16 ms·

Opera is Reborn

322 points by riqbal 9y ago

jameskegel 9y ago
I was under the impression that the rebirth of Opera Browser was Vivaldi, but it seems I was wrong. Bravo, guys. Nice work.
- glennos 9y ago
  I think Vivaldi is a new company started by the ex-Opera CEO.
- mih 9y ago
  True. For fans of Opera 12.x, Vivaldi is the reborn Opera. Though resource heavy and lacking a few features compared to the original Opera, Vivaldi is now stable enough to be my daily driver.
mrmondo 9y ago
I wouldn't be so cavalier about promoting VPN as a potential way to improve user security...
forvelin 9y ago
Looks nice, but doesn't it look like that Opera is tend to reborn every few years or so ? Still, I was long time Opera user but so far it didn't feel same after they went for webkit. This seems promising, time to try again.
- nikita2206 9y ago
  If only they decided that their awesome email client should live in a browser again. I still use Opera 12 solely for emails as their new dedicated email client was lacking a large number of features in comparison.
  - pawadu 9y ago
    How secure is that?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
gagabity 9y ago
This reminds me of an interesting thing that happened when I uninstalled Opera VPN on my Android. After uninstalling it automatically opened up a browser to one of those "Tell us why you uninstalled" pages that you normally see on the desktop, this shouldn't be possible on Android. I think they are doing this by having Opera Browser watch for uninstallation of Opera VPN and possibly vice-versa and when one detects the other has been uninstalled it launches the page, clever but annoying.
- pawadu 9y ago
  How would this even work? The app cannot listen to system events. (I also think what you said is against Google ToS)
  - zserge 9y ago
    I know that launchers normally detect when the package was installed/uninstalled. That's how they refresh the list of app icons. And launcher is just a regular app with no special permissions. I think some kind of an intent is broadcasted when the list of apps is changed.
  - gagabity 9y ago
    From what I understand once an app is removed Android fires a ACTION_PACKAGE_REMOVED intent which can be picked up by other Apps.
- yzmtf2008 9y ago
  Um, before going down the conspiracy theory road, maybe do a simple google search? This is literally the top result for "android app on uninstall": http://stackoverflow.com/a/18816716/4944625 http://stackoverflow.com/a/18816716/4944625
  - gagabity 9y ago
    I think what they are describing there runs before the uninstall does it not? Pretty sure mine was after the uninstall completed, which is not possible since the app is already gone by that point.
retrac98 9y ago
Where to Opera get their money? Building and maintaining a browser seems like an expensive undertaking, and yet despite nobody I know using or even testing their websites on Opera, they've been actively developing and maintaining their browser for years.
- stillmotion 9y ago
  Opera has been using WebKit as their core engine for the past couple of years.
  - michalstanko 9y ago
    Actually it's WebKit fork by Google called Blink. And I do use Opera as a default browser. The correct Ctrl+Tab behaviour which works like Alt+Tab (switch between the most recent tabs, with a small popup list of tabs) is the main reason for that. Much more productive for me than the usual "cycle over all of open tabs sequentially" behaviour that Chrome, Firefox, and everyone else have (except the Vivaldi browser).
    - Shinkirou 9y ago
      Firefox has a toggle of that in settings.
    - FroggyMan 9y ago
      There is an option to change that behavior in Firefox.
      - bigbugbag 9y ago
        There's tabmixplus that is way better than changing setting in about:config. [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-mix-plus/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-mix-plus/
    - aembleton 9y ago
      In Firefox: 1. Go to about:config 2. Search for browser.ctrlTab.previews 3. Change value to `true` 4. Close tab Now your ctrl+tab should work as you want.
eps 9y ago
So chatting while browsing is the future of desktop browsing? Sounds rather... unambitious.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  Also seems very focused on a single use case / user group. Which isn't me, I use separate apps for chat, and maybe only facebook messenger with one person.
- toyg 9y ago
  It's also a simple rip-off of what Vivaldi already had, thanks to customisable side panels - which, to be fair, is itself a simple update of what Mozilla had back in the '90s. If this is the best Opera has to offer today, they won't last long.
aloisdg 9y ago
Did they open the Opera's source? They are still more place for more foss browser.
- la_oveja 9y ago
  I wish
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  They did not, but someone did it for them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13417307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13417307
Kholo 9y ago
Hey opera folks who might be reading this - work on simplifying offline access to web content. I want to be able to maintain ~100 GB of offline data store, full text searchable. Wikipedia, stackexchange\stackoverflow, khan academy, zealdocs and whole bunch of other sources of useful browser renderable web content provide dumps of their data. And then they end up having to build spl apps and extensions and other garbage that work around and hack cross domain/local file policy, just so the content already on my disk can be read and searched by the browser. When such a treasure trove of web content is accessible offline the browser can and should be the way to access it. As the web becomes more and more a corporate sponsored attention sink strong offline support can be a valuable browser feature.
- jankotek 9y ago
  Kiwix
- threeseed 9y ago
  Whilst I don't know many people who would be in your situation I do think that an offline, indexed data store could be very useful. Bookmarks even to this day are dreadfully implemented on all of the major browsers.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    Bookmarks are obsolete and badly implemented for decades now. Bookmarks are subject to link rot, having more than a hundred of them is a timesink nightmare to manage, bookmarks are useless when you are offline,... the list goes on and on and I have yet to see any browser even try to do something to address these.
    - fwn 9y ago
      What's wrong with them? Bookmarks work great. They are not designed to be used as a personal knowledge base or a wiki. Edit: One of my most used bookmarks is to a specific url on localhost. I'd say bookmarks are as useless as a browser gets while you're offline.
    - 9y ago
la_oveja 9y ago
Telegram, FB Messenger, Whatsapp... No Slack?
- steanne 9y ago
  presumably, slack didn't pay them.
  - la_oveja 9y ago
    I highly doubt that Telegram paid them either.
ruleabidinguser 9y ago
RockMelt 2?
tiku 9y ago
I've used their browser since a year now, because it has better battery saving than Chrome and some other cool features, like detaching video windows, built in VPN. You can now even use all the chrome plugins with another plugin, in Opera.
T-A 9y ago
we bring you Opera Reborn, the first browser to allow messengers to reside within your browser, without the need to install any extensions or apps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockmelt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockmelt
- 8draco8 9y ago
  Vivaldi is doing that out of the box. Just drag and drop messenger.com on to left app bar, then right click and select Show desktop version. Voila!
lucb1e 9y ago
I'd like to try, but I'd probably not end up using it because it's not open source. I feel silly for rejecting a product based on that, but openness is important to me. Here's for hoping they open source it soon!
- amiga-workbench 9y ago
  I don't think you should feel silly for rejecting it for that reason, its a very valid complaint.
- wjoe 9y ago
  Same for me. Some of the changes Opera have been making are interesting, and they do seem to be doing more with the UI than Firefox and Chrome, who are removing as much UI as possible. But the social messenger stuff doesn't interest me, and having stuff like Facebook hard wired into a browser without having the source to know what it's actually sending to them really puts me off. I know Chromium is open source, but the interesting bits are in the stuff they've added on top, which is not.
- ryukafalz 9y ago
  My reasoning for not using it is largely the same. Especially when there are plenty of high-quality open source browsers, including two major ones (Chromium and Firefox). I'm not willing to switch to a proprietary browser just because it's a bit shinier.
Sagane 9y ago
I wonder why [.* ]baidu.com, [.* ]facebook.com, [.* ]google.com and [.* ]yandex.com are in the default list of exceptions when blocking ads. Any ideas?
- funnyfacts365 9y ago
  Money.
  - Sagane 9y ago
    IIRC Opera has an agreement with Google to make it the default browser. I wonder what they have with Facebook, Baidu and Yandex. Maybe the default browser is region-based.
    - jacobr 9y ago
      Very much so. Google is less dominant in many markets where Opera is strong, so the bidding between Google and the local search engines is probably tough.
