Opera Turns 10, Gives Away Free Registrations 583
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."
Never had a reason to use Opera (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Never had a reason to use Opera (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Never had a reason to use Opera (Score:3, Insightful)
get out from under the bridge much ?
Re:Never had a reason to use Opera (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Never had a reason to use Opera (Score:2, Informative)
As usual... (Score:5, Insightful)
Use IE, and you are a troll.
Go figure.
Re:As usual... (Score:2, Informative)
No, no, no. You IE and you're an idiot! Even Windows bias sites tend to agree.
Re:As usual... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Never had a reason to use Opera (Score:5, Insightful)
You might not know what you are missing.
Re:Never had a reason to use Opera (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently, you don't browse.
It not really "works"... (Score:2, Interesting)
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)
Re:Easy instructions (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Easy instructions (Score:4, Insightful)
What's the point? You only need one set, and the more you get the more you deprive others from getting a set too.
Re:Easy instructions (Score:5, Interesting)
Read RFC 2606. It explicitly reserves the
Re:Easy instructions (Score:3, Informative)
Kudos Opera and quickie registration link (Score:5, Interesting)
the day MS gives software away for free (Score:2, Funny)
It's not happenin'
Re:the day MS gives software away for free (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:the day MS gives software away for free (Score:5, Funny)
Re:the day MS gives software away for free (Score:2, Informative)
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
Re:the day MS gives software away for free (Score:3, Insightful)
Egg Tooth (Score:2)
Does this [wikipedia.org] count?
IE, Media Player were free and everyone bitched (Score:3, Insightful)
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:IE, Media Player were free and everyone bitched (Score:3, Insightful)
People who purchase Windows expect certain features in a modern OS, such as web browsing, video editing, photo manipulation, multimedia playback, etc.-- why is it wrong for Microsoft to include these features in an OS _they_ made and sold?
Re:IE, Media Player were free and everyone bitched (Score:4, Insightful)
People who purchase Windows expect certain features in a modern OS, such as web browsing, video editing, photo manipulation, multimedia playback, etc.-- why is it wrong for Microsoft to include these features in an OS _they_ made and sold?
First off, MS is a convicted monopolist; Apple is not. This means that Apple has a whole lot more flexibility in what software they can bundle -- since Apple doesn't own 19 of 20 desktops, nobody can claim that shipping OS X with iMovie is blocking out competitors (particularly since pro-quality video editing suites sell rather well on the Mac platform).
It isn't illegal to be a monopoly per se. If everyone in the market decides your product is the best, then more power to you. What is most certainly illegal, however, is using a dominant position in one market (such as, oh say operating systems) to leverage a dominant position in other markets (like, oh say media players and web browsers). Laws on this matter are clear, and MS has had more than a fair trial in both the US and EU and was convicted each time. Unfortunately, the punishment in the US amounted to MS being sent to bed without supper for a night a few years ago.
See, Microsoft isn't bothered with creating a superior media player or browser. They'd rather just subvert existing standards to run only on their software (eg (among many) .asf, .wmv, dhtml, etc, etc). This isn't illegal because MS makes the OS and WMP, but because MS uses their OS dominance to ensure that everyone uses WMP instead of any other media app, and that providers create content that is compatible with (and only with) WMP. It didn't work with html, and it's not going to work with media, but that doesn't mean that they won't try.
Second, of the things you mention, only web browsing and media playback come bundled with MS Windows. There is no included video editing and no included photo manipulation -- at least nothing capable of doing anything serious.
Anyone buying MS Windows and expecting to be able to edit photos and home videos out of the box is going to be sorely dissapointed. The fact that these come standard with other operating systems only proves the point that people who "expect certain features in a modern OS" would be better off with a truly modern OS like OS X or GNU/Linux
Re:Kudos Opera and quickie registration link (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Kudos Opera and quickie registration link (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Kudos Opera and quickie registration link (Score:3, Interesting)
Registration Code (Score:3, Informative)
Codes are for (Score:4, Interesting)
Pretty good give away. Opera is a good third browser, after Firefox and Safari.
Re:Codes are for (Score:2)
Re:Codes are for (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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)
The webpage http://userjs.org/ [userjs.org] has a lot of them listed.
NukeExtension and Flashblock:
http://userjs.org/scripts/general/enhancements/hi
http://userjs.org/scripts/general/enhancements/re
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:3, Funny)
Bam!
Re:Codes are for (Score:5, Informative)
There are more options than that. Notice also that none of these are required to filter anything, the function is already built into Opera. These things just make it more convenient, but you can set up your filters manually in your filter.ini-file.
It's not as convenient as the FFx-extensions though, but I see no ads in Opera now. In both browsers, once it's set up, it's set up anyway.
