10 ms·

Opera launches as a snap for Linux users

88 points by popey 8y ago

purerandomness 8y ago
Can somebody explain who's the target audience for Flatpak/Snap? Doesn't each distro provide packages for software?
- maccio92 8y ago
  it sounds like an alternative way to handle package management to me. instead of installing packages directly, they're containerized and run through whatever container system is present
- JohnTHaller 8y ago
  Most distros have an integrated app store for the usual suspects (Firefox, LibreOffice, GIMP, etc) but proprietary third party apps like Opera aren't included and are more difficult to install. The less technically inclined generally don't install third party software.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Security conscious users. I don't want random software reading $HOME just because it runs under my user account.
  - peatmoss 8y ago
    I’m a little behind the times on Snaps, as I mostly don’t interact with Ubuntu via its stock UI. But I’m seeing other users complain about the lack of signing / verified publishers in the (proprietary?) Snap store. Thoughts on the tradeoffs here? How sandboxed are these apps? Clearly I’ve got some reading to do.
    - freeone3000 8y ago
      They're sandboxed with AppArmor, which allows restriction to rwx. Checking an app's permissions profile can tell you what it's allowed to read and write. It's like SELinux, but instead of capabilities, it's a list of files. (But everything* on linux is a file*, so that's probably good enough?)
      - kyrofa 8y ago
        There is other tech involved as well, such as seccomp to disable certain syscalls (e.g. networking).
- pmontra 8y ago
  From what I read in the past year it's easier to build a snap (kind of building a docker image) than packaging for a distro: at least two formats (apt and yum) and several variants (at least the LTSes of the main distros). So the target audience could be the developers of the applications, not the users. I'll be using Opera from the apt repository until they build a .deb. Then I'll see what to do. Disk is cheap but even my 1 TB SSD is not unlimited. My docker images for work already suck up much space.
- jillesvangurp 8y ago
  The problem with package managers/installers/setup scripts/etc. is that they turn file systems in a mess and that filesystems tend to be different between linux installations, even of the same distribution. So snaps do for user facing software what docker did for server side software. Good idea in general and since most distributions struggle to stay on top of release quality updates from upstream, a great way to stay up to date, quickly try out some sofware package, or download software that your linux distribution hasn't gotten around to absorbing into their repositories. Sort of the Linux equivalent of dragging an OS X .app file to your /Applications folder (or to trash for uninstall). There's no good technical reason for application install/uninstall to be more complex than that. Normal user facing software should not require modifications to the OS to run. The linux practice of packages basically taking a royal dump on the filesystem and generally requiring root access to even get installed is no longer something that is remotely sane to do. IMHO, operating systems should ultimately be immutable and basically be similar to a snap. You update it as a whole and you don't modify parts of it. Linux has had a hard time with end users despite decades of "surely this year is the year of linux on the desktop". Never happened. A lot of that has to do with software installation, package managers and upgrades being a convoluted mess that always ends up in somebody doing stuff in a command line terminal to fix.
  - purerandomness 8y ago
    Thank you, that explains a lot.
  - shrimp_emoji 8y ago
    >Linux has had a hard time with end users despite decades of "surely this year is the year of linux on the desktop". Never happened. A lot of that has to do with software installation, package managers and upgrades being a convoluted mess that always ends up in somebody doing stuff in a command line terminal to fix. Snap still has a little bit to go to be much better though! The "programs shouldn't mess with the system" mentality includes restrictions to the filesystem. That's a problem because many programs do need to mess with local files (e.g., sending a file in an IM program, working on a file, saving a file...). You get a spooky message about installing such programs with "classic" permissions, and, even then, such functionality suffers. Discord can only access some subset of the filesystem, and Skype straight up crashes when it tries. Also, opening links in Discord doesn't work in the Snap version while it does in the non-Snap version. Rabble! But the idea is great. Convenience and no dynamic library breakage for some MB of disk space in ${current_year}? Yes, plz!
octosphere 8y ago
About time. I could never find a reliable way to get Opera running on Linux (Ubuntu).
- crtasm 8y ago
  What was the issue? I installed it on lubuntu maybe 1.5yrs back and it's been zero hassle.
- teddyh 8y ago
  http://www.opera.com/computer/linux http://www.opera.com/computer/linux
  - pmontra 8y ago
    I saw the parent got downvoted but it's correct. The .deb configures the ppa to get the updates. Check http://deb.opera.com/ http://deb.opera.com/ It installs mine from http://deb.opera.com/opera-stable/dists/stable/non-free/binary-amd64/ http://deb.opera.com/opera-stable/dists/stable/non-free/bina... It always worked well, both the updates and Opera (Ubuntu 16.04)
