Opera Free as in Beer 937
nekura writes "Just last month, Opera was celebrating their 10 year anniversary by giving away free registration codes; now they've trumped that by offering Opera for free. Quoth their site, 'Opera has removed the banners, found within our browser, and the licensing fee. Opera's growth, due to tremendous worldwide customer support, has made todays milestone an achievable goal. Premium support is available.' Anyone who was on the verge of switching before now has virtually no reason not to."
Torrents (Score:5, Informative)
save the servers
Didn't work well for me. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Torrents (Score:1, Informative)
You didn't notice that the link is to the torrents hosted on Opera's site?
Re:My reasons for not switching. (Score:5, Informative)
Just FYI.
Re:Free is good... (Score:3, Informative)
You still get premium support if you have registered. Some people value that much more than removal of 40 pixels of ads
Some info on their new revenue model (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My reasons for not switching. (Score:5, Informative)
AdBlock Plus [sitesled.com]
BugMeNot [roachfiend.com]
CustomizeGoogle [customizegoogle.com]
DictionarySearch [mozdev.org]
Farkit [fark.com]
Gmail Notifier [nexgenmedia.net]
Nuke Anything [mielczarek.org]
Plain Text Links [mielczarek.org]
Switch Proxy Tool [mozilla.org]
Greasemonkey [mozdev.org]
Re:Free is good... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:2, Informative)
Opera is not as modificapable as FF, but it's also set up to be ok for the most users.
On the over hand, if you're craveful you'll most likely prefer FF. E.g. I love that FF comes without Flash pre-installed. What do I want those comercials for? =)
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:5, Informative)
These are the main reasons I can think of, besides the features that are probably common to Opera and Firefox, such as being very fast (I didn't use FF long enough to tell if it was as fast as Opera), having community-built themes, etc.
Basically, it comes "out of the box" ready to go and requires much, much, much less dicking around with to get it Just The Way I Like. This is really important to actual users, believe it or not.
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:5, Informative)
Now imagine being able to disable any page's design so that you can improve readability. Also imagine being able to store a number of pages in sessions instead of individual bookmarks. Imagine a button that stores the links of the pages that you have just closed in case that you want to open them again. Imagine true page zooming, a RSS reader, irc chat, and a gmail like mail client in less than 4 MB.
Whenever I use anything else I feel as if I am not getting the whole internet experience.
Cheers,
Adolfo
Re:No reason? I think not. (Score:3, Informative)
What you really mean is, "I would like to get someone else to change thier code and they didn't want to!"
The whole point in this Free Software stuff is, if you think this is a bad thing, you're free to make a competing version. If enough people have trouble like what you're describing, they will join forces and either your fork will work out, or you'll be able to convince Firefox to change thier minds.
Thier policies toward code changes have nothing to do with thier license agreement.
Looks splendid so far... (Score:3, Informative)
Currently I'm posting from a works machine where you have to go through a proxy server to get to the internet. We also access a number of local intranet seites plus our own local "development" intranet (which consists of a single crappy old box)
Now out of IE, Firefox and Opera, Opera is the only browser which will allow me to browse the internet, the intranet and our local intranet.
All three browsers have identical proxy settings but both Firefox and IE won't browse to "http://ourserver" - despite there being an entry for "ourserver" in my hosts file and despite their proxy server settings specifying "ourserver" on the "no proxy for these addresses" list.
So top marks to Opera.
P.S. The only reason I didn't post this from Opera is because I've forgotten my password (which Firefox has kindly cached for me
Reason not to switch (Score:3, Informative)
A certain amount of Opera's UI functionality doesn't conform to OS X (or sensible) standards. A single-click in the address field, for instance, selects the entire string. No other text manipulation field or application acts like this. It's not as though saving me those extra two clicks to select the entire string trumps everyone having to learn a new modality (and having to devote extra thought to our UI's).
Re:My reasons for not switching. (Score:3, Informative)
* You can customize searches, google Opera Search ini editor.
* BugMeNot, Nuke Anything and alike are available as favelets, which you can drag as buttons on toolbar.
* Greasemonkey is built-in, known as UserJS and Opera software maintains scripts that fix many lame websites (IEisms, NN4-era menus, etc).
* Plain Text Links = doubleclick, choose "go to url".