mathw 9y ago
Or even better, they could have made the side-by-side feature work for any web pages at all as a more general layout feature, with some kind of easy access toolbar to allow you to pop them in and out as desired. I think "Reborn" is a bit of a stretch here.
FridgeSeal 9y ago
Pretty sure Opera is part owned by a Chinese consortium now, and to my knowledge their revenue comes from ads and adtech. So not super certain how private it is likely to be...
- rnabel 9y ago
  Wikipedia lists this fund as the developer: http://www.goldenbrickcapital.com/en/Aboutus.html http://www.goldenbrickcapital.com/en/Aboutus.html
- nomercy400 9y ago
  FTFY: Pretty sure Chrome is part owned by an American consortium now, and to my knowledge their revenue comes from ads and adtech. So not super certain how private it is likely to be...
  - H4CK3RM4N 9y ago
    That's why I don't use Chrome.
  - dandelion_lover 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
theprop 9y ago
Reborn?! What! Opera is now a combination of the Epic Privacy Browser and the Vivaldi Browser. They copied Epic's privacy features and in-built VPN/proxy and Vivaldi's social networking sidebars (which incidentally Opera pioneered and Vivaldi's founder is the Opera co-founder).
romanovcode 9y ago
Closed source software owned by the Chinese. I'm no tinfoil-hat but this combination doesn't really strike as "privacy focused".
mtgx 9y ago
I gave up using Opera for good once it was acquired by the Chinese.
- robjan 9y ago
  Why do people say "the Chinese" as if Chinese people are some scary, out of this world concept or they are some kind of James Bond villain.
  - jug 9y ago
    I don't really blame the Chinese people myself, it's the ways the Chinese government is embedded in their industries whether they want it or not that worry me, especially with a software like a web browser.
    - bigbugbag 9y ago
      You could have similar criticism of the US, see patriot act.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Markoff 9y ago
    because some of us lived in China and know how things go there with doing business and government, know how "safe" and "optimized" their apps are?
- asadlionpk 9y ago
  Isn't the US govt more evil than the Chinese govt (for non-residents atleast)?
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  Latecomer to the party? I gave up using Opera for good as soon as it became a vassal for a US company.
jug 9y ago
I don't dare to use this since Opera got bought by that Chinese consortium of companies I'm not accustomed with. Not sure if I'm overly cautious? I'm thinking of especially Opera Link (which had a recent security breach to boot!). Wouldn't that leave out my passwords to China? And I do want to use some sort of syncing, I'd go crazy without anything there or some iffy third party addon. It's not even just about a trust issue with Chinese company culture. It's that the Chinese government have ways of getting into even resisting companies at their whim that are judged alright in completely different ways than in Norwegian law. So; even if I trusted Opera Software, even if I trusted this consortium that I don't know, even then...?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  Is this limited to Opera and China ? This kind of reasoning also applies to facebook, any alphabet or google product/service, apple, uber, airbnb, and pretty much any company/service that's based in the US where the patriot act pretty much makes all these companies open bar for the US government.
  - shakna 9y ago
    There is a difference between the engine I use to access a large variety of websites, and a single website/service.
    - StavrosK 9y ago
      I'm confused. Is "the engine you use to access a large variety of websites" Opera, or Google the search engine? If it's Opera, Chrome then is no better (and arguably Gmail holds the keys to your kingdom anyway). If it's Google, Chrome is no better, and Gmail holds the keys to your kingdom anyway. More generally, I don't see how China having your browsing history is worse than the US having your browsing history and your authentication attempts and all your contacts and just everything, completely everything.
kmfrk 9y ago
Opera's been rebooted more times than the Spider-Man movies at this point.
analogmemory 9y ago
If I ignore your weird racist overtones. Why would you trust Google/Apple/Firefox more?
- borzale 9y ago
  I don't think it's fair to equate not trusting the Chinese government with racism.
  - vanderZwan 9y ago
    Opera was bought by Chinese companies, not the Chinese government.
    - mikeyjk 9y ago
      Subject to Chinese laws though.. although what gets enforced is a different matter.
    - Markoff 9y ago
      it's pretty much same, if you wanna do business in China, you must give access to all your data to chinese government and do selfcensorship
  - netsharc 9y ago
    But thinking US companies are different because they claim they're not working with the American surveillance state is mostly deluding one's self. If you ask them, Opera can also probably issue a statement saying that they don't let the Chinese surveillance state spy on them, if one says "I believe you" to one class of orgs, and "I don't believe you" to another class, and the difference is the race... Obviously in the US there's more checks and balances, to make a company's statement more believable. Or that's what we believe anyway...
    - matlock 9y ago
      >Obviously in the US there's more checks and balances, to make a company's statement more believable. Or that's what we believe anyway... Without significant prove that this is not the case this handwaving way of comparing the US democratic state to China is just wrong. From Consumer protection to free and fair elections the US system is almost nothing alike the chinese system. Of course the US has massive issues (as do other Western democratic nations) but this handwavy "well they just don't tell you' stuff without actual good data behind is just destroys any credibility and is a huge problem for our democracies. Please stop doing it unless you provide exhaustive evidence.
steinso 9y ago
So the chat program has to be on the left side, what if I want to move it somewhere else? Perhaps it could reside in a little "window", then it could be moved anywhere! ....wait, this sounds familiar. /s
sprafa 9y ago
Opera used to be amazing, a few years ago it had a built in RSS, mail and IRC client, then even later (and right before the acquisition) they were still ahead with their UX by having a "Read Later" section to the browser and allowing you to easily customise and make folders in your "first page". Now its just a mess and Vivaldi is not much better.
- red_hairing 9y ago
  opera is not a mess--it is the best of the browsers...i use it as default browser on my desktop...opera is easily better than chrome or firefox...has far far fewer issues and slowdowns and freezes and crashes...opera is a great browser...
Falkon1313 9y ago
>desktops and laptops, while theoretically more powerful multitasking tools, have been left behind >Browsing and chatting simultaneously is cumbersome and inefficient now, as you need to switch between tabs when responding to a message Or, since we all have widescreen monitors (and often multiple monitors) you could just have your messengers in a window next to the browser instead of a sidebar within the browser. Seems like a solution looking for a problem. What good is allowing messengers to reside within your browser other than that it lets the people who are tracking your browsing habits simultaneously spy on your messages?
- H4CK3RM4N 9y ago
  At this point your browser is your OS(with Blink as the kernel, Chrome(ium) as the init/package manager and Opera as the DE), so something like this does makes sense. I just wish that web developers would realise how terrible of an idea this trend is.
  - toxican 9y ago
    It's almost always some ass hole above the developers. We're not idiots and we know what does/doesn't work. But we don't always make the decisions.
- ryu2k2 9y ago
  >What good is allowing messengers to reside within your browser other than that it lets the people who are tracking your browsing habits simultaneously spy on your messages? I highly doubt third parties have access to the messenger tab. It's a neat addition that works well for people who browse in one fullscreenized window.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > Or, since we all have widescreen monitors (and often multiple monitors) you could just have your messengers in a window next to the browser instead of a sidebar within the browser. Except that - unless you're on a tiling WM on Linux - your window manager sucks, and solution like this is barely usable (hard to keep the windows properly aligned, hard to have them simultaneously on the foreground when other windows come into the mix, etc. etd.). I agree that solutions like that shouldn't be in browsers. But it's cheaper this way for the app vendors...
nonsince 9y ago
