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AI Opera

Opera is Building ChatGPT Into Its Browser's Sidebar (theverge.com) 27

"Opera's adding a ChatGPT-powered tool to its sidebar that generates brief summaries of webpages and articles," reports the Verge: "The feature, called 'shorten,' is part of the company's broader plans to integrate AI tools into its browser, similar to what Microsoft's doing with Edge."

The "shorten" feature isn't available to everyone just yet, though. Jan Standel, the vice president of marketing and communications at Opera, tells The Verge that it's going to "launch in browsers very soon." Opera's also working on other AI-powered features that "augment" the browsing experience and plans on adding "popular AI-generated content services to the sidebar," although it's not yet clear what this could entail.

In the blog post Opera's EVP for PC Browsers and Gaming shared their belief that "with AI solutions springing up both for text, image, and audio generation and in countless other forms, we are at the brink of a new era of creativity on the Web."

The post says the forthcoming AI integration follows their "track record of giving users direct access to the internet's most in-demand platforms, such as TikTok, Telegram, and WhatsApp." And Opera's co-CEO added that "Whether inventing browser tabs or providing our users with built-in access to generative AI tools, we always push the limits of what's possible on the web."
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Opera is Building ChatGPT Into Its Browser's Sidebar

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    • We will literally be 3D printing houses. Progress isn't interested in your narrow timeframe.

    • You beat me to it. "OH, FFS" was literally the first thing out of my mouth when I saw the headline.

      It's a race to the bottom. I'll sit this one out.
      • Can we backup the Firefox repo so we have something to reboot from after this blows over? Because there's no way Mozilla isn't going to join them. And it's going to be bad.

    • This is boring but AI is definitely more than hype and will be as big as the internet. Not to say there won’t be hype, the explosion of the internet was surrounded by a mushroom cloud of hype.

    • by znrt ( 2424692 )

      Can't we have, say, a retrocomputing day, or some other theme that focuses on things nerds

      i would say that opera is pretty damn "retro".

      once they pioneered both very interesting features (like gestures, tab management or integration) and absolutely asinine ones (like intercepting mobile client js and running it on their "optimized" servers). i'm happy to know that it still exists and that all of its 3 users can conveniently chat with an ai on their sidebar now.

  • So no, I'm not buying into it [wikipedia.org]

    Same as I won't buy from Hikivision, even though they've got really cheap stuff.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It doesn't say but presumably this ChatGPT instance will run on Opera servers, since it needs a hefty GPU for local operation. Therefore, anything you ask it will be sent to Opera.

      You can at least defend against website tracking, but Opera controls the browser.

      As for Hikvision, the trick is to buy their cheap but good cameras and replace the firmware with your own. Alternatively, or ideally as well, put them on an isolated network with no internet access, and run a Linux based NVR so you can access them. Th

  • by irreverentdiscourse ( 1922968 ) on Sunday February 12, 2023 @02:50PM (#63287393)

    I always wanted a way to ask the internet a question without any method to verify the answer I'm getting is accurate or from a credible source.

  • How about some articles on things that are NOT falling for the ChatGPT hype?
    Not all of us want this [redacted][redacted] and [redacted] interfering with our lives.

    No? I guess that all the contributors have been taken over by ChatGPT bots.

    • No? I guess that all the contributors have been taken over by ChatGPT bots.

      Not just contributors - moderators too it seems.

  • Lot's of good points about the credibility of ChatGPT already posted, but another thing... who is going to be paying for this?

    Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, said maintaining ChatGPT as a free service had an "eye-watering" compute cost. They clearly just do it to get the hype and an equity payout. How in the world is it going to make sense for Opera to do this once OpenAI turns off the free ChatGPT spigot? Seems unwise.

    Standard answer would be that the Opera user is the product here, but even then I can't se

    • What they are doing it to collect your data, why do you have to sign up and provide a phone number verification. I don't need to factor authentication to play with a chat bot.

    • Standard answer would be that the Opera user is the product here, but even then I can't see it making economic sense.