Plus you may find some unique features that will keep you from using Firefox
Re:No reason? I think not. (Score:5, Informative)
Software is free in either of these ways. Internet Explorer is free to download so is free as in cost (Free as in Beer). Linux is free to copy and modify, so it's free in the sense of freedom (Free as in speech).
It also has certain positive connotations that many free software advocates like. Free speech is regarded as a good thing. Associating free software with free speech gives it a positive image.
Hope this helps.
Re:The Beginning Of The End (Score:2, Informative)
Re:My reasons for not switching. (Score:5, Informative)
http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2005/09/opera-and-
http://userjs.org/ [userjs.org]
What were you saying again?...
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:4, Informative)
built-in email client
built-in bit torrent client
With a total size at around 5 MB, by the way.
And also a smaller memory footprint it seems from some quick testing.
From IE to FF to IE to Opera (Score:2, Informative)
Opera is the best browser out there today. Use if for a week and you'll be hooked.
I used IE, then went to FF early on because of the performance and other good stuff. Problem is, it's bloatware and after a few releases, it was more problematice than IE. And as far as "extensions", those were hit and miss, often leading to erratic behavior.
So back to IE.
But then I tried Opera. (I had tried it a few years back but wasn't smitten). Wow. A lot faster, tighter, and better performing.
Moreover, it gets into "IE only" sites that Firefox can't.
Opera is a great browser - give it a shot and you will be surprised.
Re:One question: (Score:2, Informative)
It just works... fast. (Score:2, Informative)
You get all useful functionality out of the box, all tightly integrated and working smoothly. No problems with incompatibilities, upgrades, etc.
Opera is pretty fast.
No extension system doesn't mean no extensibility. You can add functionality using UserJS, Opera's scriptable buttons, favelets, panels, user css and ini tweaks.
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:5, Informative)
Opera does a lot more than most people realize.
Re:Good (Score:2, Informative)
I recall downloading Mosaic and Netscape for free, both in 1994, before Microsoft even knew there was an internet.
Yes, they were technically free only for educational use, but still free to download.
As an Opera user (Score:1, Informative)
I just wanted to point out a couple things that bug me a little.
(1) The latest version 8.02 crashes... A LOT. I reverted back to 7.54 and have had no trouble.
(2) With regards to the use of either version, I didn't get certain popup ads with the "ad supported" version of Opera, but once I entered the reg code, I started getting some popups that I didn't normally get.
I wonder if Opera is going the way of Netscape. Everyone remembers that Netscape 4.77 was the last, best version.
Re:Good (Score:3, Informative)
Opera vs FF (Score:0, Informative)
Yet, I'm bored of always reading the same thing in the FF vs Opera "war": FF is better than Opera because of the extensions. I do not agree:
- Useful Firefox extensions are already included in Opera (a lot of FF extensions are created by Opera users frustrated because they lack Opera features)
- The other ones are in my opinion useless gadgets
- There are so many extensions to search that it generally takes quite a while to find what you want
- There are so many extensions that do the same things, some having this feature that another one lacks and vice-versa, and installing both has undesirable effects
- When a new release of FF comes out, your beloved extensions, and sometimes even skins, are broken
- If an extension is not correctly designed, it can make the whole browser unstable
Now I really agree that Opera lacks an intuitive ad-blocking mechanism (you can avoid ads but it's more complicated than just a right-click). But that's the only thing that it really lacks for me.Re:My reasons for not switching. (Score:2, Informative)
*AdBlock Plus
--Opera equivalent exists
*BugMeNot
Opera equivalent can be created
*CustomizeGoogle
Nope
*DictionarySearch
--Opera equivalent exists
*Farkit
Nope
*Gmail Notifier
I prefer the webmail to Opera's client
*Nuke Anything
-- I think you can do this with userjs, but it's a button on the toolbar, not just a right click away
*Plain Text Links
--Opera equivalent exists
*Switch Proxy Tool
Nope
*Greasemonkey
--Opera equivalent exists
Fair enough, most (but not all) of the functionality i've added extensions for can be (nearly) replicated in Opera, but the more general point I was trying to make with my particular list was that the extensibility of Firefox is much higher that that of Opera.
Spend some time going through the extensions at Extensions Mirror [extensionsmirror.nl] and tell me how many of them can be done in Opera.
