over to my name. Although I didn't need new equipment, AT&T said they needed to disconnect the service for four days, after which it would take an additional four days after registration under my name to reconnect the same service. Because they didn't send me any hardware, I never received an installation CD. (Not that I ever intended to defile my system with their awful installer.) When I called up AT&T tech support, the woman was relatively clueless--I pretty much walked myself through the process. But there was one hitch: Using either Firefox or Safari (IE was discontinued for the Mac), I could not register a new DSL username in their system. The hardware and network setup were working perfectly; something about AT&T's (aka Yahoo!/SBC) online registration system, however, required that I use IE. And as a long-time Apple user, I would switch to cable modem before I'd install "malware" on my machine. It then came to me to try Opera. I downloaded a copy on my PowerBook through a nearby free access point (I love that place--best danishes I've ever had). And it worked. Obviously, AT&T is to blame, but am I ever relieved that Opera came through for me. Granted, I've gone back to using Firefox, but just in case, I've kept Opera on my system.

I always enjoy interviews with Jon Von Tetzchner

I always enjoy interviews with Jon Von Tetzchner - he comes across as a very forthright, positive, motivated CEO - and he's pretty good natured [com.com] to boot. Contrast that with recent interviews with Linus, who's opinion on certain matters everyone respects but comes across a bit too sassy to make an enjoyable read, or major company CEOs, who sound more like company brochures than people.

I used to use Firefox over Opera because I could install Firefox with one command under Linux. Now that Opera is available in the same way, I find that I still choose Firefox, mostly because it's what I'm used to. I feel like Opera is just a tad too late to the party to really take off in a big way - had they made their product as easy to get and as visible as Firefox way back when (what with a website that auto-detects the correct package and provides a big easy-to-click button, prepackaged binaries for Linux, advertising, etc.) the bite marks in IE could be twice as big as they are now. Of course this doesn't mean that Opera has no chance - the world is plenty big enough for three or four major browsers - and they're certainly making a dent in the off-PC market.

Good luck to them, and the next time Firefox fails to download quite as promptly as I like maybe I'll give Opera another go! In the meantime, just keep getting interviews like this one out there and visible and Opera will keep growing.

Opera Supports BIG Pages better with less RAM

In my company we have a 'reports' web page that generates a list of items sold to whom, where, and when with in a given time frame (specified by the viewer). Needless to say the resulting page can be huge, literally ten of thousands of table rows long by dozens wide for even a short time span (a full year cannot be rendered on a typical workstation because of memory limitations, think 5+ million rows) - so far only Opera is capable of copying the data to the clip board for pasting into something like Access (god save me). IE and Firefox both choke (lock up and crash) on such a large select and copy when using a machine with less than 2GB of RAM.

I don't know what they do differently in Opera, but they do it right - and it's gotten them a number of new users in my company's administrative offices to boot.

But will it go Open Source?

Let me know when Opera goes Open Source, because, for the love of god, I can not upset Virtual Richard M. Stallman [wikipedia.org]. Who am I kidding, I probably still wouldn't use it if it were, I am just a Firefox groupie or something.

On supporting Opera

I personally use and like Opera because it comes with the stuff I always use to have to install otherwise with Firefox built-in. Things like interactive ad blocking, the download manager, locking tabs, and so on. It's a lot of nice features without bloating the browser, and still feels lighter than Firefox to me, with the base Opera files without the profile being around 5 MB here *after* install, excluding a user profile and localization files that come with some versions.

I'd have had a question for him...

Can we get a newer port of Opera to the Zaurus?

LK

The only thing stopping me from using Opera

The only problem I have with using Opera is that there is just no substitute for Adblock plus, something that allows me to subscribe to a list of blocked urls and html and have it do its thing in the background. If someone has found one please let me know.

Re:The only thing stopping me from using Opera

Try http://operawiki.info/OperaAdblock [operawiki.info]

Opera took some wrong decision

I believe that opera is not very popular now because of decisions they made in the past, some of which have not changed up to now. To be more specific when the need of a new browser rose since Internet Exploder stalled, there were two options available for the WinPC platform: Opera and Firefox. Back then Opera had features that Firefox never dreamed of and an amazing eyecandy interface. But it had the biggest minus one such thing could have. You had to pay for it or else you would surf having an annoying advertisement bar hovering all over the place.
The second wrong decision which in the beginning was not so important but as firefox started to improve seemed more and more visible was the combination of open source/extensibility. At the moment there are addons in firefox not so important for my browsing experience but useful nonetheless such as weatherfox. Not to talk about extensions which really improve one's browsing experience such as noscript.

