Having a say ensure there isn't a single voice taking decisions that led us to things like IE6. And we're actually starting to see IE6-ish stuff happening with webkit, as it's nearly the only rendering engine for mobile.
One vendor != good for standards.
Oh also, their engine happens to be pretty close to webkit performance wise.
Out if curiosity, what IE6-ish things do you see WebKit doing?
Looking forward to get my neat features again, such as fast forward, hotkey bindings, Opera turbo..
Very interesting read.
Back then I was used to having fifteen add-ons in Firefox, but after Mozilla made one bad choice after another, I moved to Chrome and live by Adblock Plus and some own userscripts and bookmarklets now. Perhaps Opera isn't as much of a culture shock anymore to use, especially with the Webkit engine.
I do wonder if they considered Mozilla's Gecko engine. It has a smaller userbase I think, but does that automatically mean it wouldn't be the right choice? They don't say a word about this.
All in all, I do applaud the change. It's a hard step to take after you've been working on your own engine for years, but they've done it, and it will probably add a lot in terms of website support.
Gecko has a lot of legacy, and to be fair, even Mozilla has tentative plans to transition off of gecko, to be replaced by servo: https://github.com/mozilla/servo
Gecko is a lot harder to embed (so yes, legacy is and issue here), and webkit is compatible with more sites (as sites are now often "designed for webkit" and use specific webkit-only extensions)
Makes the choice very easy and logical IMO. Not really good for the web, but maybe not a bad idea for Opera. Time will tell.
This means basically giving up on standards-based compatibility.
Not bad news for Opera - maybe good news for the browser - but an ominous sign on what the web is becoming.
I wonder how this will affect that.
[EDIT: I mixed up currencies; fixed it.]
Opera is scammy, unreliable software. DO NOT DO MISSION CRITICAL WORK WITH THIS BROWSER. It will flake out on you in so many uncanny ways its not funny.
Also, Opera had the weird habit of becoming my default browser on my Win 7 machine repeatedly, despite me never doing so and only referencing it for testing purposes.
That, along with Opera having the top 3 spots on HN's front page further indicates to me that Opera is not for real. Like I mean, come on. How many of these submissions and upvotes are fake.
Opera, you're not on the up and up and you know it.
TL;DR: Don't trust Opera.
I personally never had Opera become the default browser, nor did I have any other problems than compatibility with it (which is normal, given their market share). I also don't think the upvotes are fake.
So, why exactly "SHOULD WE NOT DO MISSION CRITICAL WORK WITH THIS BROWSER"?
2. Herd-mind might apply for Chrome-Hipsters, but Opera is far from being mainstream. Sadly.
3. I'd love to have Opera as my default browser everywhere, but it just doesn't work that easily for me. Maybe you can share me your weird/unusual insights on how to apply a default browser for the entires win7 system, including all applications?
4. You must be doing something horribly wrong. I DO MISSION CRITICAL WORK WITH OPERA - all day long - for many many years.
5. Shame on you for creating a fake account. You deserve to be downvoted.
6. tl;dr is supposed to be _above_ the content.
(Of topic, perhaps...)
I hear this a lot, and I think, for the most part, web applications aren't remotely open (in general). While I can use any computer to connect to a web site, very few sites actually allow me to get my data out of them. In short, in my opinion, open access to data trumps open access by various clients.
On the one hand, we have systems that I can connect to with any OS I want but where my data is completely out of my control. On the other hand, we have walled gardens where the data sits, literally, in the palm of my hand. Both situations are ugly, but in the former, if I want my data, I have to pray the developers left me a method to do so. In the latter, it may not be trivial, but it is almost always possible[1].
I wish we had truly open systems across the board. Until we do, I vote we stop calling web systems open, because they are only open in terms of access, and that's not good enough.
1. For example, jailbreak, log in, and scp a SQLite db. Certainly not trivial but at least doable. In no way would I actually call this "open". I just think it is less closed than most web applications.
The "openness" of the web is mostly referring to the technology stack (open source rendering engines), the standards, and the freedom of distribution. All of those points are not fully "open" and that's what I think they're referring to when they say that "the web may not be fully open".
Even sites like Udacity's course viewer did this (maybe they changed it, I haven't been there in a week).
So while Opera might be using the same rendering engine as Chrome, you'll still get locked out because web apps are setup to investigate user agents to determine who gets in.
I'm not sure if I like or dislike this change. I feel like testing sites between Opera, Chrome, FF and IE I had a better chance of eliminating all rendering bugs.
Opera I feel was/is the best candidate for ensuring your code was correct.
The problem I think is that the non-aligned phone manufacturers are going the way of the dodo. You have Nokia committing to WM8, Apple on iOS with Safari and most others committing to Android. In theory a manufacturer could go Android + Opera but why license Opera when you can get Chrome for free?
That being said: Opera has always done a great job fighting against massive odds. I hope this move gives them the breathing room they need to keep going.