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:5, Informative)
This is still only in the 8.10/8.02 previews, right? I don't see it in the changelogs or feature lists for 8.50.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
Cello [wikipedia.org] also predates Netscape.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
They can't strip out the "default" symbian browser cause that's rather integrated and heavily used in the UIQ interface. Opera will however be the default browser on UIQ 3.0 platforms where it will replace the symbian browser.
Re:What merits? (Score:5, Informative)
As much as I love Firefox, using it as my main browser and all, that has to be corrected.
Opera is still lighter than Firefox, and still faster, by a far margin.
Re:Good (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:5, Informative)
I like to think of Opera as a highly configurable tool for heavy users who like to get their hands dirty with their tools, and Firefox for everyone else. Opera is highly configurable, has nice data semi-permanence features, and there are a million advanced options that speed up use for people willing to learn about what it can do.
If you don't like where the menu bar is, you can move it to the bottom of the screen, or to the sides, or you can move the buttons to a different bar, or move the buttons from other bars to that one. You can liberally re-arrange everything about the interface to suit your particular tastes, and can add and remove buttons and functionality as you please. I've seen people who have all of the functionality of the browser on a single pop-up address bar on the side of the window, and others that spread everything around onto dozens of little areas.
And there are quick and easy buttons available in the interface for everything: from zooming to above 100% to changing your "identify as" to toggling javascript. Basically all of these behave intelligently. If you hold the zoom drop-down button you get a standard drop-down menu to select the zoom resolution you want, and if you click on it, it automatically resets to 100%. And you move buttons by simply grabbing and moving them, which is very easy and convienient.
If you're comfortable editing a simple menu.ini file, you can add or subtract menu options. As a real-world example, you can add menu options for "open in I.E." "Validate HTML" "Validate Links" and "Spell Check" pretty easily to the right-click menu. While these can't be completely new code, you can pipe existing functions together in new ways to create things that do new behaviors.
Unlike Firefox's extensions you can't add extensive code that doesn't already exist. You can, however, run external applications which seems to cover the extreme cases. But if I needed to code an HTML editor in an extension, for example, I would recommend Firefox as a base over Opera. But for nearly all other personal customization, I'd go with Opera.
Data permanence is also a big issue in Opera. If you go backwards and forwards in Firefox, you lose any text you may have typed into a comment box. If you go backwards and forwards in Opera, your comment stays right where it was. On Slashdot this lets you go a couple of links back, launch a new window with the story in it, and go back forwards to what you were writing. It also caches the rendered page, so that going forwards and backwards is instantaneous.
You can also undo closing tabs. I can't tell you the number of times this has come in handy. Unfortunately, comment fields are not permanent across tab or application closures, something I wish they would fix. However, you do keep your history on that tab, which is nice. You also have windows open across sessions. If the application crashes or is accidentally closed, you can re-open it with all of your tabs still in place, and can still go back and forwards through their histories. Basically, Opera crashing is a 3 second fix, while Firefox crashing requires tediously going back through the history figuring out where all of your tabs were.
You can also save all of your open tabs or windows as a session, and can re-open sessions as bookmarks, on startup, etc.
There is also basic psuedo command line functionality, in that you can convert any *.[space]TEXT into http://www.yoursearchengine.com/search?q=TEXT [yoursearchengine.com]. "g footloose" will search google for the term "footloose". "z firefly" will search amaZon for "firefly." I personally have searches setup for ebay, friend's bulletin boards, language translators, and a whole lot else.
The mail client was the first mail client that I know of to use freestanding searches as virtual folders, but tha
Re:Good (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
You can create your own ones of these. Create a bookmark, edit it and choose a keyword. Edit the url of the bookmark and add %s where you want your search term to appear i.e. Keyword google.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%s
Now, by typing google slashdot opera into my address bar, I search google for "slashdot opera". An example of a custom keyword search is the one I use for searching the PHP manual. I have the bookmark set as http://www.php.net/%s and the keyword as f. By typing f mysql_connect Firefox opens the manual page for mysql_connect on the php website.
For your image search, you'd want something like
http://images.google.com/images?q=%s, and set the bookmark keyword to i. Then type i britney spears and thus, it will load.
All very handy.
Re:Good (Score:2, Informative)
You can still buy Opera... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
Anything entered on the address bar that is not recognized by FF to be a domain name or URL will be sent to Google instead as a standard search.
