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Opera browser sold to a Chinese consortium for $600M
- biocomputation 10y agoTime to uninstall from my phone.
- roschdal 10y agoThe Chinese company Kunqis failed to aquire Opera because it didn't get enough shareholder approval. Therefore this is the plan B, where Opera sells some assets, including the browser, to Kunqis. Source: http://e24.no/boers-og-finans/opera-software/opera-gaar-for-noedloesning/23742772 http://e24.no/boers-og-finans/opera-software/opera-gaar-for-...
- bobajeff 10y agoI wonder if this means that they own the Presto Layout engine too.
- digi_owl 10y agoAnd even plan B is not finalized and approved by regulators etc. Meaning it could as easily drop dead as plan A. Frankly the engadget headline here is as hyperbolic, if not more so, than anything The Register gets shit on for.
- lytedev 10y agoIs Opera fairly popular in other countries? I have a feeling this won't go over well with a large portion of the U.S.-based power-users that use it...
- toomanythings4 10y agoIt's very popular in countries and continents like India, Asia and Africa. Specifically on small, cheap phones.
- KayL 10y agoMainly the Opera Mini I think.
- justinlardinois 10y agoDo these phones typically run Android? Or older OSes that have a mobile JVM?
- gsnedders 10y agoMostly Android nowadays, far as I'm aware.
- toomanythings4 10y agoSo are you going with them, Geoffrey?
- jonknee 10y agoSurely there aren't enough US based "power users" for it to matter.
- ZenoArrow 10y agoI use Opera regularly, but I think many of the 'power users' preferred Opera 12 to the WebKit/Blink versions, as there was a feature cull during this transition. Vivaldi is the spiritual successor to Presto-based Opera. https://vivaldi.com/?lang=en https://vivaldi.com/?lang=en
- stinkytaco 10y agoSpiritual successor in the sense that it is highly customizable with lots of shortcuts? From a technological perspective, it seems quite different. One of Opera's great strengths was how "native" it felt on every platform, plus a full suite of Internet tools. This doesn't seem to do chat, email, bittorrent, etc.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ZenoArrow 10y ago> "Spiritual successor in the sense that it is highly customizable with lots of shortcuts?" Spiritual successor in the sense it's targeted at power users, has aims to revive some of the classic Opera functionality, and because it's developed by ex-Opera personnel. I'd recommend taking a look at the Vivaldi Wikipedia page for some of the background into how it came to be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi_(web_browser) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi_(web_browser)
- lucideer 10y agoIt does email at least, and maybe bittorrent and chat. The native feel seems largely to have been Opera 12's downfall; they just didn't have the resources/manpower to maintain their own (very brilliant) internals/rendering engine/etc. on top of the power-user UI + featureset. Vivaldi looks to be attempting to recreate the latter (poweruser UI+features) and dropping the former (by relying on Chromium/ReactJS for internals), so it's very much a large compromise if you like Opera 12. Overall, the main criticism I would have is not opensourcing it. This is an old tired argument, but in this specific case it's painfully relevant given the huge resources that went into creating Opera 12's internals which then couldn't be community-forked.
- Mithaldu 10y agoWhat power users? Any power users that used Opera for that aspect are still using v12, which is unaffected by this, entirely; and no power user would use the chromium fork they put out with v15 and upwards, because all it offers is a dearth of features.
- nisa 10y agoI became a huge fan of Opera Mobile in the last few months. It's the only browser that feels fast on my Android device and I'm actually a fan of the proxy as well as the possibility to block ads and omit images. It is a godsend for the notoriously small german data packages. I'm not checking my mail with it but it's great for a fast Google search here and there.
- lostmsu 10y agoTime to delete Opera Link account, and uninstall the Mini :(
- Quai 10y agoI'm sorry to tell you that your Opera Link (not to be confused with Opera Sync, the syncing platform for the new products) has already been deleted. Opera stopped providing the Opera Link service December last year. The servers has been decommissioned, and according to Norwegian law, the user data has been deleted.