I really like the concept of bringing i3-style tiling management to the browser space, but why is it specific to messengers? Since most well-designed websites work at any size, couldn't you just have a permanent tab at the side of the screen of, say, twitter, or some browser-based IRC client? Admittedly, I'd probably use facebook messenger as this tab anyway, so my needs are covered, but it seems like a missed opportunity. Obviously more technically-inclined individuals on more technically-inclined OS's have this already with proper tiling window managers but Windows and MacOS users probably don't want that system-wide and the browser would be the perfect place to introduce it.
- H4CK3RM4N 9y ago
  Safari has their pinned tab which makes it easily accessible, if not always open.
- claudius 9y ago
  Ironically, the old Opera did have this feature, where you could arrange tabs side-by-side within the browser window…
- nly 9y ago
  Opera had tiling some 12-15 years ago. By default tabs were just 'maximized' to the full window, and they made it harder and harder to access with subsequent versions. I'm not even sure if it made it to the latest presto release (version 12). Edit: the Wikipedia page shows tiling in Opera 1.0 in 1995... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Opera_web_browser#/media/File:MultiTorg_Opera.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Opera_web_brows... I'm with you though. I dumped Opera the moment they became a featureless skin around Chrome. Such a sad event Operas best days were the early to mid 2000s
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    Just fired up the real opera (v12.16 b1860) I still have around and use occasionally to this day to test this. Sure enough the tiling feature is there. Right click the tab bar and go to the arrange menu.
TomyMMX 9y ago
How is it possible that Opera got all my saved passwords and sh*t from Chrome? I did not authorize this during install.
- rekshaw 9y ago
  Wow I didn't realize that. That's incredibly intrusive.
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  Unless they stopped since last time I checked, they also insert sponsored stuff in your bookmarks at each update.
- H4CK3RM4N 9y ago
  I think it uses Chrome's codebase, including the secure storage locations.
  - r3bl 9y ago
    Regardless, this shouldn't be possible. Chrome is supposed to tie them with the single instance you're running. You can't just copy the Chrome folder and transfer it to another location. You'd have to use Chrome's Sync for that. I'm assuming Chrome has been opened at the same time by the OP, allowing Opera to snatch the passwords and other shit, making an intrusion into Chrome's data. But, on the other hand, I was able to copy the data from a Chrome extension after a system crash on one machine and extract the data to a new machine just fine by reinstalling the extension and then pasting the extension's folder to the same location where it was on the previous machine. Since that extension was Mailvelope, I would essentially lose a private key in this case if that wasn't possible, since I didn't have the backup of it. Not sure if I would call that bug or a feature.
    - TomyMMX 9y ago
      I did have Chrome open at that time.. that is true. But still... this is some weird sh*t... they should have at least asked me before.
polskibus 9y ago
Slightly offtopic, did entire Opera development moved to Poland? Is that part of new strategy under new owner or was it like that for a long time?
- kleff 9y ago
  The core team in Oslo got laid off after the webkit switch in 2013, not sure how many remained in the other teams. But as far as I know there is nothing but sales and admin left in Norway now.
rcgs 9y ago
I think this is the 3rd or 4th time Opera has been reborn in recent memory? I actually quite like where they're going with the user experience. But who owns Opera now?
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  A mix of google who owns the engine opera runs on and a consortium of chinese investors called Golden Brick Capital Private Equity Fund I Limited Partnership who bought it from Opera ASA summer 2016 after they were prevented from buying the whole Opera ASA company.
xbenjii 9y ago
Some shady stuff going on in an injected browser.js file: https://gist.github.com/xbenjii/2048d8edf135b04790be593ee69ec5e0 https://gist.github.com/xbenjii/2048d8edf135b04790be593ee69e...
- Macuyiko 9y ago
  Not really. All of these are mostly user agent modifications to pretend to be Chrome to make certain sites work, as well as some JavaScript event modification (with a similar purpose). The only "shady" thing is hiding the Chrome ad on Google's home page, though I guess you can consider that as a convenience once you decide to switch fully to another browser. I don't know how easy it would be to pull an update for that file however, in which case it could become shady in an instant.
  - neotek 9y ago
    Why would they need to update browser.js to do something shady, they can just drop in a brand new binary that does whatever they want it to do and the vast majority of users would be none the wiser.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- neotek 9y ago
  What's shady here?
- zimbatm 9y ago
  Those look like browser-compatibility fixes, mainly changing the user user agent to chrome on some websites. Or did I miss something?
denzil_correa 9y ago
blogs.opera.com throws me a security certificate error on Firefox
toyg 9y ago
Funny for this to happen on the same week I switched my default browser from Firefox to Vivaldi [1]. That is really "Opera reborn", since it's built and owned by the original team of Opera developers - which is probably why it's so good. [1] https://vivaldi.com/ https://vivaldi.com/
bigbugbag 9y ago
Hey this google chrome skin has made some progress since last time I heard about it. It's still light years behind opera 12 and sadly will never regain what it lost. If you're interested in the actual reborn opera experience, it's vivaldi you're looking for, opera co-founder and many for the original opera team is making vivaldi and though based on blink engine too, hence limited and unable to do exactly what opera used to, it has the same philosophy and vision. The other alternative is the free software otter[1] browser aiming at recreating the opera 12 experience. [0]: http://vivaldi.net/ http://vivaldi.net/ [1]: https://otter-browser.org/ https://otter-browser.org/
- nachtigall 9y ago
  > it's vivaldi which is, well, another google chrome skin ;)
neillyons 9y ago
I think if Opera had a price that would be a major distinguishing point from the other browsers. Tailor to those users IMHO.
- dorian-graph 9y ago
  It used to.
baby 9y ago
No tabs on the side :( ?
hoschicz 9y ago
EasyPrivacy by default means blocked Google Analytics on Opera.
arca_vorago 9y ago
Until they open source it I will not be touching Opera, despite some of the features in it I really like. The future is open source, and Opera is not.
acheilies 9y ago
Looks great!!!
Jedd 9y ago
> Social messengers completely changed our lives, by allowing us to work, discover new things and communicate at the same time. Nope. > One of its novelties is the ability to seamlessly hop between discovering new content and chatting with friends, or even share online discoveries while browsing. Happily I know no one that uses, or will use, this new version of Opera - I can imagine few things that would disrupt, annoy, and / or reduce my efficiency (or enjoyment) at my computer than being subject to even more random thoughts from the easily distracted.
- sangnoir 9y ago
  > > Social messengers completely changed our lives, by allowing us to work, discover new things and communicate at the same time. > Nope. Considering how much HN loves Slack (especially when paired with working remotely), I think you and I are in the minority. Some people can chat and work at the same time, apparently.
  - pwdisswordfish 9y ago
    People who don't like being distracted probably don't spend all their time on HN.
    - sangnoir 9y ago
      There's a world of a difference between planned "distractions" (mental breaks) and random interruptions: HN even provides a handy no-procrastination timer.
- JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
  >even more random thoughts from the easily distracted. It's like if Twitter could get in your browsing.
flamedoge 9y ago
Looks like Edge browser with UWP sidebar
- bloaf 9y ago
  I bet it can at least create bookmarks to arbitrary URLs though. http://imgur.com/FrXs6U6 http://imgur.com/FrXs6U6
JimDabell 9y ago
Why would I want a messenger application embedded in my web browser? What advantage does that have over simply having it as a separate application?
- laumars 9y ago
  I'm not going to disagree with your point in principle, but pragmatically that is how a lot of people are already using messenger apps. Whether it's having Facebook open in the browser and using FB Messenger, or Electron apps like Slack that have a full instance of Chrome running just for a messenger app.
  - JimDabell 9y ago
    People use Facebook in the browser because Facebook is a website that happened to have a messenger bolted on. Electron apps aren't relevant – I'm talking about the user experience, not the underlying technology. As far as the user is concerned, Slack is a standalone application.
    - laumars 9y ago