darren0 8y ago
As a technology, I've had far better experience with snap over flatpak. It does bother me though with snaps that it all seems tied to a proprietary store. Does anyone know if it's possible to run the server side components yourself.
- sitzkrieg 8y ago
  you can download a snap not unlike a deb and install it, if thats what you are after
  - eikenberry 8y ago
    I think they meant more about running your own snap repo that people could point snap to and get things. Say like an internal company snap repo.
msl09 8y ago
I really wished snaps worked well on most distros but as of now I always run into a bunch of bugs when installing stuff from it.
- carlob 8y ago
  Agreed, there are way too many apps that were developed without the sandbox in mind and just don't work as a snap...
pleasecalllater 8y ago
Opera was great years ago. Now it's just another chrome clone.
- maccio92 8y ago
  chrome clone without google's greedy fingers in all my business sounds like a win to me.
  - maxyme 8y ago
    Except now Opera is owned by a Chinese security firm so you have to deal with their greedy fingers. https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/18/opera-browser-sold-to-a-chinese-consortium-for-600-million/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/18/opera-browser-sold-to-a-...
    - logix 8y ago
      It depends if you want the Chinese or the west spying on you. I'd go with the China.
      - binomialxenon 8y ago
        Or, take a third option and use a non-spying browser??
        type0 8y ago
        Here you go: https://browser.yandex.com/ https://browser.yandex.com/
- Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
  Unfortunately true. Although, with the built-in mouse gestures and ad blocking without having to maintain extensions that bog things down, ask for their own updates, etc.; I still find it to be the least bad browser available. Vivaldi is too slow and Otter Browser is not quite there yet. But I still miss Opera 12...
jannes 8y ago
I really like Opera as a browser. But I am still wary of its owners. 48.0%: Beijing Kunlun Tech Co., Ltd. (Zhou Yahui) 27.5%: Qifei International Development Co. Limited (Qihoo 360) 19.5%: Keeneyes Future Holdings Inc (Zhou Yahui) 5.0%: Golden Brick Capital Private Equity Fund I L.P. I don't know anything about these firms and whether I can trust them. Something about this ownership structure just makes me uneasy about the product.
- toyg 8y ago
  I think it just reflects the only market that really cares about it, i.e. the Asian one.
- shakna 8y ago
  As with all things Chinese, the story is never entirely clear. Propaganda from both sides of the Firewall obscure a lot. However... --- Qihoo 360 may be the owners of StartCom, and WoSign, who behaved so badly both Chrome and Firefox have decided their certificates can never be trusted again. Got to figure that it isn't an accident that they bought a (large) interest in Opera. And there's the confusing story of the Chinese government sanctioning Qihoo 360 themselves over privacy violations to do with webcams. They tend to be a company mired in controversy. (They also have the controlling share in Golden Brick Capital). --- Beijing Kunlun Tech aren't that well known in the West. They started out as online gambling, however they also bought out Grindr, and now a controlling stake in Opera. They don't seem to have a huge amount of direction, besides blasting adverts and trying to eak out a profit wherever they can. Which they seem extremely successful in. Successful enough that Zhou Yahui ended up paying $1.1billion to settle a divorce with his wife quite recently. --- So, basically, ownership is split between a gambling tycoon, and a company with an awful reputation around security and privacy who have a vested interest in a browser, and how they can influence the web from it.
Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
Snaps and flatpaks are just a vector for malware. They're worse in every way than a traditional package manager. I'm all for packages which containerize their software (we already chroot a lot of software like this), but snaps/flatpaks are just dumb. There's no substitute for your package maintainer personally auditing and preparing the package for you.
- stemc43 8y ago
  noone is going to prep packages for dozens distros with different distribution mechanism. too complicated|time consuming - why Linux doesn't have first world apps.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
    No one is expecting you to, nor do I trust you to. Distro maintainers do this, not software developers.
    - ansgri 8y ago
      How do I get my favorite app included as a user? As a publisher? The maintainer has his own schedule. What if I have a closed-source app? I presume it's just better than PPA and *.deb-s (which would be acceptable if all desktop Linux was based on Ubuntu).
      - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
        You ask. Find a maintainer who works on similar or related software and send them an email. Send them a patch. Your closed source app can shove it.
        stemc43 8y ago
        yeah. that's wishy-washy dreamworld. For 20 years Ive been using Linux - noone bothered packaging A-level apps for Linux, definitely not closed source ones. That's been enough of a trial run I would say.
kbumsik 8y ago