At the end of the day one can conclude that Opera while pioneer in browsing platform lost the momentum to firefox when world's biggest internet market - WinPC - demanded something new. I hope for the sake of users that Opera will not do the same mistake, since we need Opera to be around with all the great features they keep inventing.
(My self i use Firefox over Opera for almost one reason. The ability to select piece of text, right click on it, select search with google and firefox opens a new tab for the search instead of the same)

Opera rocks.

It's truely the only cross platform browser there is.

I can have Opera on Windows, Opera on my Mobile, Opera on my Wii, Opera on my PS3.

As soon as they sort out having bookmarks shared between all of these, seamlessly, then it's a no brainer.

Tabbed Browsing

It really annoys me when people claim that Opera or Mozilla introduced tabbed browsing. I know /. will love to hear it, but AOL was the first that I've seen. Their GNN browser in the early 90's had tabbed browsing. It was even able to load multiple tabs at once on Windows 3.1, an OS w/o threads. I remember having a dozen or more tabs open at once, several of them loading simultaneously, on a machine with 4MB of ram.

Firefox user, in process of Opera switch

I currently run Firefox on my home PC, home Mac, home Mac-mini, and wife's computer.

Just last week I switched to Opera at work, after learning one of my, well respected, co-workers was using it for browsing. Ever year or so I'd done a "switch" for a day, but always went back to Firefox. I think this time the switch to Opera is going to stay.

Seems Opera is on par to all the features I've come to rely on in Firefox (tabs, mouse gestures, adblocking, tabbed download info), except that they are all baked into the browser instead of needing to be added in. The tight integration, shows in many subtle ways (e.g., where options are presented in the menus, etc...) that makes the overall product feel more polished. The smaller memory foot-print, faster (perceived?) UI response, and better standards compliance all make me feel more comfortable than the browser I've been advocating to friends the last 7+ years.

The lack of Open Source use to bug me, but not any more; I don't see myself ever becoming involved in the source code. I truely believe the money behind Opera is what has contributed to it being such a great product.

- Built in tabs (I don't care who was first, I care if there are tabs in the current version.)
- Built in tabbed download status
- Built in mouse gestures
- Built in ad-blocking
- Built in FULL full screen
- Built in "Speed Dial" feature (neat idea!)
- Better CSS2 compliance than Firefox or IE
- A solid bookmark manager
- Smaller (than Firefox) memory footprint

Another week of test driving this at work, and then my home computers are switching over too.

Security

The lower the marketshare, the lower the chance that your browser ist targeted by malware authors. Since Firefox is gaining at such a great speed I have started to advise Windows users to use Opera for security reasons. Other than for security neither Firefox, IE7, nor Opera make a difference for the casual PC user.

Personally I use Iceweasel, because it comes directly from my good ol' trusted repository, but I also have Opera installed and use it as a secondary browser for sites that don't work in Firefox. I also prefer the cookie management in Firefox to that in Opera. Opera used to be way ahead, but they stopped making progress on that front a long time ago. Though I realize that privacy is more of a myth now with special Flash and Java supercookies and the likes that never show up anywhere.

opera plug-in for firefox?

there's a Opera plug-in for Firefox? I might have to try that out. I love Opera--it's quite simply the best browser, but I hate that it's not open source and the fact that it uses Qt on linux. but I can't go to Firefox w/o installing approximately 15 plugins, and that's just not worth it.

Re:Facets.

Multi-angle websites?

Re:Speed

I've heard opera's javascript interpreter was supposed to be fast. So, I just did a quick, totally non scientific (only one run, other minor activity in the background, etc) of a the slickspeed [mootools.net] selector test, which tests various javascript libraries for their speed/accuracy. This was performed on Windows XP:

Opera (9.20/ build 8771)
246 : 3409 : 244 : 413 : 2518 : 329
Safari (3.0.3 / build 522.15.5)
322 : 1966 : 347 : 360 : 2488 : 519
Firefox (2.0.0.6) -- two times, second was with firebug enabled
397 : 10833 : 409 : 2569 : 14535 : 1100
423 : 14059 : 429 : 5188 : 14426 : 3352
ie (6.029)
4695 : 8536 : 3393 : 2379 : 17856 : 1890

Smaller numbers are faster, so opera is faster (in this test) than firefox. The toolkits, btw, are prototype, iQuery, mootools, ext, cssQuery, and dojoQuery).