      > People use Facebook in the browser because Facebook is a website that happened to have a messenger bolted on. The point isn't why they use a browser. The point is that they do use a browser. So if they're doing it already then the idea of proper IM integration along a side panel is potentially a favourable one for a great many people. > Electron apps aren't relevant – I'm talking about the user experience, not the underlying technology. As far as the user is concerned, Slack is a standalone application. I know it's a standalone application but the relevance is down to the performance improvements you'd gain from integrating that into Opera (and thus sharing resources) rather than spinning up a new instance of Blink for each "application". The idea of that is quite appealing to me though sadly it looks like Slack support isn't available yet.
      - JimDabell 9y ago
        > The point isn't why they use a browser. The point is that they do use a browser. If you ask somebody why they are using Facebook in their browser, they'll tell you that it's because that's how you use Facebook Messenger. They won't tell you that it's because they want to message and surf the web at the same time. In fact it's terrible for this – Messenger is stuck on the Facebook site, so if you navigate away, it's either hidden away in a separate tab or gone altogether. People quite clearly don't use Facebook Messenger in a browser because they want to surf and message at the same time, which is quite clearly relevant to the questions of "why would I want this?" and "what value does this have as a product?". > I know it's a standalone application but the relevance is down to the performance improvements you'd gain from integrating that into Opera I don't think many people wish for better performance out of their messenger applications, certainly not enough to switch browser over, which again, makes me wonder what the market for this is.
znpy 9y ago
Considering how much I use the web-browser, how desperate for market share and money Opera is, and the fact that opera whatever it's called now is closed source, i would never even install it.
goosh453 9y ago
they should open the source already
JustSomeNobody 9y ago
> Browsing and chatting simultaneously is cumbersome and inefficient now, as you need to switch between tabs when responding to a message. We believe this needs to change. Then: >If you use more than one messenger, you can easily switch between them by using our shortcut key for quicker access (⌘ + ⇧ + m on macOS, CTRL + SHIFT + m on Windows and Linux). So, why would this be any better than switching tabs? One thing about a browser, I usually have my hand on my mouse and not the keyboard.
fiatjaf 9y ago
Why hardcode WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger instead of allowing multiple tabs showing up at the same time -- two of them could be WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger like a tiling window manager?
symmetricsaurus 9y ago
Ok, so I installed it to try it out. Trying to get the WhatsApp widget running it seems like I must allow access to the camera and the microphone on my computer. This is ridiculous. On mobile, this is not needed, and is maybe even fine. When the app is turned off you know it isn't listening or taking pictures. On a desktop computer there is no such guarantee. On the other hand this applies to all software I'm running. Maybe it's time to put a piece of tape over the camera.
- devopsproject 9y ago
  does your camera have an LED? It is supposed to be wired up in a way that the camera cannot be powered up without also turning the led on so you know it is active.
  - symmetricsaurus 9y ago
    Sometimes the LED can be turned off even if the camera is on. But that may require some extra sneakyness.
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      There's simple flag you can set now to control most LEDs on Linux. Eg http://www.0xf8.org/2009/09/the-shortcomings-of-the-linux-leds-api/ http://www.0xf8.org/2009/09/the-shortcomings-of-the-linux-le.... FWIW didn't work for my WiFi, had to use an alternative (modprobe.conf maybe?).
lilbobbytables 9y ago
I feel some MSN Explorer nostalgia.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
metehan 9y ago
great solution to the the problem not exist
b0rsuk 9y ago
Browser for extraverts.
eis 9y ago
The main driver for innovation and growth of the open web was that it is open. The diversity we got from that was tremendous. Anyone could make a website with whatever content they could think of and people all over the world could access it. There was some kind of "web neutrality" in browsers. They didn't prefer one site over the other. The second big boost came from extendability and customizability of browsers through extensions which gave people even more control over what they would consume. And on top of that, the browers became open source, a big win all around. Opera is going the other way. They have a closed source browser that directly integrates some specific products into the browser. You can't completely get rid of them, you can't integrate another product in the same way and I'd guess an extension can't mess with these pre-packaged addons. It's nice that you can have a messenger in a sidebar next to your current browsing page. But it's taking control away from users and that's not the way forward in an open web. Why can't this be an extension? Why can't it have a feature that lets me run two tabs side by side so I can choose what products to use there? In general I think this Opera Reborn is still far behind say Firefox or the official Chrome. Just now you can change the filter lists in their Adblocker something that adblocking extensions could do for years. Now you can change Operas theme, i could make Firefox look like whatever I wanted forever. For all the love that the old Opera deserved, I don't think Opera is the future of web browsing.
- ReverseCold 9y ago
  Vivaldi is a pretty good replacement for old Opera. Its based on the latest chromium (updated within a day or so of downstream updates), and has a lot of the "power user" features Opera had.
  - james_pm 9y ago
    I've been using Opera Beta for about a year now but with Vivaldi adding some more of the core features that were missing in earlier releases (bookmarks), it's probably worth another look.
    - aepiepaey 9y ago
      I tried Vivaldi recently and found it unusable. Much slower than other Chromes (Chrome, Opera), and the "open new tabs adjacent to current" functionality is buggy (something causes the tabs to open in an unrelated location).
felixsanz 9y ago
Cool, Opera innovates but Chrome is still the way to go. I want a browser not a social app...
d--b 9y ago
"the future of the browser" and the first 3 features mentioned are "integrated chat", "new color schemes" and "new logos". Uh?
niftich 9y ago
Are the FB Messenger, WhatsApp, and Telegram integrations official (i.e. known by, approved by, and/or supported by their respective companies)? Asking because I can't find a reverse-shoutout to Opera on either Facebook's, WhatsApp's, or Telegram's blog. This is not altogether unusual (especially given the recency of the Opera announcement) but it still makes me curious.
- jacobwg 9y ago
  I believe Opera is simply loading the webapps for these services in a web panel, so it's "official" in that it loads the official UI, but unofficial in that it's not a corporate partnership.
debuggerpk 9y ago
how does opera makes money now? as per my understanding, pre iOS and android era, opera dealt directly with device manufactures and sold their browser as default on them. Since andriod, how are they even making money now?
debuggerpk 9y ago
how does opera makes money now? as per my understanding, pre iOS and android era, opera dealt directly with device manufactures and sold their browser as default on them. Since andriod, how are they even making money now?
ivanhoe 9y ago
These moves that Opera now makes remind me a bit of how back in a day WinAmp didn't know how to fend off the competition, so they've started integrating tones of "extra functionality" out of sheer desperation... it never works
LordKano 9y ago
I guess it's time for me to be a crotchety old man again. Opera lost me when the followed Chrome in the elimination of the menu bar. If they haven't rectified that, I'll stick with Firefox.
- xphx 9y ago
  What is a menu bar offering you that makes or breaks a program for you versus several political, philosophical, ideological, practical, and technical other differences?
  - LordKano 9y ago
    UI Consistency.
    - Al-Khwarizmi 9y ago
      You're not alone. Opera lost me for that reason as well (no menubar plus no -even simulated- MDI), and it's also one of the main reasons why I use Otter and not Vivaldi (Vivaldi does have a menu bar, but with non-native behavior).
9BillionMistake 9y ago
On linux desktop can my Opera Tabs be at the top for the screen yet? No? Oh well, back to chrome.
9BillionMistake 9y ago
On linux desktop can my Opera Tabs be at the top for the screen yet? No? Oh well, back to chrome.
antisthenes 9y ago
As a non-techie, this just looks like a closed source Vivaldi clone. None of the listed features are relevant to me ("Animations", "fresh look and feel", etc.) and my adblock performance is already adequate.
- yoasif_ 9y ago
  Isn't Vivaldi also closed source?
zmix 9y ago
Tragic Fail ;-)
Markoff 9y ago
Chinese browser with access to all my data I visit during surfing? No thanks.
- tertans 9y ago
  American browser with access to all my data I visit during surfing? No thanks. Especially because I live in America.