Opera, if you are watchng this thread, could you please update the outdated documentation on the command line option? [1] This command line format was valid until 5 years ago, when Opera switched to Chromium. Currently Opera only works with Chromium’s command line format and the documentation does not mention about this. I noticed this problem when I was answering a SO question [2] so I contacted Opera but there is no response. [1]: https://www.opera.com/docs/switches/ https://www.opera.com/docs/switches/ [2]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51123537/webbrowser-open-breaks-the-link-python-3-7/51128165#51128165 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51123537/webbrowser-open...
conradk 8y ago
I tried using Ubuntu 18.04 recently. While snap seem like a good idea, the main issue I have is that there seems to be no way to know who publishes snaps. A list of approved vendors would be useful. Sure, there are some 'Verified Accounts', and Opera has one. But the main app for Slack, Spotify, Telegram Desktop or BitWarden come from unverified accounts. And some of these are not sandboxed, like the Slack app. Having BitWarden, a password manager, use an unverified account seems totally crazy.
- Iolaum 8y ago
  I like snaps but I ve stopped using them because they auto update Windows10 style. In the snap forums a lot of people asked for the ability to disable updates in order to update only when you want. Integration with the software and updates app in Ubuntu would go a long way here. But no snap devs have refused that (unless you are an enterprise customer and use a proprietary extension). So if you have snaps their update process is totally separate from other apps in your Ubuntu desktop and outside of your control barring some time settings for soft auto update exceptions hidden in the CLI interface.
  - bengotow 8y ago
    I think this is largely because for developers, the auto-updating is one of the biggest selling points of the snap distribution method.
  - themihai 8y ago
    The developers don't want to maintain old clients...backward compatibility proved too expensive. Apple proved autoupdate is the way. Browser vendors did the same.
    - binomialxenon 8y ago
      I don't think people expect old clients to be maintained, but I generally don't like auto-updating. I don't want my computer to use CPU, disk I/O, or network bandwidth for updates except when it's convenient for me. Also, in some cases it can be worth it to stick with an older version if a newer version introduces a bug or something.
kaskavalci 8y ago
I don't understand using a browser that is developed by a for-profit company which happens to be their only product. Because of current owners, I would never use Opera. Firefox is pretty good guys. You should check it out. And also donate. disclaimer: no association with Mozilla/Firefox in any way.
- minikites 8y ago
  Chrome is the other outlier here. Apple and Microsoft have no real reason to spy on you when you use Safari or Edge and Firefox is operated by a not-for-profit entity. Google and Opera's entire business model depend on surveilling their users.
  - JdeBP 8y ago
    Vivaldi claims that it is entirely employee-owned. * https://vivaldi.com/company/ https://vivaldi.com/company/
- qop 8y ago
  Opera is incredibly smooth, works on every device I own, it's fast. The new ownership situation isn't optimal but the quality hasn't gone to shit yet imo. I remember when opera used to have an IMAP client built in and you could open up an IRC chat tab, it had so much cool stuff! Mozilla is terrible. Way too left, low quality everything. Mozilla is the single most toxic thing in software culture in the past fifteen years, imo. Your remark is sorta like "I don't trust Frigidaire, they only have one product!" Which of course places you in perfect position to shill for Mozilla.
  - lucideer 8y ago
    > the quality hasn't gone to shit yet imo. > I remember when opera used to have an IMAP client built in and you could open up an IRC chat tab, it had so much cool stuff! Don't really understand those two comments. You're saying it hasn't gone to shit yet but then you're describing the features from Opera 12, before Opera switched to the new Chrome-based browser they ship now without any of those features. I was a long time Opera user back when it had all those cool features, and dropped it when it dropped them. Many of its long term users did the same and many of their internal devs left too. I'd say Opera very much went to shit in 2013. > Mozilla is the single most toxic thing in software culture in the past fifteen years, imo. Curious about this view; I've been a bit lost since the Opera exodus, looking for a decent alternative. Mozilla's got some problems, but they're the best I've found sofar. What's toxic about them?
peterwwillis 8y ago
Can anyone who has released commercial Linux software comment on providing giant static binaries to distribute apps? I always found this the easiest way to adopt a 3rd party app on Linux, but I don't know how difficult it is in practice if the app is humongous and complicated.
newnewpdro 8y ago
Get ready for all the Linux malware!
subsection1h 8y ago
Weird. Many (most?) of the commenters in this thread have accounts created in 2017-2018: AnIdiotOnTheNet, binomialxenon, Boulth, crtasm, Iolaum, jillesvangurp, kyrofa, logix, maccio92, maxyme, newnewpdro, octosphere, pleasecalllater, sincerely, sitzkrieg, shrimp_emoji, taway234252, xmmrm
- kyrofa 8y ago
  Yep. Thank HN for not supporting account renames. My old account has higher karma, too.
  - stuartaxelowen 8y ago
    My account literally has my old legal name, and can't be changed
- nickthemagicman 8y ago
  What does this imply? Bots? Just curious.

