Opera Software Co-Founder Passes Away

worb writes "One of the two founders of Opera Software, Geir Ivarsoy, recently passed away after a long battle with cancer. His funeral yesterday was attended by Opera employees who paid their last respects to their former lead programmer. While Opera hasn't had the same success as Firefox on the desktop, it has had considerable success in the mobile phone market due to its speed and small footprint, combined with excellent standards compliance and innovative features."

Re:So long, and thanks

[lanc]

sun4m, right.
but not only that - If you want to download it, ofcourse it exists for linux, but it is not merely usual that there is a prepackaged version for Debian, and highly unusual that you can choose packages for:

Debian Unstable (Sid)
Debian Testing (Etch)
Debian 3.1 (Sarge)
Debian 3.0 (Woody)
Debian 2.2 (Potato)


it exists for Mac, QNX, FreeBSD, it runs on a pile of mobiles. That I call userfriendly, supportive.

Re:We need to fight cancer.

[popeguilty]

Have you ever seen the movie "And the Band Played On"? It's about the principal players who originally researched AIDS and discovered HIV. What's fascinating about the movie is not its depiction of popular reaction to AIDS but of the vicious infighting between the groups of researchers, particularly one doctor who lies, cheats, and steals to make sure his name is the one attached to "discovering HIV." It's a fascinating movie, and it's chilling to note that the same things are apparently happening surrounding "avian flu"- not to mention years of secret research in other medical areas.

Re:So long, and thanks

[bogaboga]

What amazes me is its incredible speed. I wonder why Firefox programmers have not been able to make Firefox at least closer to Opera's speed. When it comes to memory, I wouldn't mind that much since memory itself is very cheap these days.

Re:that sux

[fftl4life]

here is the url to goto and find info http://www.opera.com/products/desktop/ [opera.com] it supports almost every os and is a very small file size, if u like the features of firefox then opera might be right for u...

Why Opera?

[worb]

Opera has lots of features [opera.com] in a small (and fast) package. By default, Opera looks any plain browser, but if you feel like it, you can dive below the surface and discover a lot of features that speed up browsing, such as mouse gestures and extensive keyboard support (both shortcuts and spatial navigation for using the keyboard to navigate pages).

If you search Google for "why Opera" you'll find pages like this one, with a nice list of reasons for why you should consider Opera [nontroppo.org].

The best thing you can do is to simply download it and give it a fair go. If you surf around and read about Opera you'll discover lots of nice little touches that make browsing more convenient. Maybe you'll find that you love Opera. Maybe you won't. It's a slightly different approach than what Firefox is doing, but at least you won't have to rely on extensions for functionality. That can be both good and bad, I guess. (Opera seems to be a bit more efficient on the memory usage than Firefox, mind you.)

But Opera is actually also extensible in various ways, such as User JavaScript ("Greasemonkey"), and similar. There are lots of nifty things to discover, such as custom made toolbars [nontroppo.org].

Anyway, the Search Engine Journal editor asked Opera users to convince him to use Opera [searchenginejournal.com]. He got quite a few useful replies. Maybe they will be of interest to you, too...

Remembering Geir

[Lawmune]

Here is a remembrance of Geir Ivarsøy from someone at Opera Software who knew him: Death in the Family [opera.com]

Re:So long, and thanks

[quanticle]

Not only does Opera 9 look great, but it passes the Acid2 test as well, something that Firefox has not yet achieved.

Ha Ha Asshole

[Anonymous Coward]

Just how in the FUCK is that funny?