322 points by riqbal 9y ago

I was under the impression that the rebirth of Opera Browser was Vivaldi, but it seems I was wrong. Bravo, guys. Nice work.

glennos 9y ago
I think Vivaldi is a new company started by the ex-Opera CEO.
mih 9y ago
True. For fans of Opera 12.x, Vivaldi is the reborn Opera. Though resource heavy and lacking a few features compared to the original Opera, Vivaldi is now stable enough to be my daily driver.

mrmondo 9y ago

I wouldn't be so cavalier about promoting VPN as a potential way to improve user security...

forvelin 9y ago

Looks nice, but doesn't it look like that Opera is tend to reborn every few years or so ? Still, I was long time Opera user but so far it didn't feel same after they went for webkit. This seems promising, time to try again.

nikita2206 9y ago
If only they decided that their awesome email client should live in a browser again. I still use Opera 12 solely for emails as their new dedicated email client was lacking a large number of features in comparison.
- pawadu 9y ago
  How secure is that?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

gagabity 9y ago

This reminds me of an interesting thing that happened when I uninstalled Opera VPN on my Android. After uninstalling it automatically opened up a browser to one of those "Tell us why you uninstalled" pages that you normally see on the desktop, this shouldn't be possible on Android. I think they are doing this by having Opera Browser watch for uninstallation of Opera VPN and possibly vice-versa and when one detects the other has been uninstalled it launches the page, clever but annoying.

pawadu 9y ago
How would this even work? The app cannot listen to system events. (I also think what you said is against Google ToS)
- zserge 9y ago
  I know that launchers normally detect when the package was installed/uninstalled. That's how they refresh the list of app icons. And launcher is just a regular app with no special permissions. I think some kind of an intent is broadcasted when the list of apps is changed.
- gagabity 9y ago
  From what I understand once an app is removed Android fires a ACTION_PACKAGE_REMOVED intent which can be picked up by other Apps.
yzmtf2008 9y ago
Um, before going down the conspiracy theory road, maybe do a simple google search? This is literally the top result for "android app on uninstall": http://stackoverflow.com/a/18816716/4944625 http://stackoverflow.com/a/18816716/4944625
- gagabity 9y ago
  I think what they are describing there runs before the uninstall does it not? Pretty sure mine was after the uninstall completed, which is not possible since the app is already gone by that point.

retrac98 9y ago

Where to Opera get their money? Building and maintaining a browser seems like an expensive undertaking, and yet despite nobody I know using or even testing their websites on Opera, they've been actively developing and maintaining their browser for years.

stillmotion 9y ago
Opera has been using WebKit as their core engine for the past couple of years.
- michalstanko 9y ago
  Actually it's WebKit fork by Google called Blink. And I do use Opera as a default browser. The correct Ctrl+Tab behaviour which works like Alt+Tab (switch between the most recent tabs, with a small popup list of tabs) is the main reason for that. Much more productive for me than the usual "cycle over all of open tabs sequentially" behaviour that Chrome, Firefox, and everyone else have (except the Vivaldi browser).
  - Shinkirou 9y ago
    Firefox has a toggle of that in settings.
  - FroggyMan 9y ago
    There is an option to change that behavior in Firefox.
    - bigbugbag 9y ago
      There's tabmixplus that is way better than changing setting in about:config. [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-mix-plus/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-mix-plus/
  - aembleton 9y ago
    In Firefox: 1. Go to about:config 2. Search for browser.ctrlTab.previews 3. Change value to `true` 4. Close tab Now your ctrl+tab should work as you want.

eps 9y ago

So chatting while browsing is the future of desktop browsing? Sounds rather... unambitious.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
Also seems very focused on a single use case / user group. Which isn't me, I use separate apps for chat, and maybe only facebook messenger with one person.
toyg 9y ago
It's also a simple rip-off of what Vivaldi already had, thanks to customisable side panels - which, to be fair, is itself a simple update of what Mozilla had back in the '90s. If this is the best Opera has to offer today, they won't last long.

aloisdg 9y ago

Did they open the Opera's source? They are still more place for more foss browser.

la_oveja 9y ago
I wish
bigbugbag 9y ago
They did not, but someone did it for them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13417307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13417307

Kholo 9y ago

Hey opera folks who might be reading this - work on simplifying offline access to web content. I want to be able to maintain ~100 GB of offline data store, full text searchable. Wikipedia, stackexchange\stackoverflow, khan academy, zealdocs and whole bunch of other sources of useful browser renderable web content provide dumps of their data. And then they end up having to build spl apps and extensions and other garbage that work around and hack cross domain/local file policy, just so the content already on my disk can be read and searched by the browser. When such a treasure trove of web content is accessible offline the browser can and should be the way to access it. As the web becomes more and more a corporate sponsored attention sink strong offline support can be a valuable browser feature.

jankotek 9y ago
Kiwix
threeseed 9y ago
Whilst I don't know many people who would be in your situation I do think that an offline, indexed data store could be very useful. Bookmarks even to this day are dreadfully implemented on all of the major browsers.
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  Bookmarks are obsolete and badly implemented for decades now. Bookmarks are subject to link rot, having more than a hundred of them is a timesink nightmare to manage, bookmarks are useless when you are offline,... the list goes on and on and I have yet to see any browser even try to do something to address these.
  - fwn 9y ago
    What's wrong with them? Bookmarks work great. They are not designed to be used as a personal knowledge base or a wiki. Edit: One of my most used bookmarks is to a specific url on localhost. I'd say bookmarks are as useless as a browser gets while you're offline.
  - 9y ago

la_oveja 9y ago

Telegram, FB Messenger, Whatsapp... No Slack?

steanne 9y ago
presumably, slack didn't pay them.
- la_oveja 9y ago
  I highly doubt that Telegram paid them either.

ruleabidinguser 9y ago

RockMelt 2?

tiku 9y ago

I've used their browser since a year now, because it has better battery saving than Chrome and some other cool features, like detaching video windows, built in VPN. You can now even use all the chrome plugins with another plugin, in Opera.

T-A 9y ago

we bring you Opera Reborn, the first browser to allow messengers to reside within your browser, without the need to install any extensions or apps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockmelt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockmelt

8draco8 9y ago
Vivaldi is doing that out of the box. Just drag and drop messenger.com on to left app bar, then right click and select Show desktop version. Voila!

lucb1e 9y ago

I'd like to try, but I'd probably not end up using it because it's not open source. I feel silly for rejecting a product based on that, but openness is important to me. Here's for hoping they open source it soon!

amiga-workbench 9y ago
I don't think you should feel silly for rejecting it for that reason, its a very valid complaint.
wjoe 9y ago
Same for me. Some of the changes Opera have been making are interesting, and they do seem to be doing more with the UI than Firefox and Chrome, who are removing as much UI as possible. But the social messenger stuff doesn't interest me, and having stuff like Facebook hard wired into a browser without having the source to know what it's actually sending to them really puts me off. I know Chromium is open source, but the interesting bits are in the stuff they've added on top, which is not.
ryukafalz 9y ago
My reasoning for not using it is largely the same. Especially when there are plenty of high-quality open source browsers, including two major ones (Chromium and Firefox). I'm not willing to switch to a proprietary browser just because it's a bit shinier.