      Do ANY of the data-and-privacy-stealing and ad-pushing activities that now rule the Web REALLY make economic sense? I'd like to see solid data indicating that all this relentless, nearly inescapable advertising and rape of privacy have resulted in a significant increase in net profits. Except for the folks who steal the personal data, and those who create and serve the advertising. THEY'RE laughing all the way to the bank.

  • by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Sunday February 12, 2023 @03:59PM (#63287505)

    For me, this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. They've been adding more and more useless stuff to their browser for a long, long time, including:
    - Ads on the Speed Dial Page, bookmarks and campaigns.
    - Random ad pop-ups all around the browser in general.
    - Shopping Corner
    - Crypto Wallet
    - Personal News
    - "Continue shopping" browser extensions targetting such sites as Amazon, AliExpress, Booking.com, etc which basically snoop on all you do and offer you 3rd party "deals" via unexpected pop-ups.
    - Partner integrations (facebook, Twitter, VK, etc)
    - "The Player" which is their own version of browser-level integration and data harvesting for Apple Music, Spotify and the likes.
    - BABE - "Better" Address Bar Experience. Try it. I dare you.
    - "Enhanced" default address bar where results are no longer ordered in the LRU - Least Recently Used order, making you move the cursor down all the time to select something you search for most commonly. Think: you type sl... to search for slashdot but it's several positions down, not at the top.
    - Horrendously annoying unit and currency converter built-into the address bar which can't be disabled. Want to look up 10 GBP to USD quickly on Google? Nope. Not without typing it and moving the cursor several positions down first.
    - Other shit all around the browser.

    All of the above are insanely annoying and very difficult to turn off, most of which can't be disabled at all.

    Enough is enough. I'm moving to a different browser this week.
     

    • I'm with you on that, been using since 4.0, so nearly a quarter of a century.

      What happened? it was once the dogs bollocks, now it has become a pile.

      • by Lando242 ( 1322757 ) on Sunday February 12, 2023 @04:45PM (#63287621)
        They got bought out by a Chinese firm. Most of the developers left and a few formed Vivaldi (which you should check out). What is left is just a bunch of marketing wanks jumping on the latest fad. Opera crypto wallet, Opera gaming web browser, Opera micro-loans. Really, just avoid them entirely. They are not the company they once were.

        Seriously, check out Vivaldi. Yeah, its yet another Chromium clone but the interface is very nice and customizable. It also supports all Chrome extensions natively and doesn't have all the ad crap in it that Opera does.
        • I second the motion to check out Vivaldi. It's UI is very configurable and customizeable for an application (in 2023). It's my backup browser and it would be my #1 browser If they would just disable autoplay videos OOTB without having to use an extension, like Firefox does.

    • by UpnAtom ( 551727 )

      None of this affects me at all, apart from the speed dial, which is a small price to pay. And aside from that, there are no ads.

      Opera is the fastest and most efficient of the main browsers, provides super useful sidebar stuff like WhatsApp, free VPN, blocks ads and trackers and doesn't spy on you.
      I already tried to put ChatGPT in the sidebar so this is a good addition

      Browsers haven't changed much for about five years. Go use Vivaldi. No-one cares.

  • It's a pity, but Opera is dead, it capitulated some years ago already. Vivaldi might be an alternative (and it is for me). But nothing compares to Opera around version 12..
  • And call it a "brand."
    Trap peoples info and offer "an experience". Yahoo has desperately hung on this long.

    The entire internet is like a "demented tourist trap â„¢ï¸"

    Jeebus, Microsoft outlook.com is as intrusive as possible, wants to install things right away and have a look around.

    Who doesn't want that level of intrusion? ?? As long as chumps ain't saying no. It's legal? Ain't it? No prob. Just spell it out in the TOS.
  • "Opera's adding a ChatGPT-powered tool to its sidebar that generates brief summaries of webpages and articles," reports the Verge:

    Brief summaries of web pages, you say? If only there were some way for the creator of the web page to embed a brief description, written by a human, and not hallucinated by a machine. We could call it, oh I don't know, a "meta description" tag. Crazy idea, right?

Thus spake the master programmer: "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

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