Opera maverick is still making waves
TRIVIA QUIZ: Which browser was the first to implement tabs, integrated search, zoom, saved sessions, and runs on mobile phones and TVs? Hint: it wasn't Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome.
Opera, which came out of Norway's Telenor in 1994, is a genuine maverick. The company charged for the browser – "We had no way to make money" says founding CEO Jon Tetzchner – when its competitors were free. Its two founders survived for five years on £5,000 start-up funding – "The minimum you need to do a limited liability company" – while Netscape went public with a giant splash and Microsoft funded Internet Explorer out of pocket change. And because Tetzchner's father is a psychology professor specialising in children with disabilities, it focused from the beginning on accessibility.
"In 1994," says Tetzchner, who joined Telenor straight from a masters in
computer science, "we had a big discussion in our group over whether to make a
browser, and half of the team believed it was impossible to compete with Mosaic,
and the other half believed we could. The turning point was that Mosaic was
fairly shaky on Windows." Old-timers remember: the first version couldn't print
or copy. It took the group six months to create a prototype. "And then we had a
discussion with Telenor that ended up with the two of us taking the code and
founding Opera Software in 1995." Tetzchner is happy Telenor let it go: he
thinks the company would have killed it because of the number of
competitors.
That makes Opera the oldest continuously developed browser out there. It also, eventually, made Opera Software a successful company, despite its impoverished early years and having to compete with free. "People still paid," he says. "In 1998, desktop revenues went up six times. We were the only ones trying to sell a browser and six times." Since then, the company has added 500 staff and its user numbers grow 40 to 50 percent every year.
Tetzchner puts the number of desktop Opera users at 25 to 30 million and doesn't worry about others' success. "As long as we grow ourselves, it's OK." In fact, he says, every time a hot, new browser is launched – Firefox, Chrome – the company sees new interest. "A lot of articles mention that they borrowed a few ideas from us – we do have a lot of features in the browser (and the mail client) that don't exist in others." Besides, if you're trying one new browser, why not two?
As early as 1997 people began contacting the company with ideas – why didn't it make an operating system, or office software, or run on other platforms? " There was a guy with the company at the time, and he asked if people would be willing to fund it." Enough people did to start its cross-platform efforts.
In 2001, the company finally hit on a new business model, putting an advertisement in the top right corner and in a "very big move for us" began giving the browser away. Tetzchner says the company never made any money from the ad, but that the giveaway meant a lot more people downloaded it who then decided to pay.
"In 2005, we removed the ad. We should have done it sooner, but we didn’t' have any other business model then. Eventually, we landed on providing search and services as a convenience in the right corner. We make money from those services – Google, etcetera pay for the traffic." He adds, "This was quickly copied by Mozilla and others."
The most notable thing to an Opera newcomer is that the software has resisted the bloat that tends to infect older software: it's quick and lightweight, a key to succeeding on mobile platforms where users may be paying by the minute.
The company expects to continue developing the browser, which has had a new version almost every year. "We always try to think of ways to make it better – adding features, how to make the desktop, mobile, and TV experience work better together. The most important thing is to get browsers onto these devices. People don't realise that the browser has become the platform of choice." It's important, he adds, to "keep competition in the field." µ
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I never liked IE. IE5 was a version I considered "barely usable" and, sadly, Netscape was out of the game by that time. So I gave Opera a try, several times in my web-lifetime. Fact is, when you browse, you don't want to be distracted, and that flashy POS ad that Opera included in the toolbar was driving me nuts. So, out came Firefox 0.93. It was love at first sight: it was OSS, and it didn't have ads! Sure, it was kinda buggy, but who cared? By the time Opera removed the ads in their browser, Firefox was well established, and I had no intentions of trying it again.
It was NetCaptor in 1997.
They need to concentrate on their very poor RSS implementation - the inbuilt RSS reader likes to strip subscribed webpages of images and layout. Firefox's model is much better. Their Ad blocking support is good, but still not as good as Adblock and NoScript... Other than that, best browser around. Though I notice that google will refuse to let you access gmail with it - unless you pretend to be using firefox/ie. Actually, Opera's spoofing feature is a great way of exposing some companies (ms and google's) monopolistic practices - "Oh, our side doesn't work on that browser, use ours instead". Errr... how come it works if I tell you it's firefox then?
I first started looking at Opera around V4.sommit, ended up switching around 5.1 and have never looked back. These days I find it funny when people say they use X because of feature Y and I reply; but Operas had that since version Z and even now Opera is the only browser with a true MDI where your tabs can be any size (well, to the best of my knowledge!). It might not be to everyone's taste and you can argue about site "compatibility" all you want and that it's not open-source, but I love it, and I think it really is a fantastic product that more people should investigate.
I have tried everything else on offer, and always come back to Opera, it offers exactly what I need, without any bloat, or need for addons. The fact it's also the fastest, most secure, and feature packed browser out the box is a bonus, the fact it's available for almost every platform on the planet, is unique. Long may Opera continue to rule, I just hope they get some more of the marketshare they truely deserve.
To do some of the work of No Script or Firekeeper. http://www.0x000000.com/index.php?i=300&bin=100101100
The world (of technology) is full of people "being first" with something. Guess what: being first doesn't matter - being best (or biggest) is all that matters.
I used to use Opera for years before I used Firefox. It was, and probably still is superior in performance to Firefox when accessing local cache. Meaning, hitting the Forward or Back button is an almost instantaneous result. What made me switch to Firefox exclusively in both Linux and Windows, is the "Adblock Plus" and "Flash Block" add-on. If Opera could duplicate these features, I'd drop Firefox like a hot rock! Cheers! :)
Opera USED to be awesome. The 9.5x line ruined it. 9.60 final out today and it's the same CRAP. Checkout the demented scrolling and tabs. Just YUCK. Memory use and gdi objects leaked are still horrible. Dozens of other little annoyances that add to why it has less then 5% marketshare. This tubby Norwegian guy is a FAILURE. A decade of what? He can't even give away his product.
Usually articles such as this have a compimentary link to the subjects website. So why no link? [ http://www.opera.com/ That was hard wasn't it? Mod.]
I develop for the web and have for 15 years. If I had to use any other browser it woud take me more time to do my work. Sometimes poeple have a little trouble getting used to Opera if they're used to a more simple browser. But, persist, it's absolutley worth the effort.
If people did not report the volume of bugs and suggestions, they would probably not be a success. People like the writer of this comment. The bug report feature was my idea, the new feature where you enter the address, or keywords into the address line and it finds matching bookmarks and history was my idea, in matter of fact most of the little improvements in 9 and 8 where my ideas I submitted. I was one of those people that suggested making it into a OS (front end particularly on embedded) running Java programs (makes me wonder if that is why they went to widgets) but still no separate runnable independent transfer function (or did they). I have submitted so many that I keep finding them implemented and then remember it was something I submitted. If you generally want to know what sort of workflow improvements are coming to Opera, ask me. They know who I am, apparently I was considered for a job there, but did not hear anything else. I could have left to go to Mozilla, or MS, and lucky i did not. What I have noticed is so many more bugs turning up though in 8 and particularly 9, I hesitate to upgrade, but then I don't want to be stuck with the volume of bugs I reported about the version I'm using. They keep breaking it and it keeps coming through. Even when something is working, it might not be working in future. I hope they take notice of my recent suggestion for test procedures (as a information technology designer, I have kept the more advanced version to myself). How about upgrading the spellchecker dictionary editing, dictionary, follow check, resume etc? It is opensource, you might not want to do it, but that should not take too long, and the customisation could be made to be specific to working with Opera. Annoyed.