Sagane 9y ago

I wonder why [.* ]baidu.com, [.* ]facebook.com, [.* ]google.com and [.* ]yandex.com are in the default list of exceptions when blocking ads. Any ideas?

funnyfacts365 9y ago
Money.
- Sagane 9y ago
  IIRC Opera has an agreement with Google to make it the default browser. I wonder what they have with Facebook, Baidu and Yandex. Maybe the default browser is region-based.
  - jacobr 9y ago
    Very much so. Google is less dominant in many markets where Opera is strong, so the bidding between Google and the local search engines is probably tough.

mathw 9y ago

Or even better, they could have made the side-by-side feature work for any web pages at all as a more general layout feature, with some kind of easy access toolbar to allow you to pop them in and out as desired. I think "Reborn" is a bit of a stretch here.

FridgeSeal 9y ago

Pretty sure Opera is part owned by a Chinese consortium now, and to my knowledge their revenue comes from ads and adtech. So not super certain how private it is likely to be...

rnabel 9y ago
Wikipedia lists this fund as the developer: http://www.goldenbrickcapital.com/en/Aboutus.html http://www.goldenbrickcapital.com/en/Aboutus.html
nomercy400 9y ago
FTFY: Pretty sure Chrome is part owned by an American consortium now, and to my knowledge their revenue comes from ads and adtech. So not super certain how private it is likely to be...
- H4CK3RM4N 9y ago
  That's why I don't use Chrome.
- dandelion_lover 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

theprop 9y ago

Reborn?! What! Opera is now a combination of the Epic Privacy Browser and the Vivaldi Browser. They copied Epic's privacy features and in-built VPN/proxy and Vivaldi's social networking sidebars (which incidentally Opera pioneered and Vivaldi's founder is the Opera co-founder).

romanovcode 9y ago

Closed source software owned by the Chinese. I'm no tinfoil-hat but this combination doesn't really strike as "privacy focused".

mtgx 9y ago

I gave up using Opera for good once it was acquired by the Chinese.

robjan 9y ago
Why do people say "the Chinese" as if Chinese people are some scary, out of this world concept or they are some kind of James Bond villain.
- jug 9y ago
  I don't really blame the Chinese people myself, it's the ways the Chinese government is embedded in their industries whether they want it or not that worry me, especially with a software like a web browser.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    You could have similar criticism of the US, see patriot act.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Markoff 9y ago
  because some of us lived in China and know how things go there with doing business and government, know how "safe" and "optimized" their apps are?
asadlionpk 9y ago
Isn't the US govt more evil than the Chinese govt (for non-residents atleast)?
bigbugbag 9y ago
Latecomer to the party? I gave up using Opera for good as soon as it became a vassal for a US company.

jug 9y ago

I don't dare to use this since Opera got bought by that Chinese consortium of companies I'm not accustomed with. Not sure if I'm overly cautious? I'm thinking of especially Opera Link (which had a recent security breach to boot!). Wouldn't that leave out my passwords to China? And I do want to use some sort of syncing, I'd go crazy without anything there or some iffy third party addon. It's not even just about a trust issue with Chinese company culture. It's that the Chinese government have ways of getting into even resisting companies at their whim that are judged alright in completely different ways than in Norwegian law. So; even if I trusted Opera Software, even if I trusted this consortium that I don't know, even then...?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
bigbugbag 9y ago
Is this limited to Opera and China ? This kind of reasoning also applies to facebook, any alphabet or google product/service, apple, uber, airbnb, and pretty much any company/service that's based in the US where the patriot act pretty much makes all these companies open bar for the US government.
- shakna 9y ago
  There is a difference between the engine I use to access a large variety of websites, and a single website/service.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    I'm confused. Is "the engine you use to access a large variety of websites" Opera, or Google the search engine? If it's Opera, Chrome then is no better (and arguably Gmail holds the keys to your kingdom anyway). If it's Google, Chrome is no better, and Gmail holds the keys to your kingdom anyway. More generally, I don't see how China having your browsing history is worse than the US having your browsing history and your authentication attempts and all your contacts and just everything, completely everything.

kmfrk 9y ago

Opera's been rebooted more times than the Spider-Man movies at this point.

analogmemory 9y ago

If I ignore your weird racist overtones. Why would you trust Google/Apple/Firefox more?

borzale 9y ago
I don't think it's fair to equate not trusting the Chinese government with racism.
- vanderZwan 9y ago
  Opera was bought by Chinese companies, not the Chinese government.
  - mikeyjk 9y ago
    Subject to Chinese laws though.. although what gets enforced is a different matter.
  - Markoff 9y ago
    it's pretty much same, if you wanna do business in China, you must give access to all your data to chinese government and do selfcensorship
- netsharc 9y ago
  But thinking US companies are different because they claim they're not working with the American surveillance state is mostly deluding one's self. If you ask them, Opera can also probably issue a statement saying that they don't let the Chinese surveillance state spy on them, if one says "I believe you" to one class of orgs, and "I don't believe you" to another class, and the difference is the race... Obviously in the US there's more checks and balances, to make a company's statement more believable. Or that's what we believe anyway...
  - matlock 9y ago
    >Obviously in the US there's more checks and balances, to make a company's statement more believable. Or that's what we believe anyway... Without significant prove that this is not the case this handwaving way of comparing the US democratic state to China is just wrong. From Consumer protection to free and fair elections the US system is almost nothing alike the chinese system. Of course the US has massive issues (as do other Western democratic nations) but this handwavy "well they just don't tell you' stuff without actual good data behind is just destroys any credibility and is a huge problem for our democracies. Please stop doing it unless you provide exhaustive evidence.

steinso 9y ago

So the chat program has to be on the left side, what if I want to move it somewhere else? Perhaps it could reside in a little "window", then it could be moved anywhere! ....wait, this sounds familiar. /s

sprafa 9y ago

Opera used to be amazing, a few years ago it had a built in RSS, mail and IRC client, then even later (and right before the acquisition) they were still ahead with their UX by having a "Read Later" section to the browser and allowing you to easily customise and make folders in your "first page". Now its just a mess and Vivaldi is not much better.

red_hairing 9y ago
opera is not a mess--it is the best of the browsers...i use it as default browser on my desktop...opera is easily better than chrome or firefox...has far far fewer issues and slowdowns and freezes and crashes...opera is a great browser...

Falkon1313 9y ago

>desktops and laptops, while theoretically more powerful multitasking tools, have been left behind >Browsing and chatting simultaneously is cumbersome and inefficient now, as you need to switch between tabs when responding to a message Or, since we all have widescreen monitors (and often multiple monitors) you could just have your messengers in a window next to the browser instead of a sidebar within the browser. Seems like a solution looking for a problem. What good is allowing messengers to reside within your browser other than that it lets the people who are tracking your browsing habits simultaneously spy on your messages?

H4CK3RM4N 9y ago
At this point your browser is your OS(with Blink as the kernel, Chrome(ium) as the init/package manager and Opera as the DE), so something like this does makes sense. I just wish that web developers would realise how terrible of an idea this trend is.
- toxican 9y ago
  It's almost always some ass hole above the developers. We're not idiots and we know what does/doesn't work. But we don't always make the decisions.
ryu2k2 9y ago
>What good is allowing messengers to reside within your browser other than that it lets the people who are tracking your browsing habits simultaneously spy on your messages? I highly doubt third parties have access to the messenger tab. It's a neat addition that works well for people who browse in one fullscreenized window.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
> Or, since we all have widescreen monitors (and often multiple monitors) you could just have your messengers in a window next to the browser instead of a sidebar within the browser. Except that - unless you're on a tiling WM on Linux - your window manager sucks, and solution like this is barely usable (hard to keep the windows properly aligned, hard to have them simultaneously on the foreground when other windows come into the mix, etc. etd.). I agree that solutions like that shouldn't be in browsers. But it's cheaper this way for the app vendors...

nonsince 9y ago

I really like the concept of bringing i3-style tiling management to the browser space, but why is it specific to messengers? Since most well-designed websites work at any size, couldn't you just have a permanent tab at the side of the screen of, say, twitter, or some browser-based IRC client? Admittedly, I'd probably use facebook messenger as this tab anyway, so my needs are covered, but it seems like a missed opportunity. Obviously more technically-inclined individuals on more technically-inclined OS's have this already with proper tiling window managers but Windows and MacOS users probably don't want that system-wide and the browser would be the perfect place to introduce it.