88 points by popey 8y ago

purerandomness 8y ago

Can somebody explain who's the target audience for Flatpak/Snap? Doesn't each distro provide packages for software?

maccio92 8y ago
it sounds like an alternative way to handle package management to me. instead of installing packages directly, they're containerized and run through whatever container system is present
JohnTHaller 8y ago
Most distros have an integrated app store for the usual suspects (Firefox, LibreOffice, GIMP, etc) but proprietary third party apps like Opera aren't included and are more difficult to install. The less technically inclined generally don't install third party software.
pjmlp 8y ago
Security conscious users. I don't want random software reading $HOME just because it runs under my user account.
- peatmoss 8y ago
  I’m a little behind the times on Snaps, as I mostly don’t interact with Ubuntu via its stock UI. But I’m seeing other users complain about the lack of signing / verified publishers in the (proprietary?) Snap store. Thoughts on the tradeoffs here? How sandboxed are these apps? Clearly I’ve got some reading to do.
  - freeone3000 8y ago
    They're sandboxed with AppArmor, which allows restriction to rwx. Checking an app's permissions profile can tell you what it's allowed to read and write. It's like SELinux, but instead of capabilities, it's a list of files. (But everything* on linux is a file*, so that's probably good enough?)
    - kyrofa 8y ago
      There is other tech involved as well, such as seccomp to disable certain syscalls (e.g. networking).
pmontra 8y ago
From what I read in the past year it's easier to build a snap (kind of building a docker image) than packaging for a distro: at least two formats (apt and yum) and several variants (at least the LTSes of the main distros). So the target audience could be the developers of the applications, not the users. I'll be using Opera from the apt repository until they build a .deb. Then I'll see what to do. Disk is cheap but even my 1 TB SSD is not unlimited. My docker images for work already suck up much space.
jillesvangurp 8y ago
The problem with package managers/installers/setup scripts/etc. is that they turn file systems in a mess and that filesystems tend to be different between linux installations, even of the same distribution. So snaps do for user facing software what docker did for server side software. Good idea in general and since most distributions struggle to stay on top of release quality updates from upstream, a great way to stay up to date, quickly try out some sofware package, or download software that your linux distribution hasn't gotten around to absorbing into their repositories. Sort of the Linux equivalent of dragging an OS X .app file to your /Applications folder (or to trash for uninstall). There's no good technical reason for application install/uninstall to be more complex than that. Normal user facing software should not require modifications to the OS to run. The linux practice of packages basically taking a royal dump on the filesystem and generally requiring root access to even get installed is no longer something that is remotely sane to do. IMHO, operating systems should ultimately be immutable and basically be similar to a snap. You update it as a whole and you don't modify parts of it. Linux has had a hard time with end users despite decades of "surely this year is the year of linux on the desktop". Never happened. A lot of that has to do with software installation, package managers and upgrades being a convoluted mess that always ends up in somebody doing stuff in a command line terminal to fix.
- purerandomness 8y ago
  Thank you, that explains a lot.
- shrimp_emoji 8y ago