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:5, Informative)
After having drilled ten levels deep into a web site I accidently close the tab. With Opera, just Undo and you're back where you were.
On Firefox, well, lets hope you remember how you got to that tenth level.
Re:Torrents (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No reason? I think not. (Score:2, Informative)
2. He could be paying for premium support.
3. Because if they don't, he might use the feature anyway. With that attitude, sooner or later their browser would lag behind, as MicroSoft did.
4. Every user is an indirect customer since every member of their user base adds to the total value of their company. By using Opera their percentages increase, forcing developers to take their browser into consideration.
Re:Good (Score:2, Informative)
The problem with opera... (Score:3, Informative)
is that they don't use standard keyboard shortcuts, i.e. F6 for jump to URL bar(FF, IE, Safari, Netscape, Mozilla), Ctrl-T (or Apple-T) for new tab (FF, Safari, Netscape, Mozilla). I have a friend who uses Opera and every time I go to show him a page I have to have him click things for me because STANDARD keyboard shortcuts DON'T WORK!!!!111one
</rant>
But I have to say, the built-in mouse gestures is a cool feature.
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:2, Informative)
I use that feature often on sites that have a menu-structure over many pages, i.e. Main menu with links to sub-menus on other pages which have menus linked to other pages....
Just open the main page and you have the main menu. Then create a linked page,open a link on the main menu page and the chosen second level menu comes up in the linked page.Repeat procedure with linked page (create a page linked to the previously linked page) and voila: third level menu ready.Repeat again, and the desired page can be admired on the last page.
Now set every page up as a column on the screen that just fits the menu's and a broad column for the pages you want to see, and you can go everywhere you want on the site without endless going back to previous level menu's in just a few clicks. It is a really useful feature and I for one just love it!
Re:Can someone please explain to me... (Score:4, Informative)
No (Score:3, Informative)
Giving away something for free which was previously charged for is typically what happens when the product is obsolete and uncompetitive.
I'm uninstalling my TCP/IP stack then, apparently it's obsolete.
(OK, seriously though: It's called "software commoditization". If you look at a price/demand elasticity curve, there are two main possible reasons why the price of a particular commodity may approach zero: (1) the demand side is approaching zero, or (2) the supply side is approaching infinity. You suggest (1) (as in, demand for a poor or redundant product drops to zero), but have missed (2): Since there is no natural scarcity in software, the supply side of any particular piece of software has no practical upper limit; supply also rises as more such products are created, and this eventually pushes prices close to zero. In other words, you reach a point where the supply will always match the demand, no matter what. This is not a reflection of lack of demand at all - on the contrary, the demand remains high, and in fact, the main factor driving software commodization IS HIGH DEMAND itself, meaning, the exact opposite of what you said is true: the things that people demand most tend to reach a point where they're given away for free (e.g. 'prestige projects', and so on - which is why it doesn't happen as much in vertical software markets). Everyone needs a Web browser, for example, and this high demand has resulted in numerous competing products, which is resulting in margins being slashed ever closer to zero. Web browsers are hardly obsolete, on the contrary, demand has never ever been higher.)
Re:Torrents (Score:2, Informative)
I like it, though won't use it (Score:3, Informative)
But there's no way I could function without the Google Toolbar now. I use it all the time, not to mention the built in spell checker. If Opera had this one little feature alone I'd think about switching.
Re:Torrents (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What merits? (Score:4, Informative)
Bare firefox doesn't cut it, it's stripped to the bone compared to Opera's feature. My fox, the one I want to use and that makes me keep in instead of switching to opera, has something like 40 extensions. These hog a lot of memory, yet are what makes Firefox superior in my opinion. Bare firefox blows, it's still slower than opera and doesn't have a tenth of Opera's features.
XUL is based on Javascript, not firefox, and I don't give a damn about what you think, the reality is that Opera is faster in 95% of the DOM operations, and has much better optimized loops than firefox (proof of that one being that reverse-counting in a for loop yields 50% improvement in looping speed for firefox, and just about nothing for Opera). Try these getElementsByClass emulations if you don't believe me [masklinnscans.free.fr].
Yes I can, of course I can, extensions and extensibility are what allow firefox to be above Opera for most users, without extensions Firefox is little more than a standard-compliant IE, the only thing is has being the JS console (which Opera has) and the DOM inspector (which opera, to my knowledge, doesn't have)...