H4CK3RM4N 9y ago
Safari has their pinned tab which makes it easily accessible, if not always open.
claudius 9y ago
Ironically, the old Opera did have this feature, where you could arrange tabs side-by-side within the browser window…
nly 9y ago
Opera had tiling some 12-15 years ago. By default tabs were just 'maximized' to the full window, and they made it harder and harder to access with subsequent versions. I'm not even sure if it made it to the latest presto release (version 12). Edit: the Wikipedia page shows tiling in Opera 1.0 in 1995... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Opera_web_browser#/media/File:MultiTorg_Opera.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Opera_web_brows... I'm with you though. I dumped Opera the moment they became a featureless skin around Chrome. Such a sad event Operas best days were the early to mid 2000s
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  Just fired up the real opera (v12.16 b1860) I still have around and use occasionally to this day to test this. Sure enough the tiling feature is there. Right click the tab bar and go to the arrange menu.

TomyMMX 9y ago

How is it possible that Opera got all my saved passwords and sh*t from Chrome? I did not authorize this during install.

rekshaw 9y ago
Wow I didn't realize that. That's incredibly intrusive.
bigbugbag 9y ago
Unless they stopped since last time I checked, they also insert sponsored stuff in your bookmarks at each update.
H4CK3RM4N 9y ago
I think it uses Chrome's codebase, including the secure storage locations.
- r3bl 9y ago
  Regardless, this shouldn't be possible. Chrome is supposed to tie them with the single instance you're running. You can't just copy the Chrome folder and transfer it to another location. You'd have to use Chrome's Sync for that. I'm assuming Chrome has been opened at the same time by the OP, allowing Opera to snatch the passwords and other shit, making an intrusion into Chrome's data. But, on the other hand, I was able to copy the data from a Chrome extension after a system crash on one machine and extract the data to a new machine just fine by reinstalling the extension and then pasting the extension's folder to the same location where it was on the previous machine. Since that extension was Mailvelope, I would essentially lose a private key in this case if that wasn't possible, since I didn't have the backup of it. Not sure if I would call that bug or a feature.
  - TomyMMX 9y ago
    I did have Chrome open at that time.. that is true. But still... this is some weird sh*t... they should have at least asked me before.

polskibus 9y ago

Slightly offtopic, did entire Opera development moved to Poland? Is that part of new strategy under new owner or was it like that for a long time?

kleff 9y ago
The core team in Oslo got laid off after the webkit switch in 2013, not sure how many remained in the other teams. But as far as I know there is nothing but sales and admin left in Norway now.

rcgs 9y ago

I think this is the 3rd or 4th time Opera has been reborn in recent memory? I actually quite like where they're going with the user experience. But who owns Opera now?

bigbugbag 9y ago
A mix of google who owns the engine opera runs on and a consortium of chinese investors called Golden Brick Capital Private Equity Fund I Limited Partnership who bought it from Opera ASA summer 2016 after they were prevented from buying the whole Opera ASA company.

xbenjii 9y ago

Some shady stuff going on in an injected browser.js file: https://gist.github.com/xbenjii/2048d8edf135b04790be593ee69ec5e0 https://gist.github.com/xbenjii/2048d8edf135b04790be593ee69e...

Macuyiko 9y ago
Not really. All of these are mostly user agent modifications to pretend to be Chrome to make certain sites work, as well as some JavaScript event modification (with a similar purpose). The only "shady" thing is hiding the Chrome ad on Google's home page, though I guess you can consider that as a convenience once you decide to switch fully to another browser. I don't know how easy it would be to pull an update for that file however, in which case it could become shady in an instant.
- neotek 9y ago
  Why would they need to update browser.js to do something shady, they can just drop in a brand new binary that does whatever they want it to do and the vast majority of users would be none the wiser.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
neotek 9y ago
What's shady here?
zimbatm 9y ago
Those look like browser-compatibility fixes, mainly changing the user user agent to chrome on some websites. Or did I miss something?

denzil_correa 9y ago

blogs.opera.com throws me a security certificate error on Firefox

toyg 9y ago

Funny for this to happen on the same week I switched my default browser from Firefox to Vivaldi [1]. That is really "Opera reborn", since it's built and owned by the original team of Opera developers - which is probably why it's so good. [1] https://vivaldi.com/ https://vivaldi.com/

bigbugbag 9y ago

Hey this google chrome skin has made some progress since last time I heard about it. It's still light years behind opera 12 and sadly will never regain what it lost. If you're interested in the actual reborn opera experience, it's vivaldi you're looking for, opera co-founder and many for the original opera team is making vivaldi and though based on blink engine too, hence limited and unable to do exactly what opera used to, it has the same philosophy and vision. The other alternative is the free software otter[1] browser aiming at recreating the opera 12 experience. [0]: http://vivaldi.net/ http://vivaldi.net/ [1]: https://otter-browser.org/ https://otter-browser.org/

nachtigall 9y ago
> it's vivaldi which is, well, another google chrome skin ;)

neillyons 9y ago

I think if Opera had a price that would be a major distinguishing point from the other browsers. Tailor to those users IMHO.

dorian-graph 9y ago
It used to.

baby 9y ago

No tabs on the side :( ?

hoschicz 9y ago

EasyPrivacy by default means blocked Google Analytics on Opera.

arca_vorago 9y ago

Until they open source it I will not be touching Opera, despite some of the features in it I really like. The future is open source, and Opera is not.

acheilies 9y ago

Looks great!!!

Jedd 9y ago

> Social messengers completely changed our lives, by allowing us to work, discover new things and communicate at the same time. Nope. > One of its novelties is the ability to seamlessly hop between discovering new content and chatting with friends, or even share online discoveries while browsing. Happily I know no one that uses, or will use, this new version of Opera - I can imagine few things that would disrupt, annoy, and / or reduce my efficiency (or enjoyment) at my computer than being subject to even more random thoughts from the easily distracted.

sangnoir 9y ago
> > Social messengers completely changed our lives, by allowing us to work, discover new things and communicate at the same time. > Nope. Considering how much HN loves Slack (especially when paired with working remotely), I think you and I are in the minority. Some people can chat and work at the same time, apparently.
- pwdisswordfish 9y ago
  People who don't like being distracted probably don't spend all their time on HN.
  - sangnoir 9y ago
    There's a world of a difference between planned "distractions" (mental breaks) and random interruptions: HN even provides a handy no-procrastination timer.
JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
>even more random thoughts from the easily distracted. It's like if Twitter could get in your browsing.

flamedoge 9y ago

Looks like Edge browser with UWP sidebar

bloaf 9y ago
I bet it can at least create bookmarks to arbitrary URLs though. http://imgur.com/FrXs6U6 http://imgur.com/FrXs6U6

JimDabell 9y ago

Why would I want a messenger application embedded in my web browser? What advantage does that have over simply having it as a separate application?