Re:Speed

it might be because opera needs qt libraries.

I dunno... i use Opera 9.23 with QT compiled statically (on Linux using XFCE) and it runs quite snappier than Firefox, specially on startup/shutdown.

I'm starting to sound like a broken record on this subject, i know :) But, AFAIK, Opera is today the most useable browser out there. I like Firefox a lot, but Opera is still far superior, specially when it comes to user interfase, speed, and memory footprint.

Re:Speed

From my experience using the two, Opera refreshes sooner so you can see the top part of the page sooner, but loads the page slightly slower. Firefox refreshes later so you don't see the page until later, but loads the page slightly faster. The "illusion" is that Opera is faster. The vast majority of the time, the important information is located at or near the top part of the page. The fact that Opera loads the bottom part of the page slower is rendered irrelevent because of that. I'd rather be able to see the top part of the page faster.

Then again, it's down to individual use. For me, Opera is faster because of my surfing habits. For others, Firefox may be preferable.

Re:Speed

See Preferences -> Advanced -> Redraw after to have it be more/less aggressive at page (re)drawing.

I can't remember or immediately find the equivilent setting in Firefox.

Re:huh?

Firefox corrected some of the kitchensinkisms of Mozilla.

And then, as soon as Mozilla Suite was discontinued, it promptly replicated the whole kitchen sink mentality, somehow adding everything that's *not* useful in a stand alone browser (e.g., profles) and leaving things out that are (e.g., a reasonably useful download manager).

Re:Speed

http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html [howtocreate.co.uk]

FFS

From the top of the linked page (to which you don't offer any text, only a straight URL):

A polite request
Please stop posting this article on sites like Slashdot, Digg, newspapers, etc. It is old news. This article is around 2 years old now (although it has been kept up to date), and has been retired - posting it simply shows how long it took you to find it. It has already been posted on Slashdot enough times, Digg more than enough times, similar sites more times than I can count, as well as newspaper sites all around the world, and far more blogs than I will ever be able to read.

I thank you for your attention, and I am very happy that you found this article interesting or useful enough to read. However, it really does not need you to post it yet again - all you will do is eat my bandwidth, and I ask you not to do that.

Re:Speed

If you have a fast processor with lots of RAM this is true. But firefox starts hideously slow on an older system and is a memory hog. It all probably depends on your system configuration.

Re:I know its monday when...

Harpo productions. No really, look it up!

Re:Speed

He seems to think that Opera is fast. My experience has been that although Opera renders more accurately than Firefox (1.5.0.2), Opera is a lot slower.

If only it mattered how fast Firefox is. Since when you open few more tabs in it, it'll instantly become ultra slow or hang mid-action while waiting for who-knows-what, while no other browser (safari, ie, opera) does this.

As a heavy Firefox/Opera user I can tell you, the overall experience in Firefox is sluggish at best.

Re:Opera the greatest

There are two reasons I use firefox:

1. Firefox is much more customizable. Opera hangs on me. I am using opensuse 10.2 with both opera and firefox pre-installed. And Opera hangs on me for almost everypage with very heavy javascripts (read AJAX). Pretty common these days, huh.

2. Barely plausible, but I don't have ALSA installed. Instead, I listen from OSS, which Opera does not support while Firefox does (out of the box)

That's pretty much it.

Re:shift-g shift-i

Or ctrl-h.

Re:Opera Mini vs. Opera Mobile

Yes, too bad they ported Opera mobile to the Nintendo DS and not the mini version...

Re:Opera the greatest

Opera is closed source software. "Seriously, why people choose Linux or BSD is beyond me." That's enough of a reason for many people.

Speaking of Firefox extensions, I don't use any of them, so there goes another point about installation time and effort.

Re:Respectfully disagree

Your calling Opera cluttered makes me doubt you've ever used it. Mine has a menubar, tab bar and address bar, none of which has any buttons on it. You don't even need the menu, with the sidebar and gestures. So, try using something before trolling.