  >Linux has had a hard time with end users despite decades of "surely this year is the year of linux on the desktop". Never happened. A lot of that has to do with software installation, package managers and upgrades being a convoluted mess that always ends up in somebody doing stuff in a command line terminal to fix. Snap still has a little bit to go to be much better though! The "programs shouldn't mess with the system" mentality includes restrictions to the filesystem. That's a problem because many programs do need to mess with local files (e.g., sending a file in an IM program, working on a file, saving a file...). You get a spooky message about installing such programs with "classic" permissions, and, even then, such functionality suffers. Discord can only access some subset of the filesystem, and Skype straight up crashes when it tries. Also, opening links in Discord doesn't work in the Snap version while it does in the non-Snap version. Rabble! But the idea is great. Convenience and no dynamic library breakage for some MB of disk space in ${current_year}? Yes, plz!

octosphere 8y ago

About time. I could never find a reliable way to get Opera running on Linux (Ubuntu).

crtasm 8y ago
What was the issue? I installed it on lubuntu maybe 1.5yrs back and it's been zero hassle.
teddyh 8y ago
http://www.opera.com/computer/linux http://www.opera.com/computer/linux
- pmontra 8y ago
  I saw the parent got downvoted but it's correct. The .deb configures the ppa to get the updates. Check http://deb.opera.com/ http://deb.opera.com/ It installs mine from http://deb.opera.com/opera-stable/dists/stable/non-free/binary-amd64/ http://deb.opera.com/opera-stable/dists/stable/non-free/bina... It always worked well, both the updates and Opera (Ubuntu 16.04)

darren0 8y ago

As a technology, I've had far better experience with snap over flatpak. It does bother me though with snaps that it all seems tied to a proprietary store. Does anyone know if it's possible to run the server side components yourself.

sitzkrieg 8y ago
you can download a snap not unlike a deb and install it, if thats what you are after
- eikenberry 8y ago
  I think they meant more about running your own snap repo that people could point snap to and get things. Say like an internal company snap repo.

msl09 8y ago

I really wished snaps worked well on most distros but as of now I always run into a bunch of bugs when installing stuff from it.

carlob 8y ago
Agreed, there are way too many apps that were developed without the sandbox in mind and just don't work as a snap...

pleasecalllater 8y ago

Opera was great years ago. Now it's just another chrome clone.

maccio92 8y ago
chrome clone without google's greedy fingers in all my business sounds like a win to me.
- maxyme 8y ago
  Except now Opera is owned by a Chinese security firm so you have to deal with their greedy fingers. https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/18/opera-browser-sold-to-a-chinese-consortium-for-600-million/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/18/opera-browser-sold-to-a-...
  - logix 8y ago
    It depends if you want the Chinese or the west spying on you. I'd go with the China.
    - binomialxenon 8y ago
      Or, take a third option and use a non-spying browser??
      - type0 8y ago
        Here you go: https://browser.yandex.com/ https://browser.yandex.com/
Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
Unfortunately true. Although, with the built-in mouse gestures and ad blocking without having to maintain extensions that bog things down, ask for their own updates, etc.; I still find it to be the least bad browser available. Vivaldi is too slow and Otter Browser is not quite there yet. But I still miss Opera 12...