laumars 9y ago
I'm not going to disagree with your point in principle, but pragmatically that is how a lot of people are already using messenger apps. Whether it's having Facebook open in the browser and using FB Messenger, or Electron apps like Slack that have a full instance of Chrome running just for a messenger app.
- JimDabell 9y ago
  People use Facebook in the browser because Facebook is a website that happened to have a messenger bolted on. Electron apps aren't relevant – I'm talking about the user experience, not the underlying technology. As far as the user is concerned, Slack is a standalone application.
  - laumars 9y ago
    > People use Facebook in the browser because Facebook is a website that happened to have a messenger bolted on. The point isn't why they use a browser. The point is that they do use a browser. So if they're doing it already then the idea of proper IM integration along a side panel is potentially a favourable one for a great many people. > Electron apps aren't relevant – I'm talking about the user experience, not the underlying technology. As far as the user is concerned, Slack is a standalone application. I know it's a standalone application but the relevance is down to the performance improvements you'd gain from integrating that into Opera (and thus sharing resources) rather than spinning up a new instance of Blink for each "application". The idea of that is quite appealing to me though sadly it looks like Slack support isn't available yet.
    - JimDabell 9y ago
      > The point isn't why they use a browser. The point is that they do use a browser. If you ask somebody why they are using Facebook in their browser, they'll tell you that it's because that's how you use Facebook Messenger. They won't tell you that it's because they want to message and surf the web at the same time. In fact it's terrible for this – Messenger is stuck on the Facebook site, so if you navigate away, it's either hidden away in a separate tab or gone altogether. People quite clearly don't use Facebook Messenger in a browser because they want to surf and message at the same time, which is quite clearly relevant to the questions of "why would I want this?" and "what value does this have as a product?". > I know it's a standalone application but the relevance is down to the performance improvements you'd gain from integrating that into Opera I don't think many people wish for better performance out of their messenger applications, certainly not enough to switch browser over, which again, makes me wonder what the market for this is.

znpy 9y ago

Considering how much I use the web-browser, how desperate for market share and money Opera is, and the fact that opera whatever it's called now is closed source, i would never even install it.

goosh453 9y ago

they should open the source already

JustSomeNobody 9y ago

> Browsing and chatting simultaneously is cumbersome and inefficient now, as you need to switch between tabs when responding to a message. We believe this needs to change. Then: >If you use more than one messenger, you can easily switch between them by using our shortcut key for quicker access (⌘ + ⇧ + m on macOS, CTRL + SHIFT + m on Windows and Linux). So, why would this be any better than switching tabs? One thing about a browser, I usually have my hand on my mouse and not the keyboard.

fiatjaf 9y ago

Why hardcode WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger instead of allowing multiple tabs showing up at the same time -- two of them could be WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger like a tiling window manager?

symmetricsaurus 9y ago

Ok, so I installed it to try it out. Trying to get the WhatsApp widget running it seems like I must allow access to the camera and the microphone on my computer. This is ridiculous. On mobile, this is not needed, and is maybe even fine. When the app is turned off you know it isn't listening or taking pictures. On a desktop computer there is no such guarantee. On the other hand this applies to all software I'm running. Maybe it's time to put a piece of tape over the camera.

devopsproject 9y ago
does your camera have an LED? It is supposed to be wired up in a way that the camera cannot be powered up without also turning the led on so you know it is active.
- symmetricsaurus 9y ago
  Sometimes the LED can be turned off even if the camera is on. But that may require some extra sneakyness.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    There's simple flag you can set now to control most LEDs on Linux. Eg http://www.0xf8.org/2009/09/the-shortcomings-of-the-linux-leds-api/ http://www.0xf8.org/2009/09/the-shortcomings-of-the-linux-le.... FWIW didn't work for my WiFi, had to use an alternative (modprobe.conf maybe?).

lilbobbytables 9y ago

I feel some MSN Explorer nostalgia.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

metehan 9y ago

great solution to the the problem not exist

b0rsuk 9y ago

Browser for extraverts.

eis 9y ago

The main driver for innovation and growth of the open web was that it is open. The diversity we got from that was tremendous. Anyone could make a website with whatever content they could think of and people all over the world could access it. There was some kind of "web neutrality" in browsers. They didn't prefer one site over the other. The second big boost came from extendability and customizability of browsers through extensions which gave people even more control over what they would consume. And on top of that, the browers became open source, a big win all around. Opera is going the other way. They have a closed source browser that directly integrates some specific products into the browser. You can't completely get rid of them, you can't integrate another product in the same way and I'd guess an extension can't mess with these pre-packaged addons. It's nice that you can have a messenger in a sidebar next to your current browsing page. But it's taking control away from users and that's not the way forward in an open web. Why can't this be an extension? Why can't it have a feature that lets me run two tabs side by side so I can choose what products to use there? In general I think this Opera Reborn is still far behind say Firefox or the official Chrome. Just now you can change the filter lists in their Adblocker something that adblocking extensions could do for years. Now you can change Operas theme, i could make Firefox look like whatever I wanted forever. For all the love that the old Opera deserved, I don't think Opera is the future of web browsing.

ReverseCold 9y ago
Vivaldi is a pretty good replacement for old Opera. Its based on the latest chromium (updated within a day or so of downstream updates), and has a lot of the "power user" features Opera had.
- james_pm 9y ago
  I've been using Opera Beta for about a year now but with Vivaldi adding some more of the core features that were missing in earlier releases (bookmarks), it's probably worth another look.
  - aepiepaey 9y ago
    I tried Vivaldi recently and found it unusable. Much slower than other Chromes (Chrome, Opera), and the "open new tabs adjacent to current" functionality is buggy (something causes the tabs to open in an unrelated location).

felixsanz 9y ago

Cool, Opera innovates but Chrome is still the way to go. I want a browser not a social app...

d--b 9y ago

"the future of the browser" and the first 3 features mentioned are "integrated chat", "new color schemes" and "new logos". Uh?

niftich 9y ago

Are the FB Messenger, WhatsApp, and Telegram integrations official (i.e. known by, approved by, and/or supported by their respective companies)? Asking because I can't find a reverse-shoutout to Opera on either Facebook's, WhatsApp's, or Telegram's blog. This is not altogether unusual (especially given the recency of the Opera announcement) but it still makes me curious.

jacobwg 9y ago
I believe Opera is simply loading the webapps for these services in a web panel, so it's "official" in that it loads the official UI, but unofficial in that it's not a corporate partnership.

debuggerpk 9y ago

how does opera makes money now? as per my understanding, pre iOS and android era, opera dealt directly with device manufactures and sold their browser as default on them. Since andriod, how are they even making money now?

debuggerpk 9y ago

ivanhoe 9y ago

These moves that Opera now makes remind me a bit of how back in a day WinAmp didn't know how to fend off the competition, so they've started integrating tones of "extra functionality" out of sheer desperation... it never works

LordKano 9y ago

I guess it's time for me to be a crotchety old man again. Opera lost me when the followed Chrome in the elimination of the menu bar. If they haven't rectified that, I'll stick with Firefox.

xphx 9y ago
What is a menu bar offering you that makes or breaks a program for you versus several political, philosophical, ideological, practical, and technical other differences?
- LordKano 9y ago
  UI Consistency.
  - Al-Khwarizmi 9y ago
    You're not alone. Opera lost me for that reason as well (no menubar plus no -even simulated- MDI), and it's also one of the main reasons why I use Otter and not Vivaldi (Vivaldi does have a menu bar, but with non-native behavior).

9BillionMistake 9y ago

On linux desktop can my Opera Tabs be at the top for the screen yet? No? Oh well, back to chrome.

9BillionMistake 9y ago

On linux desktop can my Opera Tabs be at the top for the screen yet? No? Oh well, back to chrome.

antisthenes 9y ago

As a non-techie, this just looks like a closed source Vivaldi clone. None of the listed features are relevant to me ("Animations", "fresh look and feel", etc.) and my adblock performance is already adequate.

yoasif_ 9y ago
Isn't Vivaldi also closed source?

zmix 9y ago

Tragic Fail ;-)

Markoff 9y ago

Chinese browser with access to all my data I visit during surfing? No thanks.

tertans 9y ago
American browser with access to all my data I visit during surfing? No thanks. Especially because I live in America.