On Opera speed, memory residency, + security

SOME "FYI" ON SPEED, MEMORY OCCUPANCY, & SECURITY (for Opera, vs. the other 2 major players in IE, & FIREFOX):

"He seems to think that Opera is fast." - by ChrisMaple (607946) on Sunday August 19, @11:16PM (#20289859)

So do others, as evidenced here (the most comprehensive & even-handed/fair comparison of browser speed online that I have found, to date):

BROWSER SPEED COMPARISONS ON MANY TASKS & MULTIPLE OPERATING SYSTEM PLATFORMS:

http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html [howtocreate.co.uk]

(Especially on the MOST USED OS PLATFORM ON THE PC, Windows, but also, overall!)

----

"My experience has been that although Opera renders more accurately than Firefox (1.5.0.2)" - by ChrisMaple (607946) on Sunday August 19, @11:16PM (#20289859)

It passed the "ACID2" test, & iirc, before ANY other did... but, don't quote me on THAT account (before any other browser):

http://it.slashdot.org/it/06/03/12/1416222.shtml [slashdot.org]

AND, just 2 days ago, I loaded Opera 9.23.8808, FireFox 2.0.0.6, & IE7 fully hotfix patched as of last "Microsoft Patch Tuesday", & the memory usage was in this order:

- Per Taskmanager processes tab, prior to minimizing the window (which causes unused application features to page back to the backing .exe file on disk, summoned only when needed, & Opera won that one, too)

IE7 (least, with GOOGLE toolbar) memory usage = 19,048k

Opera (next least - & no widgets installed) = 18,272k

FireFox (most - & no addons installed) = 31,172k

Read 'em & weep, or test yourself - your numbers SHOULD be the same, unless you opened a lot of tabs in them, OR extended your say, FireFox with .xpi addons, &/or IE with addons & toolbars from 3rd parties that is... which probably will make YOUR readings worse/higher imo on a guess.

----

"Opera is a lot slower." - by ChrisMaple (607946) on Sunday August 19, @11:16PM (#20289859)

Says you... others say differently, per the url & test above, as well as the security data below (as far as that is concerned, & today online? IT IS A DEFINITE CONCERN!) plus, if you are a FireFox fan? Perhaps you ought to look @ this page:

FIREFOX MYTHS:

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/FirefoxMyt hs.html [comcast.net]

AND, yes folks:

Opera had tabbed browsing before IE, or FireFox/Mozilla AND YES, it can be extended with addons, if you look up "Opera Widgets"...

PLUS, Opera 9.23.8080 final biuld IS FREE + FULLY FEATURE LADEN, more than any other browser imo, without addons thrown in (as is, outta the box/stock oem model)

APK

P.S.=> Opera also shows LESS security vulnerabilities than the other 2 of the "big 3" & their most current builds/models/versions:

Opera security advisories @ SECUNIA (0% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/product/10615/?task=advisories [secunia.com]

FireFox security advisories @ SECUNIA (43% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/product/12434/ [secunia.com]

IE 7 security advisories @ SECUNIA (56% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/product/12366/ [secunia.com]

apk

Re:Several advocates switching to Firefox...?

And think, all he needed to do to capture the same excitement Firefox has is give us the source.

Re:huh?

Are you saying that Opera runs on BeOS?

The parent post is clearly comparing Opera to BeOS (not sure in what terms -- design, perhaps? technically impressive, but not wildly popular?), but as it happens, you can actually find an old version of Opera for BeOS [opera.com].

don't click on that link

Someone used my computer and didn't bother logging my out before posting their (mildly clever) troll/nsfw post. (it's a picture of an erection he found on wikipedia)

Re:Opera Has Always Been Cutting Edge & Awsome

Nah, Opera started ages ago as a research project in Norwegian telecoms company Telenor for an interface to CD-ROMs. No Gecko or Mozilla there.

Re:Opera the greatest

Firefox has adblock and subscription lists. Firefox has FoxyProxy, which allows proxy switching by URL pattern. Using TOR has never been easier. Firefox has leetkey, which makes decoding all those ROT13 and 1337speak posts easy. Firefox has SimpleDelicious, which integrates Del.Icio.Us bookmarks nicely. Firefox has InfoRSS, an rss reader far superior to anything in Opera. Firefox has NoScript. Firefox has better tools for web developers (ViewSource Chart, ColourZilla, etc, etc.) Opera uses less memory. Opera has a messier UI (You have to keep the toolbar, you can't put everything on the same line as the File/Edit... toolbar. In Firefox I have 1 bar for all tools and the tab bar. Firefox has extensions. Opera has widgets. Extensions are far, far more useful. When Opera can use extension-like functionality, maybe I'll use it for something more than keeping a few static pages open for days at a time (lower memory usage.)