- jacek 10y agoI really like using Opera on Linux. It is the only full featured browser that has good, scalable UI and touch input support. And builtin adblocking + "battery saver mode" (developer version only) are really good additions. However, I do not trust Chinese companies with my data, I will need to switch to Firefox soon.
- digi_owl 10y agoMay give Vivaldi a look. Made by many of the original Opera people. https://vivaldi.com/ https://vivaldi.com/
- amaks 10y agoNow it's going to start reporting to (new) mothership. Whatever that means.
- vasili111 10y agoI remember the times of Opera 12.... :(
- Mithaldu 10y agoI still use Opera 12 as my main browser in TYOOL 2016, with menu entries and buttons to load horrible JS abominations in Chrome.
- makecheck 10y agoI really wish promising technology couldn’t be seriously damaged simply by being “bought”. Perhaps there should be a law that says something like: fine, you can buy this but you must permanently open-source a snapshot of that product from 2 years ago (ensuring some legacy regardless of your actions). Yes, Opera might be fine. It might even end up better. If history tells us anything though, new management can cause a lot of problems. The term “consortium” doesn’t exactly scream “experts at moving technology forward”. One of the companies where I worked was bought by a “consortium”, and I saw some very…interesting decisions made back then. Opera wasn’t special because of a dollar figure; it was special because of its attitude toward technology. If a consortium values return over anything else, they risk alienating too many of the people that made Opera successful.
- 794CD01 10y agoTheir attitude has proven to be largely unsuccessful. Why should they be obligated to preserve it?
- inthewoods 10y agoAnyone trying out Brave? www.brave.com
- dezzeus 10y agoThose controversies of Qihoo 360 (stated in Wikipedia for both the society and the product of "360 Secure Browser") and Haier (for their partnership in the mobile platform) can't lead to anything good for Opera (browser). Also, the presence of a "consortium" for which I haven't read any other relevant name sound like a way to cover the direct acquisition… What I can see here is: - A Chinese company trying to both comfortably beat their (Chinese) competition while gaining (out of PRC) customers for their "services" (which will likely be integrated within the browser); Which is fine, except for their "controversies". - An executive team (at Opera), that seams pretty all about finance and economics, trying to make the most (money) from an offer in a market (the web browsers one) that is (at least, I think so) hard to remunerate. Obviously those shareholders will be happy; but are those shareholders really involved into the product that they own, or they are just silent speculators who made an investment for the sole purpose of profit when they realized the company's potential of being acquired ? I'm also disappointed because I used to like the effort that Opera has put into their own browser in the latest months; the same effort that convinced me to adopt their browser (beta version) instead of Chrome and advocate them. P.S.: Obviously, those are just my thoughts after having read the article; I hope for a more detailed statement from Opera…
- Mithaldu 10y ago> Obviously those shareholders will be happy; but are those shareholders really involved into the product that they own The shareholders are ecstatic with joy. The browser has been nothing but an advertising front for what is factually an advertising company for years now. The fact that you actually saw the abomination that was Opera 15 and beyond in a positive light, instead of the truth of abandoning browser development in favor of a token Chrome fork, speaks volumes to this strategy having worked for them.
- dezzeus 10y agoI have to say that I haven't experienced* the 12 to 15 transition that you refer; to me Opera is just a browser that changed over the time and, because I'm not a long date user, I never ever seen it as the advertising medium that you say. Of course they could have chose to better differentiate themselves, but the actual decision/strategy seems to have worked also for me. BTW, as long as I know, they also pushed some code into Chromium so I see it as a solid step toward the consolidation of web standards by using a common and open base. Better achieved if performance exists as well. [*]: Even if I occasionally tried some desktop versions of Opera during the years, I've always preferred Firefox and later Chrome as default browser.
- Gustomaximus 10y agoOut of interest does can anyone know/can say why Mahi de Silva and Erik Harrell left? Seemed sudden in each case.