jannes 8y ago

I really like Opera as a browser. But I am still wary of its owners. 48.0%: Beijing Kunlun Tech Co., Ltd. (Zhou Yahui) 27.5%: Qifei International Development Co. Limited (Qihoo 360) 19.5%: Keeneyes Future Holdings Inc (Zhou Yahui) 5.0%: Golden Brick Capital Private Equity Fund I L.P. I don't know anything about these firms and whether I can trust them. Something about this ownership structure just makes me uneasy about the product.

toyg 8y ago
I think it just reflects the only market that really cares about it, i.e. the Asian one.
shakna 8y ago
As with all things Chinese, the story is never entirely clear. Propaganda from both sides of the Firewall obscure a lot. However... --- Qihoo 360 may be the owners of StartCom, and WoSign, who behaved so badly both Chrome and Firefox have decided their certificates can never be trusted again. Got to figure that it isn't an accident that they bought a (large) interest in Opera. And there's the confusing story of the Chinese government sanctioning Qihoo 360 themselves over privacy violations to do with webcams. They tend to be a company mired in controversy. (They also have the controlling share in Golden Brick Capital). --- Beijing Kunlun Tech aren't that well known in the West. They started out as online gambling, however they also bought out Grindr, and now a controlling stake in Opera. They don't seem to have a huge amount of direction, besides blasting adverts and trying to eak out a profit wherever they can. Which they seem extremely successful in. Successful enough that Zhou Yahui ended up paying $1.1billion to settle a divorce with his wife quite recently. --- So, basically, ownership is split between a gambling tycoon, and a company with an awful reputation around security and privacy who have a vested interest in a browser, and how they can influence the web from it.

Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago

Snaps and flatpaks are just a vector for malware. They're worse in every way than a traditional package manager. I'm all for packages which containerize their software (we already chroot a lot of software like this), but snaps/flatpaks are just dumb. There's no substitute for your package maintainer personally auditing and preparing the package for you.

stemc43 8y ago
noone is going to prep packages for dozens distros with different distribution mechanism. too complicated|time consuming - why Linux doesn't have first world apps.
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
  No one is expecting you to, nor do I trust you to. Distro maintainers do this, not software developers.
  - ansgri 8y ago
    How do I get my favorite app included as a user? As a publisher? The maintainer has his own schedule. What if I have a closed-source app? I presume it's just better than PPA and *.deb-s (which would be acceptable if all desktop Linux was based on Ubuntu).
    - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
      You ask. Find a maintainer who works on similar or related software and send them an email. Send them a patch. Your closed source app can shove it.
      - stemc43 8y ago
        yeah. that's wishy-washy dreamworld. For 20 years Ive been using Linux - noone bothered packaging A-level apps for Linux, definitely not closed source ones. That's been enough of a trial run I would say.

kbumsik 8y ago

Opera, if you are watchng this thread, could you please update the outdated documentation on the command line option? [1] This command line format was valid until 5 years ago, when Opera switched to Chromium. Currently Opera only works with Chromium’s command line format and the documentation does not mention about this. I noticed this problem when I was answering a SO question [2] so I contacted Opera but there is no response. [1]: https://www.opera.com/docs/switches/ https://www.opera.com/docs/switches/ [2]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51123537/webbrowser-open-breaks-the-link-python-3-7/51128165#51128165 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51123537/webbrowser-open...

conradk 8y ago

I tried using Ubuntu 18.04 recently. While snap seem like a good idea, the main issue I have is that there seems to be no way to know who publishes snaps. A list of approved vendors would be useful. Sure, there are some 'Verified Accounts', and Opera has one. But the main app for Slack, Spotify, Telegram Desktop or BitWarden come from unverified accounts. And some of these are not sandboxed, like the Slack app. Having BitWarden, a password manager, use an unverified account seems totally crazy.