The interface is clunky in this one, but it's very logical and you can block anything (of course): OperaAdFilter [operaadfilter.com] (freeware). You can simply filter all *.swf files if you so desire, or all servers starting with "http://ad.*". Another option for open-source advocates is C++AdBlock [nontroppo.org] . If you want to know how the filtering works, there is a good explanation [schrode.net]of it. Lastly, notice that you can block IP-ranges as well.
All of these happen to be the first things in a simple Google search [google.com] .
I don't know if this was a troll, but so many people say this as "the only reason they don't switch", that it's just idiotic. From now on, anyone who mentions this again, will have their geek license removed , effective immediately!
Re:Codes are for (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nested tabs, already in Opera (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Codes are for (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Codes are for (Score:2, Interesting)
Happy Birthday Opera! (Score:5, Informative)
The one thing keeping me from using Opera (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The one thing keeping me from using Opera (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The one thing keeping me from using Opera (Score:2)
So not only does it get ugly, but on some of the bad sites out there that have [images][text][images] columns you can end up with a lot more image than you want.
Re:The one thing keeping me from using Opera (Score:3, Informative)
About time (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you looked at Opera?? (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
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.
Re:About time (Score:2)
Re:About time (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
Because it's better, and better by enough to be worth the money.
Re:About time (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:About time (Score:3, Insightful)
I sure as hell would, if I filled up my tank yesterday.
Hehe (Score:3, Funny)
slashdotting (Score:2)
B
Quick (Score:5, Funny)
I'm running out of ideas for fake names to sign up with.
Slashdotted Already (Score:2)
Oh wait. Dammit...
how are they surviving (Score:3, Interesting)
To rephrase, why ought I migrate to Opera?
Re:how are they surviving (Score:3, Informative)
Re:how are they surviving (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:how are they surviving (Score:2, Insightful)
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!).
Re:how are they surviving (Score:3, Informative)
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)
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)
Re:how are they surviving (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
There are quiet a few reasons I use Opera. Without needing extensions, I get all the following:
Re:how are they surviving (Score:3, Informative)
- 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)
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.
Re:how are they surviving (Score:3, Informative)
1) Makes the devs lazy, someone else will write an extension for that "must have" feature. Well, then I as a user have to find it, install it, maintain it, and hope the extension dev doesn't get bored with keeping it working with the new versions, or I lose that feature.
2) Allows toolbars like in IE - now my install of Acrobat can put Yahoo
10 years of Opera (Score:3, Informative)
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)
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)
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)
Geek Heaven (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Happy B-Day Opera! + Another Way To Get Opera Free (Score:4, Informative)
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)
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)
Guilt (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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.
That's great (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That's great (Score:3, Funny)
I guess maybe he was uninformed with regards to the troll dress code.
Re:That's great (Score:2, Informative)
There was a MAJOR uproar back then, b/c Cydoor was (even then) a known spyware company.
However, Opera 6 stopped using Cydoor, and now Opera 7.2+ prefer Google for ads.
Opera did not use Cydoor code (Score:5, Informative)
Jonny Axelsson, Opera Software
Re:Opera isn't free (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the features in question existed in Opera long before somebody made an extension for FF. In fact, there's quite a few FF extensions whose name or description refers to Opera.
My FF has 93 extensions, at least half of which are features that are standard in Opera. I won't bother to discuss startup and page load speeds.
Re:Opera isn't free (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll probably stick to FF, since I don't really like Opera's interface, but if bloat was an issue, I'd switch to Opera in a heartbeat.
Re:Opera isn't free (Score:2)
Except that it's not bloated.
Under Windows, Opera 8.02 is 3,757 KB and Firefox 1.0.6 weighs in at 4,713 KB.
So not only do you get a tonne of features in Opera that Firefox doesn't have by default - but it's actually smaller by over 950 KB.
If you want to complain about bloat, by all means, but you shouldn't be accusing Opera of it.
Re:Opera isn't free (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly why I don't use Opera... too bloated, but to each their own
Exactly why I don't use Firefox. It tried, really. But endlessly searching for extensions (and deleting the ones that sucked, lather, rinse, repeat) to give me the functionality I was used to was just too much hassle.
For example, Opera automatically tracks your browsing session so if your computer crashes (yes I run Windows) or you close Opera, it aut
Re:Weeeeeeee! (Score:3, Insightful)
Regards,
Steve
Re:Weeeeeeee! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Weeeeeeee! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Weeeeeeee! (Score:2)
Re:Weeeeeeee! (Score:2)
Re:Swim the World! (Score:5, Informative)
Alternative Browser (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Roboform (Score:3, Informative)
I'm really not sure why Roboform can't work with Opera - on the Opera forums, it seems to be a case of Roboform claiming Opera doesn't let them do X which is needed to make it work, and Opera claiming the same thing to Roboform.
Drop it in the wishlists of both companies, maybe with enough outcry it will get fixed.