Iolaum 8y ago
I like snaps but I ve stopped using them because they auto update Windows10 style. In the snap forums a lot of people asked for the ability to disable updates in order to update only when you want. Integration with the software and updates app in Ubuntu would go a long way here. But no snap devs have refused that (unless you are an enterprise customer and use a proprietary extension). So if you have snaps their update process is totally separate from other apps in your Ubuntu desktop and outside of your control barring some time settings for soft auto update exceptions hidden in the CLI interface.
- bengotow 8y ago
  I think this is largely because for developers, the auto-updating is one of the biggest selling points of the snap distribution method.
- themihai 8y ago
  The developers don't want to maintain old clients...backward compatibility proved too expensive. Apple proved autoupdate is the way. Browser vendors did the same.
  - binomialxenon 8y ago
    I don't think people expect old clients to be maintained, but I generally don't like auto-updating. I don't want my computer to use CPU, disk I/O, or network bandwidth for updates except when it's convenient for me. Also, in some cases it can be worth it to stick with an older version if a newer version introduces a bug or something.

kaskavalci 8y ago

I don't understand using a browser that is developed by a for-profit company which happens to be their only product. Because of current owners, I would never use Opera. Firefox is pretty good guys. You should check it out. And also donate. disclaimer: no association with Mozilla/Firefox in any way.

minikites 8y ago
Chrome is the other outlier here. Apple and Microsoft have no real reason to spy on you when you use Safari or Edge and Firefox is operated by a not-for-profit entity. Google and Opera's entire business model depend on surveilling their users.
- JdeBP 8y ago
  Vivaldi claims that it is entirely employee-owned. * https://vivaldi.com/company/ https://vivaldi.com/company/
qop 8y ago
Opera is incredibly smooth, works on every device I own, it's fast. The new ownership situation isn't optimal but the quality hasn't gone to shit yet imo. I remember when opera used to have an IMAP client built in and you could open up an IRC chat tab, it had so much cool stuff! Mozilla is terrible. Way too left, low quality everything. Mozilla is the single most toxic thing in software culture in the past fifteen years, imo. Your remark is sorta like "I don't trust Frigidaire, they only have one product!" Which of course places you in perfect position to shill for Mozilla.
- lucideer 8y ago
  > the quality hasn't gone to shit yet imo. > I remember when opera used to have an IMAP client built in and you could open up an IRC chat tab, it had so much cool stuff! Don't really understand those two comments. You're saying it hasn't gone to shit yet but then you're describing the features from Opera 12, before Opera switched to the new Chrome-based browser they ship now without any of those features. I was a long time Opera user back when it had all those cool features, and dropped it when it dropped them. Many of its long term users did the same and many of their internal devs left too. I'd say Opera very much went to shit in 2013. > Mozilla is the single most toxic thing in software culture in the past fifteen years, imo. Curious about this view; I've been a bit lost since the Opera exodus, looking for a decent alternative. Mozilla's got some problems, but they're the best I've found sofar. What's toxic about them?

peterwwillis 8y ago

Can anyone who has released commercial Linux software comment on providing giant static binaries to distribute apps? I always found this the easiest way to adopt a 3rd party app on Linux, but I don't know how difficult it is in practice if the app is humongous and complicated.

newnewpdro 8y ago

Get ready for all the Linux malware!

subsection1h 8y ago

Weird. Many (most?) of the commenters in this thread have accounts created in 2017-2018: AnIdiotOnTheNet, binomialxenon, Boulth, crtasm, Iolaum, jillesvangurp, kyrofa, logix, maccio92, maxyme, newnewpdro, octosphere, pleasecalllater, sincerely, sitzkrieg, shrimp_emoji, taway234252, xmmrm

kyrofa 8y ago
Yep. Thank HN for not supporting account renames. My old account has higher karma, too.
- stuartaxelowen 8y ago
  My account literally has my old legal name, and can't be changed
nickthemagicman 8y ago
What does this imply? Bots? Just curious.